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

by Gordon Neufeld

The belief is that socializing—children spending time with one another—begets socialization: the capacity for skillful and mature relating to other human beings. There is no evidence to support such an assumption, despite its popularity. If socializing with peers led to getting along and to becoming responsible members of society, the more time a child spent with her peers, the better the relating would tend to be. In actual fact, the more children spend time with one another, the less likely they are to get along and the less likely they are to fit into civil society. If we take the socialization assumption to the extreme—to orphanage children, street children, children involved in gangs—the flaw in thinking becomes obvious. If socializing were the key to socialization, gang members and street kids would be model citizens.