Free Resources to Help You Make Sense of Kids, Emotions, and Development
Our gift to you and an invitation to support our work
Study guides, free lectures, keynotes, and webinars: More than 15 hours of recordings featuring Dr. Gordon Neufeld and members of the Neufeld Institute Faculty. These talks cover a wide range of topics related to attachment, development, parenting, education, and making sense of children — all offered through the lens of the Neufeld attachment-based developmental approach. Whether you are a parent, educator, or helping professional, we hope these materials will deepen your understanding and offer meaningful insights into the needs of the children and youth in your care.
If we could, we would give everything away for free. We certainly don’t want finances to stand in the way of making sense of kids. While it’s not possible for us to offer our courses at no cost — there are real and ongoing expenses involved — the funds from their sale allow us to make select presentations freely available, especially those we believe are too important to keep behind a paywall.
Offering some of our materials as free resources is not a reflection of lesser value, but rather a statement of their invaluableness. If you find these offerings helpful, we warmly invite you to share this page with others who might also benefit.
This resource is freely offered to you as part of our commitment to making sense of children accessible to all who care for them. The Neufeld Institute is a Canadian non-profit society and charitable organization, and much of what we create is sustained by those who value our work.
If our work resonates with you, and you’d like to contribute, we’d be grateful for any amount you choose to give — it helps us keep going and continue sharing these insights more widely.
Hold On to Your Kids:
Study Guide
The Hold On to Your Kids Study Guide includes chapter-by-chapter discussion questions as well as an abundant collection of additional resources.
Rest, Play, Grow:
Study Guide
To receive your FREE copy of the Rest, Play, Grow study guide, visit Deborah MacNamara’s website.
Hold On to Your Kids:
Download Chapter One
We are excited to offer you a free download of Chapter One from the second edition (Canadian paperback / U.S. publications) of Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers.
Access Free Keynotes, Presentations and Webinars for 30 Days
We want our free resources to be truly used, not just stored for “someday.” Registration provides 30-day access via our online campus: a gentle nudge to begin now, while the invitation is fresh. We’ve found that when there’s a natural time frame, people are more likely to dive in and benefit from the resource.
Relationship Matters: The challenges of parenting and teaching today’s children
2 hours Keynote + downloadable Resource Package
What do today’s children need most to truly grow up? Dr. Gordon Neufeld looks at why adult-child relationships are the essential context for parenting and teaching — not just behavior strategies or academic pressures. He explains how deep connection, secure attachment, and developmental insight provide the conditions for children to realize their full potential, even in today’s challenging world.
The Wisdom of Dependence
29-min keynote + 33-min panel
Our attitudes toward dependence shape everything we do as parents, teachers, and caregivers — yet modern culture has been getting it wrong. Dr. Gordon Neufeld unfolds why dependence and independence are not opposites, but intertwined forces in healthy development. He explains how the human need to depend — not just in childhood, but throughout life — is key to resilience, maturation, and connection.
Neufeld’s Traffic Circle Model of Frustration
23-min Keynote + 1.5-hour panel discussion
Frustration is one of our most profound and powerful emotions — yet modern culture often misunderstands and mishandles it. Dr. Gordon Neufeld introduces his frustration “traffic circle” model, revealing why frustration is key to problem-solving, adaptation, and resilience — but also why it so easily turns into aggression or despair when blocked. He explains how understanding frustration is crucial for supporting both children and adults on the path to emotional health.
Roots of Attachment: The six stages of relationship
1.5-hour webinar by Gordon Neufeld
How does a child’s capacity for deep relationship develop? Dr. Gordon Neufeld lays out his six-stage model of attachment, showing how children are meant to hold on to their parents and key adults — not just physically, but emotionally and psychologically. He explains why this developmental process is not automatic, how modern culture can interfere, and why nurturing deep attachment is essential for emotional health, resilience, and true maturation.
Getting Bedtime Right
1.5-hour presentation by Gordon Neufeld
Bedtime isn’t just about sleep — it’s about attachment, separation, and the emotional well-being of our children. In this warm and insightful presentation, Dr. Gordon Neufeld reveals why getting bedtime right matters not only for peaceful nights but for helping children handle life’s many separations. Discover why common sleep strategies often fall short, and learn how tools like bridging, play, and lullabies can gently guide children into rest and resilience.
Keys to Emotional Health & Well-Being
A 1.25 hour Keynote Address from Dr. Gordon Neufeld
What fosters true emotional health and resilience in children? Dr. Gordon Neufeld looks at why emotional well-being is not something we manage, but something we cultivate through relationship. He explains how caring adults — not outside experts — provide the essential conditions for growth, rest, play, and healing, helping children realize their full potential.
Creating Playgrounds for Emotional Expression
1.25-hour webinar with Tamara Strijack & Hannah Beach
What happens when emotions get stuck? Tamara Strijack and Hannah Beach explore why emotional expression is essential for healthy development — and how play can create the safe spaces we all need to release, process, and move through big feelings. With practical guidance and real-life examples, they show how we can support children, adolescents, and even ourselves in finding natural outlets for emotional energy.
