Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers

Deserves more than 5 stars!!!!!!!! 1.) Firm yet gentle handling of the importance of parents' connectedness with their kids, no matter the age. 2.) Brazen in its confrontation with what's considered "normal" in our schools, kid culture, and households. 3.) Love the integration of research with the authors' professional and personal experiences. 4.) Practical solutions for a variety of parenting situations. 5.) Convincing in its arguments. 6.) Appropriately puts the responsibility of kids' maturity on the parent"s own emotional maturity (Hard to digest but so true, personally and professionally-speaking) 7.)The love and care the authors have for radically-improved relationship between adults and kids show in the layout, language, and arguments of the book. 8.) Solidifies my decision to continue to homeschool

This book explains the "why" of how teenagers often end up being so hostile to their parents-rolling the eyes, sullen looks on their faces, no joy in your presence, wanting to eat in their bedrooms, separation anxiety in being away from their peers which compels them to be on the phone or instant messenging all the time, and explains how to avoid this. The authors are honest about the harsh reality of all these behaviors found in peer-oriented kids and teenagers, which is that these kids truly have no desire to have a relationship with their parents anymore and no longer care. Hostility that appears to be so, truly is so, and is not just "typical adolescence." This behavior is far from anything natural as nature intended it. The authors tell how "peer-orientation" and kid "socialization" causes incessant teasing of good qualities out of kids, such as a love of learning, respect for their parents, love of classical music or any other eccentricity, due to compulsion to wanting to be the same in order to further promote attachment to peers. This is very damaging and can lead to lack of fulfillment of academic potential, sexual promiscuity, and general jadedness. This book is a must read for parents, and even for those people who are wondering how they got so emotionally hard and jaded in the first place (like myself).

I find this book a gem to be reread, on my shelf of how to in parenting/child mentoring books. I found the first half of the book to be a redundant mainly because I didn't relate to it personally, as my children aren't peer-attached because they are with me 24/7. I have home schooled my children the past three years through a virtual school and have struggled with the instinctive socialization question every new acquaintance seems to associate with schooling at home. The author is neither anti nor pro home school, but he explains better than I can why so many parents are choosing to educate at home through various forms. He has a theory that makes a whole lot of sense. The gem of this book is the last six chapters that give the how to in teaching the un-teachable, communicating with a disrespectful or frustrated child, discipline that doesn't divide us from our children, and how to nurture our children to maturity. I have tested the how tos in this book on my own children and have found them to be not only effective but rewarding as well. I found the words from this book to be encouraging as a parent and adult in a world full of disrespectful children that are simply misunderstood. I recommend this book to every parent and teacher/child mentor.

As a concientious, caring parent I have been reading parenting books for years only to be frustrated again and again by prescriptive methodologies that run counter to my intuitions, and read like behaviour modification suggestions for experimental lab rats. We have been told time and again by various experts that if we give the right rewards, and enforce the right sanctions our children will behave and develop as we wish them to. Or, on the contrary, we have been told that we need not give our children any boundaries or guidelines, but must encourage them to find their own way without our input, trusting to "natural consequences" to provide them with direction. We have been told that if we are clear with our expectations our children will live up to them, only to find tht they don't. These methodologies have infiltrated the culture, and yet we have more violence, aggression, suicide, and depression, lack of direction, and boredom among our young people today than has ever been the case before. Gordon Neufeld's book is not another prescriptive "how to" manual. He reminds us that our children are more than their behaviour. He turns our gaze to their relationship needs, and shows us clearly what happens for children when those needs are met, and describes the disastrous results for a child's emotional, social, and intellectual development when they aren't. Dr. Neufeld helps us to see what is going wrong with our children, and what needs to be done to make it right. This book touches the heart of parenting in a way no other parenting book I have ever read does. it rings true begininning to end; I can't recommend it strongly enough.