What Your Child Is Really Triggering In You with Gabor Maté

0:01Zoe:Do you think this is the hardest time to be a mother? Right now? Yeah. I don't know what it's like to be a mother during Britain as industrialization times with long hours at factories and all that. But since the 70s, with the increasing neoliberalization of the economy, the austerity, the cutback on social programs, the cutbacks in education, the loss of support, this is the hardest. and increasing stresses on people and the need to fulfill these multiple roles has become very hard to be a mother. Absolutely. And that's the experience that I hear time and time again from, you know, I work with hundreds of mothers on this sort of stuff.

0:41Zoe:So I just wanted to loop back around about some of the things that we were talking about. It just piques my personal passion so much, which is around these adaptations and meeting our children's needs. And if there's someone listening who is thinking, I want to change this, I want to become more conscious in myself. My belief is that we have to do that for ourselves first before we can give it to our children. Simultaneous. Okay, so could you explain that? And I know you talk about it in your book, Hold On to Your Turn, but can you talk about what that process looks like? Where does someone go with this?

1:12Well, let me talk about one aspect that we didn't talk about in Hold On to Your Kids, which is, as I said just a moment ago, women have always carried the role of being the stress absorbers of their families, including their husbands. So in my marriage, I was a very needy little boy when I was 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 years old. Who becomes the mother? The women automatically take on that mother and roll towards their spouses. Which means that if I have two children, then the mother has not three babies to look after. The two little ones and the big baby who's 30 or 40. And women automatically very often take this on.

1:51That's immensely stressful. So first of all, look at your marriage. and ask yourself, how much mothering am I? I'm not talking about genuine spouse-to-spouse support, which is meant to be reciprocal. And that's, of course, why we connect. But how much one-way emotional supporting and parenting am I doing to my spouse? Because everything I do that way is taken away from my children.

2:14Zoe:That's brilliant to hear. So you have to look at that first. And then secondly, you really have to understand the attachment needs of the child. And how does the child manifest those attachment needs? very often through behaviors that we then punish them for. So we use this phrase acting out. And by acting out, we mean a kid who is obstreperous or disruptive or rude or aggressive. That's not what acting out means. Acting out is a really good English phrase. What does it actually mean? In a game of charades, when you're not allowed to speak, what do you have to do? You have to act out. If I landed in England and spoke not a word of English, but I was hungry.

2:53Zoe:You'd be flailing your arms everywhere, would you? Well, I might be pointing to my belly or my mouth and making eating motions. I have to act it out. So when children act out, that's exactly what they're doing. But what they're acting out are their emotional needs. They're showing us. They're showing us something that's lacking. Because they don't have the words to say it in language. They're throwing it through behavior to get our attention. But any child who acts out, whether they're aggressive or whether they're bullying their younger siblings or bullying other kids in school or they're throwing tantrums, whatever they're doing they're acting something out now the parenting experts will tell you control that behavior and get rid of it yeah which is to say let's ignore the child's emotional needs so we get them to comply with us this is what the parenting experts say and what should really happen is the parent needs to be taught to understand and parents instinctively if they pay attention to their gut feelings you know that that child is in pain you know that that child is and distress you know that that behavior is a marker of distress you don't do it by trying to squash the behavior you respond by oh you're very angry right now you must be very hurt right now something's going on for you oh and your nervous system relaxes and your heart opens and it softens and then the child immediately can you become vulnerable yeah the tears come up the tears come up and as my brilliant core writer on hold on to your kids gordon ufald says we shall be saved in an ocean of tears so there's two kinds of tears the tears of frustration which don't help but then there's the tears of vulnerability and genuine grief which do promote growth not that we make kids suffer grief deliberately but when they're sad about something we help them experience that sadness without making them wrong for how they're acting it out.

4:42So really we have to understand what children are telling us through their behavior. And of course, mothers also need to look after themselves, which we already talked about.

