Growing up I was best friends with my mom. I didn’t have siblings, so my mom and I spent most of our time together. Only recently did I learn that this is actually not how most people grow up and was the reason why for a while, I struggled to connect and relate with my peers, operate in social settings and maintain consistency in the friendships with others my age.

“Hold on to your kids” by Gordon Nuefeld provided a significantly amount of clarity into why that was my experience.

In the context of adult interactions, people are usually dealing with relationship problems. But with kids, interestingly, they’re always dealing with behaviour problems. Parents are often very concerned with their children’s identities—how they behave, learn, who they’re friends with, how they spend their time—and a lot less concerned about the parent-child relationship they cultivate.

Children are born without an understanding of who they are, what is real, why things happen the way that they do, what is good and bad, what things mean, how the world works. In our first couple of years, we were all in a state of feeling lost and bewildered, searching for a compass. And when this orienteering does not come from our parents, we look for it in other places. Often this results in peer-orientation, where children use each other as their compasses, helping them move away from feeling lost. It does not seem to matter that their operational compass points are inadequate, inconsistent, and unreliable. All that matters is that they are no longer consciously bewildered.

Kids often lack the emotional intelligence to appreciate vulnerability. We tend to dislike in others what we are most uncomfortable with in ourselves and hence, vulnerability becomes the enemy.

When children lose their vulnerability, they surrender the idea of infinite possibility and fail to see the world as a welcome space for their self-expression. The invulnerability imprisons them to their limitations and anxieties, pushing children towards losing their feelings of fear. They no longer experience feeling alarmed or frightened, because nervousness requires a degree of vulnerability. Many bullies, and in fact, many victims, are developed in this way. With a muted alarm system, kids are a lot less aware of hostility and rejection that they should be avoiding.

Young bullies will attempt to move closer to a certain group by moving further away from another. In this way, they don’t risk an rejection or pain and achieve their goal with the least amount of risk and vulnerability.

“There is danger in loving but none in loathing, risk in admiration but not in contempt, vulnerability in wanting to be like someone else but none in mocking those who are different. Bullies instinctively take the least vulnerable route to their destination.”

When kids lack attachment with their parents, connection with their peers becomes their primary concern. They will mold themselves, suppressing any self-expression that falls out of line with those around them. Friendship becomes the ultimate goal they do not let anything, including their individuality, fall between them and their peers.

What I learned through this book is that this is a pivotal point which kills a child’s curiosity. Peer-attached children become obsessed with fitting in with their peers, killing their desire to explore things outside of what serves this attachment. Learning and exploring entails failure, which is terrifying for someone that is fleeing their vulnerability. So, the more we can cultivate acceptance for kids, the more room there will be for their unique characters to unfold.