Reviews

Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Matter by Gabor Maté, Gordon Neufeld

jess_ika's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

chloeb8's review against another edition

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informative sad medium-paced

3.0

jjacobia's review against another edition

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3.0

good book if you don't know very much about attachment theory. I have studied this before so I found it a little to simple. bottom line...be involved in your kids lives...

welfordpurls's review against another edition

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5.0

Every parent needs to read this book.

maddys's review against another edition

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informative slow-paced

3.75

jennyms's review against another edition

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2.0

Although I feel as though the message of this book is important, like the book itself, that is just a feeling. I have no scientific evidence to back up my feelings, and neither does Gordon Neufeld. This is a book of suppositions and instinct, but unfortunately not a lot of meat. The central message is that families have turned from a more evolutionarily-appropriate societal structure where children are raised within a small, tribal community to an evolutionarily-inappropriate structure where parents are encouraged to hand away their children to day cares, schools, sports clubs, afterschool activities, playgroups, and a myriad of other activities where children interact with each other rather than with their parents and other adults. As a result, Neufeld supposes, our children are missing out on vital societal development they would get from interacting more with older people. It isn't that I think he is entirely wrong, it is that I think his thesis is poorly developed and poorly supported. I am a proponent of attachment theory, but I want to see the evidence. I am disappointed that this book is rated so highly overall, I suspect readers give it five stars mostly because it affirms their biases.

nicoleneuman's review against another edition

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challenging informative slow-paced

3.5

casihi's review against another edition

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1.0

Some good ideas buried in alarmist extreme behavioral challenges. I completely gave up when he used “Boxcar children” and “Lord of the Flies” as examples of children with peer attachment.

thehairyit's review against another edition

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informative slow-paced

3.5

amelie6's review against another edition

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informative reflective

4.0