Editor’s Note: Julie Lythcott-Haims, a former Dean of Freshmen, Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, and Dean of Undergraduate Advising at Stanford—as well as a mother of two teenagers—comes to the topic of preparing children for a life as successful and capable adults from both the professional perspective of an educator and the personal perspective of a parent. In her recent book, How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success, Lythcott-Haims addresses the consequences that arise for young adults when they’ve been raised in a too-coddled environment, and offers parents practical strategies for combating the urge to overprotect. We spoke to Lythcott-Haims about the mission of her book, the meaning of overparenting, parental ego, and more.
How do you define the term “overparenting”?
Parents are motivated by these very primal feelings we have: Fear and love. We parents love our kids fiercely and we want the best for them, but our fears are telling us that it’s a scary world out there. We think we need to really be there so they can make it. We do too much for them, and they might, in the short term, be better off and get a higher grade and be protected from a scrape or a bump or a bruised ego, but they end up less prepared and less capable in the big, bad world out there.
Why is overparenting bad?
My book aims to highlight the long-term costs of all of the short-term overprotection and hand-holding. I think once parents begin to appreciate that whatever the short-term gain is, the long-term cost is diminished life skills. [Their kids] can’t really function in the real world; they don’t know how to pump gas, they don’t know how to pay a bill, they don’t know how to make a meal. They’re less capable in a workplace that needs them to take the initiative, give them a strong work ethic, think outside the box, and be creative. All of those traits and abilities that are undercut by the childhood we have kids lead today, [filled with] all the activities they need to pursue in order to get a great resume or transcript, [which] deprive them of the chance to think for themselves and jump in when needed… The third harm is, as colleges are increasingly saying, much greater rates of anxiety and depression, essentially because they’ve been prevented from doing the work of life, which is how you construct a sense of self.
What was your inspiration for writing this book?
Being a dean…I was working with [ages] 17-22 and each year I saw fewer and fewer [students] who seemed to make their way through the university without constantly checking with mom or dad to answer questions. I found myself thinking: “When does a young adult have the wherewithal to look within for problem-solving and decision-making? When do we stop looking to our parents to do the hard stuff for us?” By 2005, on a regular basis we were saying to parents: “There’s not a role for you here. Please trust that, as college-age men and women always have, your sons and daughters have what it takes, and now is the time for them to really get into the driver’s seat in their own life.” [After] saying this to Stanford parents over the years, what I realized when my own kids were 8 and 10, was that I was still cutting their meat, and I had this epiphany: “When do I stop cutting their meat…when do I stop hovering over them?” We do all of those things to help our kids, but we don’t want them to wind up as an 18-year-old who lacks the ability to talk to any strangers and doesn’t feel safe out on the street and can’t do schoolwork without mom or dad checking in or correcting it.
How can parents resist overparenting urges?
I think when the child is learning to stand and walk may be the last time parents are content watching them try and fail. We watch and we applaud and if they fall and there’s a booboo and they’re hurt, we encourage them to get back up. And it’s precisely that very encouraging and empowering mindset that we really need to carry on into the rest of their childhood. So with toddlers, these little guys can help around the house: They can dust, they can sort laundry into dark colors and light colors, they can pick up a bag from the supermarket and put it all together in one bag. We don’t need to be doing everything for them. When parents today are doing homework for them, whether it’s in elementary or middle or high school or even college for that matter, the teacher or professor doesn’t know what their students understand. It’s critical that a student work and that we as parents trust in the long run that our kids do their own work.
Do you think kids are wired a certain way?
There’s a wonderful story in [my book] about a young woman named Rachel. Based on what she’s studied in evolutionary biology, she knows we’ve evolved as humans to do for ourselves. We want to contribute, to make things, to do things, to be capable. There’s something very modern about this 21st-Century affluent existence that really undermines that very natural desire we have to do things for ourselves. That’s why this overparenting is so damaging to a young person developmentally, particularly in a mental health sense. Kids are eager…for independence, and they want to stretch their wings, but at some point they became content to have life lived for them. They’re just sort of grateful that things are being done for them, and then you really have to work with them to appreciate that, no, they actually need to do more of this work of life for themselves or else they’ll be incapable in ways that really harm them.
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Why do you think parents are concerned about their kids not making their own mistakes?
