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A review by hyattsarah
Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gabor Maté, Gordon Neufeld
4.0
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.