HOW TO RAISE AN ADULT is a new book by Julie Lythcott-Haims. I’ve seen several interviews with her and am delighted that she has written a book that gets the attention this crippling form of parenting needs!
I see the impact in my office on two distinct populations: the young teenagers who are “over parented” and the parents who are exhausting and stressing themselves DOING the over parenting. As one harried mother said to me: “I never know what my day will be like until I get the kids’s schedules worked out. I run them around before work, after work, and weekends.”
When I ask abut the reasoning behind the distressed schedules, the answers are about how important every single, and to me, over whelming sounding activity is…. several sports, multiple music lessons, social and volunteer activities, special tutoring. The list goes on and on.
The author tells us this form of parenting came into full birth in the 1980’s and says these factors contributed to fear and anxiety and “taking over” the decision making, the choices, the sense of personal responsibility ….
- stranger danger According to the author, this is a media fueled anxiety based on a couple of high profile cases that were terrifying but very unusual
- the self esteem movement. Everyone by now knows we give a trophy to every kid on the team; and that we over praise for tying shoes! The bad psychology here is kids lose perspective on what’s average or good or excellent — or, heaven forbid, a failure!
- playdates. This is one that puts focus on the child having friends and the social life of the adults essentially dependent on IF the parents like one another. It demands organized vs free play
- fears of educational competition from abroad. This created educating/teaching to a test and an increase of pressure on kids to perform. And it has created parents who DO their kids homework.
Julie’s book says these things contribute to a lack of basic life skills… for those of you over 40 think for just a minute about what/how you personally learned to get off to a good start for a successful life. According to the author you likely experienced things like this:
- free play; assigned chores; no “over praising”; role models of resilience; the absence of a “life concierge” and finally — support and guidance vs having your decisions taken over by parents.
Hopefully you read this and shake your head in disbelief about helicopter parenting. If you feel just a bit uncomfortable because you know someone who DOES parent this way, or that perhaps you do so yourself, pick up this book and take a look at your behavior.
I will go another step in outlining the harm. I had a client a few years ago who moved and changed jobs just to get away from controlling helicopter parents. And regardless of my efforts to help with returning to some form of healthy communication, it didn’t happen. That’s an extreme example and hopefully a small representation of outcome….but pay attention to developing good healthy relationships where independence and self sufficiency are developed and nurtured. Everyone will feel better!