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Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers
by Gordon Neufeld, Gabor Maté
Book Reviewed by:The concepts, principles and practical advice contained in Hold On to Your Kids will empower parents to satisfy their children’s inborn need to find direction by turning towards a source of authority, contact and warmth.
A psychologist
with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting issues joins
forces with a physician and bestselling author to tackle one of the most
disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time -- peers replacing parents in
the lives of our children.
Dr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon 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. It provides a
powerful explanation for schoolyard bullying and youth violence; its effects are
painfully evident in the context of teenage gangs and criminal activity, in
tragedies such as in Littleton, Colorado; Tabor, Alberta and Victoria, B.C. It
is an escalating trend that has never been adequately described or contested
until Hold On to Your Kids. Once understood, it becomes self-evident --
as do the solutions.
Hold On to Your Kids will restore parenting to its natural intuitive
basis and the parent-child relationship to its rightful preeminence. The
concepts, principles and practical advice contained in Hold On to Your Kids
will empower parents to satisfy their children’s inborn need to find
direction by turning towards a source of authority, contact and warmth.
As children grow it is inevitable, and a good thing, that they start to gravitate away from their parents to establish identities for themselves. However, Gordon Neufeld makes a very strong case that the modern-day trend for children to become peer-orientated at increasingly early ages does not give a child the opportunity to establish the healthy identity that most parents hope for their children. Instead, ironically, it does the opposite, causing them to suppress their individuality, curiosity and intelligence in order to fit the group norm...continued
Full Review
(182 words)
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
If you liked Hold On To Your Kids, try these:
by Hara Estroff Marano
Published 2008
Wake up, America: We’re raising a nation of wimps.
Hothouse parenting has hit the mainstream—with disastrous effects. Teens lack leadership skills. College students engage in deadly binge drinking. Graduates can’t even negotiate their own salaries without bringing mom or dad in for a consult.
by Jodi Picoult
Published 2008
Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens -- until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy.
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Not doing more than the average is what keeps the average down.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Dr. Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia and The Shelter of Each Other
Hold on to Your Kids blows in from Canada like a Blue Northern, bringing us genuinely new ideas and fresh perspectives on parenting. The authors integrate psychology, anthropology, neurology and their own personal and professional experiences as they examine the 'context' of parenting today. This is a worthy book with practical implications for mom and dad.
