PDF Summary:Hold On to Your Kids, by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté

Many children today are becoming increasingly peer-oriented, looking to their friends rather than parents and adults for guidance and validation. In Hold On to Your Kids, Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté explore the troubling phenomenon of peer orientation and its negative impacts on children's emotional, intellectual, and moral development.

The authors explain how peer orientation erodes the natural parent-child bond, leaving kids detached from their parents' affection and values, lacking motivation for learning, and emotionally stunted. They offer strategies for fostering healthy child-parent attachments and re-orientating children away from an excessive peer focus.

(continued)...

Practical Tips

• Develop a "Family Accomplishments Board" where everyone can post their successes, big or small. Celebrate these accomplishments together, focusing on the effort rather than the outcome. This can help shift the perception of expectations from pressure to encouragement. You might celebrate things like learning a new skill, helping a friend, or even trying something challenging, regardless of the result.
• Create a 'counterwill response plan' for moments when you feel the instinct to push back against instructions or guidance. This plan could include taking a few deep breaths, asking for time to think about the request, or expressing your feelings in a constructive way. Practice this plan in low-stakes situations to make it a habit, so you're prepared to use it in more significant moments of pushback.

Children Rejecting Parental Love to Be Accepted by Peers

Children who are peer-oriented, explain the authors, are rejecting parental affection in favour of gaining acceptance from them. Neufeld uses the analogy of a marital affair to help explain this phenomenon, describing children's peer attachment as having 'affairs' with one another. The feelings and frustrations that spouses experience when their partner has formed a competing attachment are very similar to the emotional pain experienced by parents whose children have retreated into the peer group and whose affections are diverted elsewhere.

Furthermore, because peer relationships are fundamentally insecure, children must constantly strive to preserve them, often sacrificing family bonds. Neufeld and Maté highlight that children's bonds are polarized, like two ends of a magnet, and to embrace peers with such intensity also unleashes a distancing impulse that is directed at their family. This is why, explain the authors, kids who are rejecting their parents’ love and affection for peer acceptance may be hostile, rude, insulting and oppositional to their mothers, fathers, and even siblings.

Practical Tips

• Develop a "peer-like" interest inventory with your child, where you both list out interests and find common ground to explore together, such as a sport, video game, or hobby. This strategy aims to bridge the gap between the peer world and the family by showing that parents can share and validate their children's interests, potentially diminishing the allure of peer acceptance as the sole source of validation.

The Challenge of Reaching Children Focused on Friendships With Parental Affection

The authors highlight a common and painful dilemma faced by parents of peer-oriented children: that parental love—no matter how deep or sincere it may be—struggles to get through. They argue that for loving attention and care to nourish, children must be open to their parents. For the child, the receptivity is rooted in her or his wanting to connect with the parent and to please them. A child focused on their peers will seek these signs of acceptance from them and is therefore likely to tune out, ignore, or resist any overtures from a mother or father.

Furthermore, explain the authors, parental love and affection fails to nurture because kids who are oriented toward peers are generally unable to experience emotional fulfillment. They are stuck in an unhealthy cycle of craving for connection and acceptance that peers cannot satisfy. Neufeld and Maté argue that the only type of love that truly satiates and promotes well-adjusted growth is unconditional and emotionally safe, and solely offered by a mature, responsible adult.

Other Perspectives

• Parental love can be effective even with peer-oriented children if it is expressed in ways that resonate with their current interests and social focus.
• Children can also receive nourishment from loving attention and care provided by other significant adults in their lives, such as grandparents, teachers, or family friends, not exclusively from parents.
• A child's willingness to connect with a parent could be influenced by a variety of factors, including temperament, past experiences, and the quality of the parent-child relationship, rather than just a desire to please.
• Children may not necessarily ignore or resist parental overtures; they might simply prioritize peer interactions differently at various developmental stages.
• The cycle of craving connection and acceptance is not inherently unhealthy; it can motivate children to develop social skills and adapt to different social environments.

Strategies For Counteracting Peer Orientation

Neufeld and Maté emphasize that aligning with peers can not only be avoided, but usually reversed as well. The key, they argue, is to re-establish the child's bond with their caregivers as their primary compass point and source of emotional security. They offer a range of strategies, including building strong parent-child attachment bonds as a preventative measure, effectively responding to opposition from a child, and creating structures to reclaim a peer-oriented child.

