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.

jews d
in 
the