Preparing for Motherhood
1.25-hour workshop with Dr. Gordon Neufeld
What does it really mean to prepare for parenthood? The true preparation is not about knowing or doing more, but about becoming the answer a child needs. Gordon Neufeld explores how to transition a baby from the physical womb to the “attachment womb,” where healthy development unfolds, and offers empowering insights on natural parenting instincts, building a village of attachment, and nurturing emotional connection and play.
What About Me? Reflections on Growing Up as Adults
63 minutes | Keynote by Dr. Gordon Neufeld
Dr. Gordon Neufeld explores the ways caregiving helps adults grow up too. With humour and deep insight, he reflects on why parenting and teaching don’t require perfection or “being fully grown” — they become the path to emotional maturation.
Making Sense of Kids
55 minute | Keynote with Dr. Gordon Neufeld
Dr. Gordon Neufeld reflects on why insight has become so essential for parents and teachers in our information-saturated age. He describes how the search for meaning begins with making sense of children, and how this understanding enables us to show up with the steadiness and clarity they depend on to become the adults they need us to be.
Bouncing Back: From Stress to Strength
1.25 hours | Keynote by Dr. Gordon Neufeld
Dr. Gordon Neufeld unfolds how stress, when understood through the lens of emotion and attachment, can become a source of strength. He looks a how nature equips both children and adults to recover and adapt — and how we as caregivers can nurture resilience, even when life’s challenges don’t let up.
Ode to Melancholy
1.25 hours | Presentation by Genevieve Schreier
Genevieve Schreier invites us to rethink sadness — not as something to avoid, but as a vital part of human experience. She explores why melancholy holds hidden gifts for growth, resilience, and emotional depth, and how we can gently come alongside this often-misunderstood feeling in both ourselves and our loved ones.
Address at the Kyiv First Ladies and Gentlemen Summit
16 minutes | Interview with Dr. Gordon Neufeld
In this special address, Dr. Gordon Neufeld speaks to the urgent youth mental health crisis in Ukraine. He offers a moving perspective on how attachment, emotional safety, and the power of play can help children and adolescents withstand even the most unbearable circumstances — reminding us that resilience is rooted not in diagnoses, but in the strength of caring relationships.
Upcoming Scheduled Classes
Some of our courses are also offered as scheduled classes from time to time with our Faculty providing weekly live special support sessions. If you already have taken the course in its self-paced version, you can enrol in the scheduled class for a fee of only 50 CAD.
Power to Parent II — Helping Children Grow Up
Classes Start: March 31, 2026
Tuesdays 10:00AM – 11:00AM PT
Runs for 8 weeks
With Heather Ferguson and Celena Krahn
$250 CAD
Part II of the Power to Parent gets to the heart of developmental science — that growth happens quite spontaneously if conditions are conducive. Neufeld expands on just what those conditions are and the role of parents in the maturing processes. Since growing older is no guarantee of growing up, knowing what children truly need from their parents is key to raising children.
Play & Emotion
Classes Start: April 2, 2026
Thursdays 10:00 – 11:30AM PT
Runs for 8 weeks
With Tamara Strijack and Jodi Bergman
$250 CAD
Neufeld puts the puzzle pieces together to reveal true play as Nature's way of taking care of emotion. This realization makes sense of the trouble we are now in, as the culture that was meant to take care of play has largely been lost. These insights are distinct to this approach and key to supporting healthy development and emotional well-being in our children and ourselves.
Adolescence & Sexuality
Classes Start: April 8, 2026
Wednesdays: 1:00 – 2:00 PM PT
Runs for 4 weeks
With Lisa Weiner and Robin Brooks-Sherriff
$150 CAD
Today's adolescents live in a hypersexualized culture. Despite their greater exposure and education, current evidence suggests that many youth are in trouble sexually and that their sexual development is not unfolding as it should.
Making Sense of Preschoolers
Classes Start: April 14, 2026
Tuesdays 5:30 – 6:30PM PT
Runs for 6 weeks
No one is more susceptible to being misunderstood than the preschooler — especially when adults are trying to rush them out of their untempered nature, inconsiderate relating, or separation problems.
Making Sense of Hypersensitivity
Classes Start: April 29, 2026
Wednesdays 10:00 – 11:30 AM PT
Runs for 7 weeks
With Jule Epp and Karen Bollman
$250 CAD
This course provides a fresh look at the causes and consequences of sensory overload in the brain and its role in a spectrum of syndromes, including autism, and to a lesser extent, some forms of giftedness as well as attention problems.
Making Sense of Kids: developmental science in practice
in over 35 languages
Neufeld's attachment-based developmental approach is grounded in over five decades of work as a clinical psychologist, university instructor, and developmental theorist. In 2004, he shared some of these insights in the book Hold On to Your Kids, which helped awaken parents and professionals worldwide to the importance of attachment and developmental science. Many who first discovered the approach through the book have gone on to deepen their understanding through the Neufeld Institute’s 30+ courses. Today, a growing network of language programs and dedicated language directors actively bring these life-changing insights to communities in their own languages and cultural contexts.
Vancouver, BC V6M 1L3
Canada