Hold On to Your Kids

I read Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate for the book club I'm in with friends at church. The Amazon book description says,  "International authority on child development Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., joins forces with New York Times bestselling co-author of Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté, M.D., to tackle one of the most disturbing trends of our time: Children today looking 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, and being 'cool' matters more to them than anything else. Hold On to Your Kids 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."

This was an interesting read. I wasn't a fan at the beginning because it seemed to be super anti-public school, and I felt like the book made some unfair assumptions about lots of things. However, as the book went on, I started to find more things that made a lot of sense. For example, it pointed out how peer oriented children no longer look to adults for a sense of self-valuation and thus when they experience bullying from peers, those things cut to the core because they don't have the protection they had when they were more oriented to their parents. This book helped me realize that a lot of the things I didn't quite understand about Emmeline (but that made her seem younger than her age at times) are actually her being healthily attached to her parents and not peer oriented. I think this book helped me appreciate Emmeline more in this realm and see the value of the way she is. The book also taught the importance of "collecting" our kids each day--holding onto our kids so they then can hold onto themselves (quite deep if you think about it). I really liked those lessons even though there were also lots of things in the book that kinda annoyed me or that I disagreed with. I think this is a book where you can pick and choose what works for you and your parenting.

Rating: * * (2/3 = Liked it)