FOR the first time in history, children are being brought up by each other. They are taking their lead from their peers — turning to them for their values, identity-shaping and codes of behaviour.
Children are in crisis and it’s because — instead of orbiting around their parents and other responsible adults as they are meant to do — they are more and more orbiting around each other.
Being ‘cool’ matters more than anything else.
This is how Dr Gabor Maté and Dr Gordon Neufeld, authors of Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers, diagnose the breakdown in the relationship between many parents and their children today.
Published in Irish Examiner, Saturday, December 29, 2018