Dr. Gordon Neufeld is one of the world’s leading child psychologists. I discovered his work because he co-authored a book with Gabor Mate. Who, as you know if you have been a long-time listener, has been on the podcast and has had a huge impact on me. That episode is still one of the most downloaded that we have ever had on the podcast. Gordon co-authored a book with Gabor called Hold on To Your Kids.
Scheduling this episode has been 2 years in the making. I really want to speak with the leading authorities in their field. These people are incredibly busy and hard to schedule, including this one with Gordon.
His bio is too extensive to list it all here, but briefly, he has worked as a child therapist and consultant for over 40 years, is a best-selling author, international speaker and consultant and founder of the Neufeld Institute. Dr. Neufeld’s life’s work and his passion has been to help adults provide the conditions for children to flourish. He is a father of five and a grandfather to six.
This is an incredibly powerful episode. Especially when I asked him about how I handled a situation with Jessie just earlier this week. And I think you’ll be surprised by his answer just as I was.
Light bulbs were going off for me this entire episode and I learned so much from our conversation. My main takeaway from this episode is that emotional health is messy.
So much of what we think of as good in our children is actually them repressing their big messy loud feelings and he talks brilliantly about some of the consequences of that and what happens when children start to repress their feelings when they don’t think their parents can handle it.
We chat about:

What is peer attachment vs peer orientation?

Why emotional health is messy and how to work through it

A recent situation I had with Jessie and Gordon’s advise

Where is the story of emotional health?

Working with the emotional playground

The consequences of our children holding back their feelings


As always, we continue the conversation over on Instagram, so come and join us there.
Resources mentioned in this episode:

Neufeld Institute - website


Hold on to your kids - book



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About Dr. Gordon Neufeld
Before he retired, Dr. Gordon Neufeld had accumulated more than 40 years of experience as a clinical psychologist with children and youth and those responsible for them. A foremost authority on child development, Dr. Neufeld continues to be an international speaker, a best-selling author (Hold On to Your Kids) and a leading interpreter of the developmental paradigm. Dr. Neufeld has a widespread reputation for making sense of complex problems and for opening doors for change. While formerly involved in university teaching and private practice, he has devoted the best part of the last two decades to creating courses for parents, teachers and helping professionals. These courses are offered primarily through the Neufeld Institute – an online educational institute and world-wide charitable organization devoted to applying developmental science to the task of raising children. Dr. Neufeld’s life’s work has been to help adults provide the conditions for children to flourish. He is a father of five and a grandfather to six.