book time

I'm reading a very interesting book. It's called Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Matter, and it's by Gordon Neufeld (who is Canadian, as a bonus, and at one point attended the UofW, bonus two). He comes from an attachment viewpoint. He sees attachment as inevitable, and orienting force that a child has an instinct to seek. Where things get screwed up is that they don't necessarily have to attach to their parents. Oh, they do when they are babies, but that can change. They can become peer oriented, where instead of looking to their parents for guidance and direction, they look to their peers. Result: generations of kids who are the blind leading the blind.

This has happened over several generations now. It has become so normal, the rebelious teen culture, that we now think of it as natural. It is anything but. Our culture did not have this dynamic prior to WW2, and other cultures still do not. In the societal shifts that have occurred (including an overemphasis on economics over social good) we slowly lost our power to parent because the power comes through relationship, and we have lost relationship.

One of the myths he explodes is that of children and friendships. In North America we believe children must have friends, and there is a push to "socialize" them as soon as possible, though preschool. Example: my sister in law emailed me one day to ask if I was going to send our kids to preschool because they needed to be exposed to other children. Their social needs couldn't just be met through visits to Grandpa and Grandma. Not so, says Neufeld. Children don't learn socialization skills from exposure to other little beings who do not have social skills. Children learn social skills from attachment relationships to adults.

He says that when the relationship is restored, parenting is easier, that a focus on consequences and rewards becomes unnecessary because children want to follow.

I understand some of the theoretical and research background to what he says, and it stands up well. It also makes sense intuitively. But there's a part of me that says, "You're lying. I will always need rewards adn consequences. It can't possibly be as good as you're describing it."

I haven't gotten to the part yet where he actually talks about improving the attachment. But I am going to experiment. I am going to do what the book says and see how things are in a month. Because in November, Neufeld is coming to Wpg, and if necessary I will tell him "You are a bloody liar." Except nicer.