Books
by Gordon Neufeld and the Neufeld Institute Faculty
Explore the written works that bring the Neufeld approach to life.
From the best-selling Hold On to Your Kids to books by Neufeld Institute faculty, these resources offer insight, guidance, and an attachment-based developmental lens for understanding children—and ourselves.
Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers
By Dr. Gordon Neufeld
This book, written by Dr. Gordon Neufeld, is about the pivotal importance of children’s relationships to those responsible for them and the devastating impact in today’s society of competing attachments with peers.
However it is much more than a book on peer orientation: it is about parenting with relationship in mind.
This book restores parents to their natural intuition, confronting such relationship-devastating devices as time-outs and using what children care about against them.
Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (Or Anyone Who Acts Like One)
By Dr. Deborah MacNamara
Based on the work of Dr. Gordon Neufeld, this book, written by Dr. Deborah MacNamara, offers a road map to making sense of young children, and is what every toddler, preschooler and kindergartener wishes we understood about them.
“This book is a tribute to Deborah’s giftedness … you could not be in better hands,” said Dr. Neufeld.
Reclaiming Our Students: Why Children Are More Anxious, Aggressive, and Shut Down Than Ever – And What We Can Do About It
By Hannah Beach & Tamara Strijack
Children are more anxious, aggressive, and shut down than ever. Faced with this epidemic of emotional health crises and behavioral problems, teachers are asking themselves what went wrong. Why have we lost our students? More importantly: how can we get them back? Reclaiming Our Students is a thoughtful guide to restoring the student-teacher relationship and creating the conditions for change, written by Hannah Beach, celebrated educator and specialist in emotional health, and Tamara Neufeld Strijack, clinical counsellor and academic dean of the acclaimed Neufeld Institute—with a foreword by Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D.. Reclaiming Our Students empowers teachers with relationship-based strategies to restore their leadership role and build emotional safety in the classroom.
Nourished: Connection, Food, and Caring For Our Kids (and everyone else we love)
By Dr. Deborah MacNamara
What does is mean to be nourished? Nothing could be more basic than food. However, food is only one part of the concept of nourishment, but it has consumed our focus and eclipsed something far more critical for thriving – connection. We have lost sight of the fact that feeding our families is about human relationship and emotional well-being. In Nourished, developmental and relational clinical counsellor Dr. Deborah MacNamara shows us how feeding is part of the caretaking relationship and cannot be separated from it
The Sorry Plane
Children’s Book by Dr. Deborah MacNamara
When Molly accidentally breaks a balloon she and her sister Lucy have found, Lucy demands an apology. But, as Molly describes in fanciful, imaginative scenarios, her sorries are all gone: hiding under the bed, down the sink, off to Paris on the Sorry Plane. As their mother explains, we can’t say sorry if we don’t have any sorries in us. But when our sorries return, as Molly’s eventually do, we can give them to others. Brilliantly illustrated with captivating images by artist Zoe Si, The Sorry Plane carries a profound message about the importance of connecting with our authentic emotions. It highlights how a good sorry is one that you mean from the heart and how adults can preserve a child’s caring spirit.
Neufeld Institute Children’s Book List
By The Neufeld Institute
The Neufeld Institute’s carefully curated Children’s Literature Recommendations is a rich 68-page PDF guide to nearly 350 thoughtfully selected titles. Rooted in Dr. Neufeld’s attachment-based developmental approach, this annual booklet helps parents and professionals find books that nurture connection, emotion, and growth in children of all ages. From picture books to young adult novels, and even stories to enjoy together as a family, this resource is organized around key themes like attachment, play, emotional expression, and life’s special challenges. All proceeds support the Gail Eleanor Carney Memorial Scholarship Fund.
Vancouver, BC V6M 1L3
Canada