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197 reviews for:
Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers
Gabor Maté, Gordon Neufeld
3.99 AVERAGE
197 reviews for:
Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers
Gabor Maté, Gordon Neufeld
3.99 AVERAGE
I have all kinds of feelings about this book. It has really great suggestions for how parents can strengthen their attachment bonds with their kids, and rightly locates psychological and behavioral problems in broken attachment relationships instead of in kids themselves. But the whole thing relies on moral panic, using a Golden Age argument to denigrate popular culture and digital technologies. It all felt really true and also deeply conservative, wanting to “go back” to a better time when kids were more connected to their parents. I can’t recommend it, but I can see (i.e., I experienced) its appeal.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
I’m walking away with multiple renewed perspectives on attachment, healthy maturation, and the critical importance of invoking a true “village” of adults to help raise confident, secure children. However, the book did have its challenging sections! It’s rather rife with repetition, and it lacked the vitality of their lectures/talks online. I found myself skimming by the end to get to new material around what we can do to help avoid excessive peer orientation.
Overall, though, solid read! New perspectives that totally challenge some of my old beliefs are always a sign of a worthwhile book.
Overall, though, solid read! New perspectives that totally challenge some of my old beliefs are always a sign of a worthwhile book.
It was an interesting thought but I ended up stopping just because they thought that they had found the one problem in our current world. And the problem was restated over and over again page after page chapter after chapter. I decided I didn’t need to hear it 500 more times
This book is chock full of information on attachment, addressing both the problems with attaching to peers and not parents, and discussing ways of switching these two conditions.
The chapters are well laid out, the author uses helpful examples, and the techniques are straightforward. What is likely the most difficult aspect is the timing. It is, of course, easier to establish attachment when kids are younger, rather than trying to catch up when the pees have taken hold.
My only complaint in this book is that there was quite a bit of repetition of concepts. Maybe to drive the pints home? In any case, I was able to pull out the nuggets that were truly valuable to me in my work.
A great textbook on parenting and raising children in our new world order of individuality and peer prioritization.
The chapters are well laid out, the author uses helpful examples, and the techniques are straightforward. What is likely the most difficult aspect is the timing. It is, of course, easier to establish attachment when kids are younger, rather than trying to catch up when the pees have taken hold.
My only complaint in this book is that there was quite a bit of repetition of concepts. Maybe to drive the pints home? In any case, I was able to pull out the nuggets that were truly valuable to me in my work.
A great textbook on parenting and raising children in our new world order of individuality and peer prioritization.
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
I read this to get insight into parenting culture rather than specifically for my kids/parenting.
It’s dated.
It’s meta scientific.
It’s playing to parents paranoia about kids forming deep friendships.
Saying all that, there are some seemingly helpful nuggets I took with a generous pinch of salt.
It’s dated.
It’s meta scientific.
It’s playing to parents paranoia about kids forming deep friendships.
Saying all that, there are some seemingly helpful nuggets I took with a generous pinch of salt.
fast-paced
hopeful
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
I keep putting off reviewing this because it's too daunting.
This book has been on my Kindle forever, at the recommendation of a primarily foster/adoptive parenting group. I started it back when I got it and put it down pretty quickly -- it didn't seem like it was for me. Unfortunately, a lot of the language used sets off some fundamentalist/evangelical bells in my head, and I think it will for others with that type of background. I don't think it necessarily is meant to in this context, but it's something to be aware of and from the other side, I would say that it's worth pushing through if you can.
Quarantine put me in the perfect place to push through. I kept seeing this book recommended, and at the same time I've found myself frustrated, annoyed and confused by so much of the discussion of kids missing their friends and play dates and social outings during quarantine. I totally respect and understand that for older kids. But as a mom of still pretty young kids, it didn't resonate at all. It didn't resonate with my kids the way they are, and it didn't resonate with myself as I remembered feeling when I was a young child. I had some friends I enjoyed playing with, but at that age, my world didn't revolve around them. I also felt like the emphasis on social get togethers for young kids was weird and misplaced, but didn't fully have words for it.
So I picked this book up again, because I thought it would put words to that. And did it ever.
Unfortunately sometimes the words are off-putting. It's hard to keep them in the context of this book alone and remove all of the external baggage, in order to actually read what the author intended. But apart from that, and viewed through the context of "this is what a deficit in secure attachment looks like" -- which is what the book is really describing -- it is absolutely stunning. It describes pieces of things I hadn't yet been able to explain or understand. It validates a lot of my intuition, which is that the focus on "friends" for young children who still desperately need to form secure attachments to caretakers is weird. It explained why I could trust my dog to stay near me but not my children.
There were some missteps -- a lot of it feels dated, or maybe that's because I feel like kids today are more hopeful and promising than we give them credit for -- but underneath some of the cultural things that irritated me I was highlighting nonstop, because it was JUST. SO. ACCURATE. and explanatory in working through specific results and symptoms of attachment challenges.
This book has been on my Kindle forever, at the recommendation of a primarily foster/adoptive parenting group. I started it back when I got it and put it down pretty quickly -- it didn't seem like it was for me. Unfortunately, a lot of the language used sets off some fundamentalist/evangelical bells in my head, and I think it will for others with that type of background. I don't think it necessarily is meant to in this context, but it's something to be aware of and from the other side, I would say that it's worth pushing through if you can.
Quarantine put me in the perfect place to push through. I kept seeing this book recommended, and at the same time I've found myself frustrated, annoyed and confused by so much of the discussion of kids missing their friends and play dates and social outings during quarantine. I totally respect and understand that for older kids. But as a mom of still pretty young kids, it didn't resonate at all. It didn't resonate with my kids the way they are, and it didn't resonate with myself as I remembered feeling when I was a young child. I had some friends I enjoyed playing with, but at that age, my world didn't revolve around them. I also felt like the emphasis on social get togethers for young kids was weird and misplaced, but didn't fully have words for it.
So I picked this book up again, because I thought it would put words to that. And did it ever.
Unfortunately sometimes the words are off-putting. It's hard to keep them in the context of this book alone and remove all of the external baggage, in order to actually read what the author intended. But apart from that, and viewed through the context of "this is what a deficit in secure attachment looks like" -- which is what the book is really describing -- it is absolutely stunning. It describes pieces of things I hadn't yet been able to explain or understand. It validates a lot of my intuition, which is that the focus on "friends" for young children who still desperately need to form secure attachments to caretakers is weird. It explained why I could trust my dog to stay near me but not my children.
There were some missteps -- a lot of it feels dated, or maybe that's because I feel like kids today are more hopeful and promising than we give them credit for -- but underneath some of the cultural things that irritated me I was highlighting nonstop, because it was JUST. SO. ACCURATE. and explanatory in working through specific results and symptoms of attachment challenges.