Hold On to Your Kids

It’s no surprise that more and more parents and professionals are interested in the theory of personal development based on attachment (attachment theory) developed by Gordon Neufeld. After all, it explains how important for a child’s psychological well-being and successful personal development are warm relationships with those who are responsible for them and take care of them.

You can read a brief description of the attachment-based development model in G. Neufeld’s brochure.

In this book, the author examines the destructive impact on adult–child relationships caused by competing attachment to peers—when a child begins to listen to friends more than to parents, when friends become unquestionable authority, and parents are seen only as an obstacle in life and a source of money.

Neufeld argues that, due to their immaturity, children are not able to take care of each other, create a space for personal growth, and offer unconditional acceptance. And that is precisely the main task of adults—to give their child a sense of reliable and safe attachment, a feeling that they are under the protection of their parents’ love, where no trouble is frightening. The author is convinced that relationships should take center stage in raising children. “It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do; what matters is what kind of relationship you have with your child,” Gordon Neufeld says.

In the examples the author provides, the discussion mainly concerns teenagers, but, of course, this approach can be applied to children of any age. Therefore, the earlier parents become familiar with the book, the more likely they will be able to avoid mistakes that they might later regret—and for which more effort and time will be needed.

The main advantage of the book is that the author not only describes the problem, but also suggests effective strategies and approaches to building and maintaining relationships between parent and child. This is the long-awaited alternative to many parenting books and publications that encourage using behavior-control techniques with children—techniques that resemble training. Neufeld helps parents restore their natural intuition, abandon ambiguous timeout practices or using something valuable to children against them for educational purposes. After all, following these recommendations, many parents have already realized that they work very well in the short term, but cause huge harm to relationships.

The book was first published in Canada in 2004 and, within a few weeks, became a national bestseller. Since then, besides Russian, it has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Norwegian, and Dutch. The first Russian edition came out in 2012, and the print run sold out within the first few months. This confirms not only the widespread nature of the problem of adolescent alienation, but also parents’ awareness of the importance of preserving relationships with children from the earliest age.

Age limit: 16+