Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder

by Gabor Maté

The problem is that our parenting styles and teaching methods in many cases fail to support the child’s natural drive for discovery and mastery. Encouraging development to unfold is based on the knowledge that nature has its own positive agenda for the child: it has given the child, every child, all the potential and capacities required for full maturation. Attempting to motivate from the outside betrays a lack of faith in the child and in nature. It reflects the anxiety of the parent, not the limitations of the child. It’s unfortunate but true that while we may not be able to transplant genuine motivation into our children, we are altogether too successful when it comes to sowing in them the seeds of our own anxiety. A child who must meet only parental expectations will likely acquire a chronic sense of incompetence as she fails over and over again to live up to them.