Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers

All I am saying in this book can be summed up in two words—Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple—or more difficult. Difficult, because to trust children we must trust ourselves—and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted. And so we go on treating children as we ourselves were treated, calling this “reality,” or saying

The bottom line, Stixrud and Johnson say, is that kids need “a supportive adult around, they need time to recover from the stressful event, and they need to have a sense of control over their lives.”21 In other words, our kids need us to be strong and connected. They need us to help them learn a sense of balance.

Attachment theory is based on the assertion that the need to be in a close relationship is embedded in our genes. It was John Bowlby’s stroke of genius that brought him to the realization that we’ve been programmed by evolution to single out a few specific individuals in our lives and make them precious to us.

Children, and adults as well, perform best when there is consistency and dependability. The

“The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.”