A review by jennyms
Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gabor Maté, Gordon Neufeld

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.