24 January 10 • 2019
jn

VIVIAN HENOCH
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

How to Raise an Adult

F

or an inspiring evening of adult
conversation about raising kids,
join New York Times best-selling
author, former Stanford Dean and
motivational speaker Julie Lythcott-
Haims for her insights into breaking
free of the overparenting trap and
preparing kids for success at 7 p.m.
Thursday, Jan. 24, at Temple Beth El
in Bloomfield Township.
In her provocative manifesto How
to Raise an Adult, Lythcott-
Haims draws on research,
on conversations with
admissions officers,
educators and employers,
and on her own
observations as a mother
and as a student dean
to highlight the ways in
which overparenting harms
children, their stressed-out
parents and society at large.
While empathizing with the
fretful parents’
best hopes and
intentions that lead to helicoptering
and overhelping, Lythcott-Haims
offers practical advice and strategies
that allow children to make their
own mistakes and develop the
resilience, resourcefulness and inner
determination necessary for success.
A Stanford University grad, with
a J.D. from Harvard Law School and
an M.F.A. in writing from California
College of the Arts, Lythcott-
Haims has spoken to more than
300 audiences since publishing her
book, How to Raise an Adult. Her
second book, the award-winning
prose and poetry memoir Real
American, examines the thousand

small cuts racism imposes
on African-Americans.
Her third book, How to
Be an Adult, focusing on
young adults aged 18-35, is
forthcoming and scheduled for
publication in 2020.
“I am deeply interested in what
prevents humans from leading
meaningful, fulfilling lives,” Lythcott-
Haims writes. “We parents are the
lucky humans given the humbling task
of raising a child. We’
re supposed to be
alongside them, guiding them, giving
them more and more room to try,
learn, grow, persevere, achieve. But,
these days, we can tend to get in the
way by micromanaging our kids’
paths
or by outright dragging them down it.
“We think we know what we’
re
doing, but we end up depriving them
of developing self-efficacy. And that
leads to anxiety and depression. So, we
have to get our act together. We have
to get out of our kids’
ways so they can
develop the skills and smarts they’
ll
need in order to thrive as adults.”

A CONVERSATION WITH JULIE
LYTHCOTT-HAIMS
Between her book talk travels, we had
the chance to catch up with Lythcott-
Haims for a brief interview. Here are a
few of her insights.
She said she feels compelled to share
two hard truths:
“No. 1, I’
ve learned if I’
m to
make any headway on this topic of
parenting, I have to be willing to
confess to my own overparenting
tendencies. I have shifted — or evolved
— from being a dean frustrated by
what I have seen happen to other
people’
s young adult kids to realizing
that I’
m a mother who’
s not going to
be able to let go of my kid in college.
“I realize when I put that mirror up
close — I see the very problem I’
m
talking about. And it gives me a lot
of compassion for parents. It means
I’
m a storyteller in my talk, telling a
lot of stories about my own failings as
a mom of two teenagers and my own
learning as a parent around this topic.
“The second thing is I’
ve come to

understand is that our own needy
egos as parents are fueling much of
thing we call ‘
overparenting.’
The
word ‘
parenting’
is a lovely linguistic
example of the problem … and I think
it speaks to the agony and anxiety we
feel about being very good at this task
of raising children to adulthood. I
joke when I give a talk that we used to
call it child rearing. Nowadays we put
ourselves at the center of the endeavor
to raise children so much so that we
call it parenting.
“As parents, we need to know that all
those things we do in the immediate
short term in the attempt to give our
kids an advantage, all those things that
make us feel we’
re a good parent, by
advocating for our kids, by making
sure that things happen for them, by
rescuing them from the hard lessons of
becoming an adult, we enable them to
become forever dependent.”

ON TECHNOLOGY
“Children aren’
t in any way the
drivers of our obsession with social

A conversation with
best-selling author
Julie Lythcott-Haims
on the pitfalls of
overparenting.

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