I think a huge part of the impetus here is a…parent’s sense of their own unfulfilled life, and they’re hoping to live vicariously through their kids. They feel better about themselves when their kids are high-achieving. There’s a whole lot of parental ego that’s wrapped up in the accomplishments of our kids, so we’ve gotten this arrogant stance, which is, “Look at my masterpiece, my child,” as if our child is a piece of art we created.
But our child is a precious individual, their own person. It’s up to them to make their life what they will. One of the best things we parents can do is get a life ourselves; reclaim your adult self to get out of your kid’s way, but more importantly reclaim yourself for your own sake. And also model for your kids what a healthy, vibrant adult life looks like, instead of teaching kids that all adults do is nag about grades, and shuttle kids through activities all the time.
Another popular book that deals with teaching children life skills is The Opposite of Spoiled by Ron Lieber. He discusses the importance of teaching kids values—specifically financial values—before they go off to college. Are you hoping your book is read similarly by parents before their child heads to college?
My book is aimed squarely at parents of [ages] toddlers through teens. The high school years and imminent precipice of college or the world of work tend to put a fire under our feet as parents, because we can see the real world looming and can begin to imagine the degree of independence and real life skills our kid will need to have out there…which are the kinds of things too many kids often are not learning today because of a heavy focus on their academic and extracurricular activities. The high school years are the time to start shifting to more and more independence—and with it, responsibility and accountability—to your kid. The summer after high school is the time to sit down with your kid for a conversation about the big transition that’s coming. You might say: “Okay, you’re an adult now. It’s your turn to be the decision-maker, the problem-solver, the do-er in your own life. We’ll always be here for love and support, but you’re now in charge of your own life. We’re excited for you. We trust you. We know you can do it!”
Our nation’s stressful academic system typically leads kids to believe that the college they go to determines, in part, their “worth.” How can parents show kids that there is plenty in life that trumps the value of getting into a prestigious university?
Kids in some communities are under such tremendous pressure to attend the most prestigious schools that they feel their worth and value as humans rests on their college admission outcomes, which at the most extreme can lead to tragic outcomes. We parents should tell our kids that we want them to go to a school where they’ll find a great sense of fit and belonging. We should also take note of the unintended messages we send kids; if we only wear t-shirts that say “Stanford” and “Harvard,” our kids won’t believe us if we say we don’t expect them to go to one of the most prestigious places. We’ve got to talk the talk and walk the walk.
Based on your own experiences or on common problems you’ve witnessed other families deal with, what are steps parents can take to make sure that they’re using techniques that don’t fall into the “overparenting” category?
The first step is to recognize it. Some of the telltale signs of overparenting are: If you’re saying “we” when you really mean your son or daughter (i.e.: “We’re on the travel soccer team;” “we’re doing a science project;” “we’re applying to college”); if you’re frequently challenging the authority of the adults in their life (teachers, principals, coaches, referees); or if you’re outright doing their homework for them.
The second step is to change your philosophy. Our job as parents is to put ourselves out of a job and raise kids to be adults who can fend for themselves. If we’re overparenting, we’re doing some combination of overprotecting, over-directing, or hand-holding, because we believe it will help our kids be successful adults—but having had so much done for them ends up undercutting their chances for thriving out in the workplace and it messes with their mental health. So we need to shift our philosophy away from wanting the short-term gains that come when we help (e.g. the better grade, the deadline met, the hurt prevented), toward the long-term goal of raising an independent adult capable of fending for themselves out in the world.
The third step is to change your behavior. If we’d only let it, childhood will afford opportunities to build greater independence every single day. Almost every skill can be taught and learned via these four steps that I learned from the special needs community where parents and educators have to be much more intentional about building skills: First we do it for them; then we do it with them; then we watch them; and then they do it on their own. These four steps apply to all manner of competencies and capabilities we’ll want our kids to have, from waking themselves up, to making a meal, to doing laundry, to keeping track of belongings, obligations, and deadlines, to fixing things that are broken, to taking public transportation. [If we’re] hell-bent on our kids getting a high GPA or standardized test score, we may be completely overlooking our obligation to teach them these very practical things. But it’s these very practical things that will enable them to fend for themselves out in the world of work or college one day.
To learn more about Julie Lythcott-Haims and How to Raise an Adult, visit howtoraiseanadult.com!