Building Strong Bonds Between Parents and Children as Prevention

The authors suggest that building and maintaining a strong parent-child attachment bond is the most effective way to keep kids from orienting toward peers. Children who are deeply connected to their caregivers do not feel the same urgent need to form competing bonds with their peers.

Neufeld and Maté point to traditional attachment communities as models for caregivers to emulate. They advise parents to create "attachment villages" for their children, fostering family traditions that bring children and adults together in nurturing, supportive relationships. They suggest that parents invite dependence from their children rather than pushing them towards premature or false independence, and to create psychological closeness by providing opportunities for children to feel deeply known and understood.

Context

• In contemporary society, factors like technology and social media can intensify peer influence, making strong family connections even more crucial to counterbalance these effects.
• In some cultures, family and community bonds are emphasized over peer relationships, which can lead to different developmental outcomes. Understanding these cultural contexts can provide insight into the importance of caregiver connections.
• Many Indigenous cultures and some rural societies around the world practice communal child-rearing, where children are integrated into the community and learn through observation and participation.
• Children who experience healthy dependence often develop into well-adjusted adults with strong interpersonal skills and self-esteem.
• Creating a safe and supportive home environment encourages children to express themselves without fear of criticism or rejection.

Responding to Resistance in Your Child

Neufeld and Maté advise that parents should realize counterwill in children isn't as much a sign of defiance as an instinctive reaction to feeling controlled or pressured. They strongly recommend not relying on confrontation, consequences, or the removal of affection as a means of correcting behavior. Rather, they encourage parents to address counterwill by engaging the child’s attachment instincts and by finding ways to elicit the emotions, thinking, and urges that would contradict the troublesome behavior.

They offer a range of practical and effective ways of doing this, including collecting the child before giving direction—that is, engaging the child’s need for contact and closeness before introducing parental expectations; working on the relationship rather than on the incident, waiting for the child to calm down after a conflict before addressing the issue; and drawing out the child’s good intentions rather than focusing on behavior.

Context

• In developmental psychology, counterwill is seen as a sign of a child’s emerging independence and individuality. It is a healthy part of asserting oneself and developing personal boundaries.
• Encouraging positive behavior through reinforcement and understanding can be more effective in promoting lasting behavioral change than punitive measures.
• Strengthening attachment can build trust, making children more receptive to parental influence. Trust is a key component in reducing oppositional behavior.
• Engaging children in play and creative activities can help them express themselves and explore emotions in a safe and constructive way.
• This approach models empathy and understanding, teaching children how to relate to others in a compassionate way, which can improve their social interactions.
• By waiting, parents model patience and self-control, teaching children how to handle conflicts constructively.
• Highlighting good intentions can help children develop a positive self-image and self-esteem, as they learn to see themselves as capable of making good choices.

Reclaiming a Peer-Oriented Child

Neufeld and Maté insist that reclaiming a child oriented toward peers is always possible. They understand, however, that it is a difficult process, as peer orientation often manifests itself in hostile, resistant, and sometimes even aggressive behavior that tests a parent’s patience and ability to maintain a loving connection. They recommend that parents approach their child with confidence and determination, and to keep in mind that underneath the challenging behavior is a profoundly needy child.

They suggest creating structures and imposing restrictions on peer contact, but warn that these methods will not work unless the child is first collected from peers; in other words, the parent must first establish or re-establish themselves as the child's main guiding influence. They point out that the same tactics and principles that apply to collecting any child also work with the peer-oriented child. Most important, parents must demonstrate that their bond with their child is a priority—that their son or daughter is loved, welcomed, and valued for who they are, regardless of their behavior.

Context

• Confidence helps parents convey a sense of security and stability, which is essential for rebuilding trust. Children need to feel that their parents are reliable and committed to their well-being.
• Children may lack the skills to articulate their feelings or needs verbally, resulting in behavior that serves as a form of communication.
• Parents serve as role models, and being the primary influence allows them to impart values, ethics, and behaviors that align with family and cultural expectations.
• Setting clear boundaries and limits helps children understand expectations and feel secure, which can reduce the influence of peers by providing a structured environment.
• The effects of feeling loved and valued extend into adulthood, influencing relationships, career success, and overall life satisfaction.