Gordon Neufeld

“In thousands of little ways, we pull and push our children to grow up, hurrying them along instead of inviting them to…

— Gordon Neufeld

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

— Gordon Neufeld

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

— 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.…

— Gordon Neufeld

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

— Gordon Neufeld

“As children grow, they have an increasing need to orient: to have a sense of who they are, of what is real,…

— 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…

— Gordon Neufeld

“thus educators learn about teaching subjects but not about the essential importance of connected relationships to the learning process of young human…

— Gordon Neufeld

“less mature a person is, the more he will rely on this basic mode of attaching. Peer-oriented kids like Cynthia are preoccupied…

— Gordon Neufeld

“What to us looks like independence is really just dependence transferred. We are in such a hurry for our children to be…

— Gordon Neufeld

“Increasingly, children’s behavioral problems are ascribed to various medical syndromes such as oppositional defiant disorder or attention deficit disorder. These diagnoses at…

— Gordon Neufeld

“The key to activating maturation is to take care of the attachment needs of the child. To foster independance we must first…

— Gordon Neufeld

“Absolutely missing in peer relationships are unconditional love and acceptance, the desire to nurture, the ability to extend oneself for the sake…

— Gordon Neufeld

“Children parented in such a manner never come up against the necessary frustration that accompanies facing the impossible. They are deprived of…

— Gordon Neufeld

I started my career in parent education with the idea that we needed to let our kids go. I believed that parents…

— Gordon Neufeld

“Our society is so topsy-turvy that we may actually come to value the child’s willingness to separate more than her instincts for…

— Gordon Neufeld

Digital intimacy ruins the appetite for the real thing. So, when kids are gaming or even when spouses are gaming, they lose…

— Gordon Neufeld

“phenomenon. For the child to feel full he must first feel empty, to feel helped the child must first feel in need…

— 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…

— Gordon Neufeld

“But my child is strong-willed,” many parents insist. “When he decides that he wants something he just keeps at it until I…

— Gordon Neufeld

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

— Gordon Neufeld

“Peer relationships are safest when they are the natural offspring of attachments with the parents.”

— 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…

— 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…

— Gordon Neufeld

“The critical issue was that she was peer dependent, which, given her psychological immaturity, delivered a devastating blow to parenting.”

— Gordon Neufeld