Kariann

“What escapes us tears us from ourselves and ruins us. I seek what cannot be sought. I am a miscarried void, the hollowest quest.”
― Edmond Jabès, The Book of Questions: Volume I [I. The Book of Questions, II. The Book of Yukel, III. Return to the Book]

“There is the family of our birth and then there is a more noble world to which we really belong; the richness of this ideal world is often proportional to the poverty of the real, as personal grandiosity is proportional to shame.”
― Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art

“What happens when insatiability dominates a person's emotional functioning? The process of maturation is preempted by an obsession or an addiction, in this case for peer connection. Peer contact whets the appetite without nourishing. It titillates without satisfying. The end result of peer contact is usually an urgent desire for more. The more the child gets, the more he craves.

The mother of an eight-year-old girl mused, “I don't get it — the more time my daughter spends with her friends, the more demanding she becomes to get together with them. How much time does she really need for social interaction, anyway?” Likewise, the parents of a young adolescent complained that “as soon as our son comes home from camp, he gets on the phone right away to call the kids he's just been with. Yet it's the family he hasn't seen for two weeks.”

The obsession with peer contact is always worse after exposure to peers, whether it is at school or in playtimes, sleepovers, class retreats, outings, or camps. If peer contact satiated, times of peer interaction would lead automatically to increased self-generated play, creative solitude, or individual reflection. Many parents confuse this insatiable behavior with a valid need for peer interaction.

Over and over I hear some variation of “but my child is absolutely obsessed with getting together with friends. It would be cruel to deprive him.” Actually, it would be more cruel and irresponsible to indulge what so clearly fuels the obsession. The only attachment that children truly need is the kind that nurtures and satisfies them and can bring them to rest. The more demanding the child is, the more he is indicating a runaway obsession. It is not strength that the child manifests but the desperation of a hunger that only increases with more peer contact.”
― Gabor Maté, Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers

“Attacking family members is all too typical of peer-oriented children, leaving parents and siblings wounded. In most cases, the attacks will not be physical, but the verbal assaults and emotional hostility can be extremely wearing, alienating, and hurtful. While aggression is not always related to peer orientation, the more peer-oriented the child, the more likely aggression will be part of the picture.”
― Gabor Maté, Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers