Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It

by Gabor Maté

There are, as Edward Deci points out, universal human needs for self-determination, to feel competent and to be genuinely connected with others. These needs and the drive to satisfy them do not have to be instilled in people: they exist, even if in undeveloped form. Allowed to unfold, they will motivate. The problem is not that parents and other important adults, such as teachers, do not know how to motivate children. 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. Or she may function well enough as viewed from the outside but will have to pay a grievous price internally. She will be unable to experience the joy and satisfaction of acting from her own fre...