Quotes by Gordon Neufeld

About Gordon Neufeld:

Gordon Neufeld is a Vancouver-based developmental psychologist and author of the book Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers (co-authored with Canadian physician Gabor Maté) that has been translated into 10 languages so far. The Neufeld approach (his attachment-based developmental model) is based on the attachment theory formulated by John Bowlby. He developed a theory of attachment that includes six stages in the development of the capacity for relationship, the construct of polarization that explains both shyness and defensive detachment. His model of attachment is universal in both its application (adults as well as children) and implementation (school as well as home).
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Children do not experience our intentions, no matter how heartfelt. They experience what we manifest in tone and behavior.

Gordon Neufeld

Children learn best when they like their teacher and they think their teacher likes them.

Gordon Neufeld

The key to activating maturation is to take care of the attachment needs of the child. To foster independance we must first invite dependance; to promote individuation we must provide a sense of belonging and unity; to help the child separate we must...

Gordon Neufeld

Parents are the designated caregivers and are best suited for being able to raise children.

Gordon Neufeld

Digital intimacy ruins the appetite for the real thing. So, when kids are gaming or even when spouses are gaming, they lose their appetite for genuine intimacy. Kids lose their appetite for getting their intimacy needs, their hunger for significance ...

Gordon Neufeld

I started my career in parent education with the idea that we needed to let our kids go. I believed that parents were suffocating for their children. There was no room for individuality and personhood.

Gordon Neufeld

Peer attachments are not the problem themselves. It's when they compete with adult attachments that the problems emerge. It's just like when siblings get attached to each other. If they start revolving around each other, then the parents can't do any...

Gordon Neufeld

Unconditional parental love is the indespensible nutrient for the child's healthy emotional growth. The first task is to create space in the child's heart for the certainty that she is precisely the person the parents want and love. She does not have...

Gordon Neufeld

Children need to trust and depend upon those who are responsible for them.

Gordon Neufeld

We have lost sight of nature's role in the whole process of maturation and growing up. Parents and nature are a team. And nature can't go on without the parental role of being able to foster individuality and viability unless the attachment needs are...

Gordon Neufeld

It is a parent's responsibility to preserve the connection with their children, to preserve the relationship, so that the children can let go and become their own selves.

Gordon Neufeld

Many people think that discipline is the essence of parenting. But that isn't parenting. Parenting is not telling your child what to do when he or she misbehaves. Parenting is providing the conditions in which a child can realize his or her full huma...

Gordon Neufeld

Author Bio

  • NameGordon Neufeld
  • DescriptionCanadian psychologist
  • Born1947
  • CountryCanada
  • ProfessionPsychologist