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Hold on to Your Kids

Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers

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Hold on to Your Kids

By: Gabor Maté, Gordon Neufeld
Narrated by: Daniel Maté
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Children take their lead from their friends: being 'cool' matters more than anything else. Shaping values, identity and codes of behaviour, peer groups are often far more influential than parents.

But this situation is far from natural, and it can be dangerous - it undermines family cohesion, interferes with healthy development, and fosters a hostile and sexualized youth culture. Children end up becoming conformist, anxious and alienated.

In Hold on to Your Kids, acclaimed physician and bestselling author Gabor Maté joins forces with Gordon Neufeld, a psychologist with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting. Together they pinpoint the causes of this breakdown and offer practical advice on how to 'reattach' to sons and daughters, establish the hierarchy at home, make children feel safe and understood, and earn back your children's loyalty and love. This updated edition also addresses the unprecedented parenting challenges posed by the rise of digital devices and social media.

By helping to reawaken our instincts, Maté and Neufeld empower parents to be what nature intended: a true source of contact, security and warmth for their children.

'Maté's book will make you examine your behaviour in a new light' Guardian

'bold, wise and deeply moral. [Maté] is a healer to be cherished' Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine

© Gabor Maté 2004 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Parenting & Families Personal Development Personal Success Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Relationships Inspiring

Critic Reviews

Gabor Maté’s connections—between the intensely personal and the global, the spiritual and the medical, the psychological and the political—are bold, wise and deeply moral. He is a healer to be cherished
A visionary book that goes beyond the usual explanations to illuminate a crisis of unrecognized proportions. The authors show us how we are losing contact with our children and how this loss undermines their development and threatens the very fabric of society. Most importantly they offer, through concrete examples and clear suggestions, practical help for parents to fulfil their instinctual roles. A brilliant and well written book – one to be taken very seriously
Hold on to Your Kids brings us genuinely new ideas and fresh perspectives on parenting. The authors integrate psychology, anthropology, neurology and their own personal and professional experiences…. a worthy book with practical implications
Maté’s book will make you examine your behaviour in a new light
Hold On to Your Kids is full of easy tips for avoiding calamity
All stars
Most relevant
This is an essential book for anyone with children. It gave me a vocabulary an articulated understanding of what happens , has happened and how I as a parent can reconnect with my child.
If you care about your child - listen to this.
Any Gabor Maté is worth while enhancing your life with, this is 100% necessary as a parent or person who cares for a growing child / adolescent/ teen.

Mandatory for anyone with a child - teen or not

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Great, book with powerful insights. Thank you both for your amazing work. it has chaged the way I vewi attachment.

Amazing!

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This has opened my perspective, in what I went through as a child as well as how to be more understanding as a care giver.

Very insightful!

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I've listened to quite a few books and this book totally is the best so far, other books were so complicated in how to advice altho points taken where this book was helpful more than I can explain, every word spoken resinated with me.

best parenting advice

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this book gets to the roots of raising children in the modern world. other parenting books now seem superficial in comparison. highly recommend.

essential reading for all parents

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