Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers
About the Book
International authority on child development Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., joins forces with bestselling author Gabor Maté, M.D., to tackle one of the most disturbing trends of our time: children today increasingly look to their peers for direction—their values, identity, and codes of behavior. This “peer orientation” undermines family cohesion, interferes with healthy development, and fosters a hostile and sexualized youth culture. Children end up becoming overly conformist, desensitized, and alienated; being “cool” matters more to them than anything else.
Hold On to Your Kids (available in both Canadian and U.S. editions, as well as an audiobook version) explains the causes of this crucial breakdown of parental influence—and demonstrates ways to “reattach” to sons and daughters, establish the proper hierarchy in the home, make kids feel safe and understood, and earn back your children’s loyalty and love. By helping to reawaken parenting instincts innate to us all, this book will empower parents to be for their children what nature intended: a true source of contact, security, and warmth.
Read from HOLD ON TO YOUR KIDS
The following chapter is available to read online:
Chapter One - Why Parents Matter More Than Ever
Listen to an excerpt from HOLD ON TO YOUR KIDS
From the acclaimed audiobook version, narrated by Daniel Maté, published by Post Hypnotic Press:
Praise for HOLD ON TO YOUR KIDS
“A brilliant book on the level of Paul Goodman’s Growing Up Absurd. Give a copy to every parent you know.”
Robert Bly
Author, The Sibling Society and Iron John
“Hold on to Your Kids blows in from Canada like a Blue Northern, bringing us genuinely new ideas and fresh perspectives on parenting. The authors integrate psychology, anthropology, neurology and their own personal and professional experiences as they examine the “context” of parenting today. This is a worthy book with practical implications for mom and dad.”
Dr. Mary Pipher
Author, Reviving Ophelia and The Shelter of Each Other
“With original insights on parent-child attachments and how parents can restore them, this is a book for revitalizing families and rekindling the song in their children’s hearts.”
Raffi
Children’s troubadour
Founder, Child Honoring Society Institute
“This important book boldly states the problem of ‘peer orientation’ and maps out plans for its solution. Let us take its suggestions seriously now so that together we can improve our children’s futures.”
Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.
Associate clinical professor of Psychiatry, UCLA
Author, The Developing Mind and Parenting from the Inside Out
“A wonderful book and a powerful wakeup call to parents. The authors’ description of how peer orientation gets in the way of healthy emotional maturation is both striking and sobering. But the book is also upbeat, as it emphasizes the extreme importance of attachment in child raising and how it can get implemented day to day. I found the book both thoughtful and thought provoking. It is a wise and important book.”
Anthony Wolf
Clinical psychologist
Author, Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall?
“Hold on to Your Kids is visionary book that goes beyond the usual explanations to illuminate a crisis of unrecognized proportions. The authors show us how we are losing contact with our children and how this loss undermines their development and threatens the very fabric of sociey. Most importantly they offer, through concrete examples and clear suggestions, practical help for parents to fulfill their instinctual roles. A brilliant and well written book, one to be taken seriously, very seriously.”
Peter A. Levine Ph.D.,
Author, Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma and It Won’t Hurt Forever: Guiding Your Child through Trauma
“The thoughts and perspectives presented by the authors are informative—even inspirational—for those who choose to dedicate their lives and energy to students.”
Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary School Principals
“Beautifully written…terrific, poignant.”
Publishers’ Weekly (starred review)
“Highly recommended… [Neufeld and Maté] offer readers much more than simple platitudes in this excellent book.”
Library Journal (starred review)