4:53Zoe:I'm sure, you know, we talked about some of it, but just to really underscore the point, what disconnects someone from that instinct? So we talked about society, the stress, presumably. Well, what disconnects from our instincts is when early in childhood we are taught that to belong and to be acceptable and accepted, we have to suppress ourselves. So we actually, even a disconnection is not a mistake. It's a survival strategy. It's, as you say, an adaptation. So that disconnect doesn't happen for no reason. It's a brilliant survival technique, but it's unconscious. And here's the generational stuff, right?

5:28Zoe:So we get taught. I certainly got taught. Disconnect from your instincts. And our parents are disconnected. Because my parents were disconnected. Because what happened to them? And then we parent our children in the same way, and then they'll parent their children in the same way. Exactly. That's how it's passed on. And nobody does it deliberately. And actually, we're doing something that goes quite contrary to our best intentions. Only because we don't know any better. And unfortunately, this social structure and the so-called experts, you never lose money by writing another book on how to discipline kids, how to force them into this.

6:04These are always bestsellers because they're so expressive of what the society expects. So they always get big media play. And parents are desperate and they're frustrated. So they need you to have these quick solutions.

6:17Zoe:Well, because it can be so triggering. Yeah. I found it very triggering when I first, I still find it triggering. By triggering you mean? You know, when Jessie has, she's three and a half, when she has a tantrum, it's taken me loads of work with a therapist to not want to shut that down. It brings up so much of my own pain. Well, exactly. And triggering, do you mind if I ask you a few questions? Yeah, I'd love you to. Yeah, okay. So what did you feel when Jessie was having a tantrum? I felt that I wanted her to be okay. My instinct was to shut her down. Hold on. Let me interrupt you. I felt I wanted to be okay.

6:53That's not a feeling.

6:55Zoe:Okay. Okay, that's an intention. Yeah. What did you feel? And to shut her down wasn't an instinct. It was an emotional reaction. Your instincts were actually to love her and to support her. Okay. So what did you actually feel? I felt sad. You felt sadness. What did you feel sad about? That she was feeling sad. That she was so unhappy in that moment. And what made you angry? I don't know. Because you were angry as well, weren't you? when she was showing a tantrum yeah i wanted her to stop for sure i still want her to stop what made you angry maybe the feeling of sadness or the feeling of you didn't want to be feel sad yeah what she was doing made you feel sad yeah and so you want to make her responsible for how you felt yeah okay now when was the first time in your life that you wish somebody else wasn't sad oh early okay my mom in other words you made your daughter into your mother this is why it triggered you so much okay you didn't do this deliberately but this is what happens all you had was an unhappy kid and all she needed was for you to say oh you're really unhappy right now you know come here you know that's all she needed now let's look at that word that you use triggering metaphorically it's a very interesting very telling word how big a part of the weapon is the trigger tiny tiny what makes up the weapon is ammunition explosives a whole barrel and the mechanism to deliver the ammunition to the intended target the trigger is a very small part so instead of looking at the trigger let's look at all this explosive stuff that we're carrying inside ourselves yeah which is the work that you did with your therapist yeah thank god to your child's benefit yeah but really your reactions had nothing to do with your child it's all about you and all about what happened to you as a kid and again as we keep pointing out what happened to your mom as a kid.

8:47Zoe:Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And this links around right full circle to the start of this interview, which is, and that's an example of, I guess, me attempting to, by then taking that to my therapist, look after myself first. That's right. Yeah, that's right. As soon as you get curious, your instinct was, I don't want to be this way with my daughter. No, I want to be loving. That's your instinct. Yeah. It's that instinct that took you to the therapist. And I knew the theory. I mean, I was already with the therapist and I knew the theory, right? Because I'd listened to you for years. I knew the theory of to be with her and let her have exactly what you were just saying.

9:21Zoe:You'll have big feelings. But something was going on in me. Well, listen, it was even more revealing, perhaps. You listened to me, so you knew this. I teach this stuff and I know this. I still have a hard time, you know. That makes me feel better. Because there's different parts to us. There's the conscious, aware, adult part. But we all carry this wounded child inside of ourselves. And that's what gets triggered.

9:46Zoe:that was the episode i hoped you loved it if you did please make sure you subscribe and i will see you next time