It’s taken me a few weeks to type up this review. I read Hold On to Your Kids by Gabor Maté and Gordon Neufeld bit by bit, listening on audio at nights as I cleaned a local clinic, expecting some quick fixes for some parenting issues I’d been having. Nothing shocking, just run-of-the-mill rambunctious, strong-willed preschoolers. But there were no real quick fixes. Just a ton to think about as I developed a deeper understanding of what it means to parent. So, this is my effort to condense it into a bite-sized teaser to get you, reader, to read the book.

Maté and Neufeld lay out an argument that the primary determiner of children’s behavior is their attachment drive. Who they attach to, who matters most to them, is who they will strive to emulate and please. I enjoyed the metaphor of orienting themselves to the world based on the compass of attachment.

The problem many modern parents have, the authors claim, is that many societies have shifted so dramatically that children no longer attach to their parents. Children attach to their peers, thrown into a world where the top priority is often friendships, social lives, school and extracurricular activities.

The problem with peer orientation, where children’s primary attachment is to their peers, is that peers are not reliable. Their love is not unconditional. They are completely unsuited to lead each other and protect each other.

“Absolutely missing in peer relationships are unconditional love and acceptance, the desire to nurture, the ability to extend oneself for the sake of the other, the willingness to sacrifice for the growth and development of the other.”

Gabor Maté, Gordon Neufeld, Hold On To Your Kids

From this basis, Maté and Neufeld explain strategies for parents to reclaim their ‘parenting power’ by gathering their children and reclaiming attachment. A few other key parts I’ve found myself pondering are the insistence that parenting books can never fix your parenting problems, how to help your child develop true maturity, the role of vulnerability, and the importance of building an ‘attachment village’ of both adults and children you can truly trust and bond with.

Interestingly, the authors do not specifically condone stay-at-home parenting or homeschooling. As a stay-at-home homeschooling parent, I feel like parent-orientation is more easily facilitated as I have so much contact with my children through the day, but the authors mention how such a lifestyle is not right for everybody, and give solid strategies for facilitating adult orientation and attachment in schools and daycares as well.

A child is not free to proceed with his learning and his life until the food issues are taken care of, and we parents do that as a matter of course. Our duty ought to be equally transparent to us in satisfying the child’s attachment hunger.

Gabor Maté, Gordon Neufeld, Hold On To Your Kids

Although I truly think a good editor could have taken the book down in size by about half, Hold On to Your Kids has a lot to think about. I have been returning to it again and again as I make decisions for my family, with the assurance that I truly can trust my gut when it comes to my kids. Attachment comes first. The rest follows.