Book Summary: Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers
By Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., and Gabor Maté, M.D. Vintage Press, Toronto, 2013, 2nd ed.
You can’t do better in summarizing the main position of a book than to quote the authors, “(The book deals with) one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time – peers replacing parents in the lives of our children (peer orientation) which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction, for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour. But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture” (from the back cover of the 2nd edition).
Neufeld and Maté take a developmental perspective and see children becoming adolescents as a product of both nature and nurture. This process is taking an increasingly long time and we now see evidence of young people in the late teens and early 20s who may have grown older but who have not grown up. They may have learned to fit into society but many have never developed a sense of identity. They do not have their own thoughts and feelings, values and beliefs. They operate according to a herd mentality where the loudest or most visible member of their social group becomes the leader. But it is a society of the blind leading the blind – illuminated by the glow of countless digital devices and their screens.
The solution rests not with government, nor Commissions, nor more research. The solution rests with the adults – the parents, the caregivers, the teachers, the mentors, the coaches – to take back their pivotal position in the family hierarchy, the team, or society as a whole. We must, says Neufeld, re-establish “right relationships”, that is, a vertical hierarchy with the adults at the top. Only then, will we be able to help children to grow up and to mature.
The book argues that it is the process of attachment which is defined as the pursuit and preservation of proximity, of closeness and connection; physically, emotionally, behaviourally, and psychologically, which must be understood and experienced. It must be fostered between parents and children and between all adults who have younger persons in their care. Unless we do so, Neufeld and Maté argue we are destined to live in what will be a modern day version of Lord of the Flies.
ISBN: 978-0-307361967
