How to Raise an Adult [Review]

As parents, it can be hard to know how much structure and guidance to provide for our children as they grow up.  We know from experience and from scientific evidence that young adults are often not able to make sensible decisions, and can sometimes make unwise choices.  Does this mean that we should guide them tightly until they are fully grown up?

Of course, young children need more guidance than young adults.  But even then, it's possible to go too far.  Here's a video that went viral a few months ago.

Of course, dad pushing over son is both hilarious and tragic (we can all sympathise, I think), and the fact that the poor goalie let a goal in anyway means dad's efforts were all in vain.  But there's a deeper message here than just the outcome; we can also note that dad's mere proximity and advice seems to have been the distraction that meant the goalie was out of position in the first place.  And that transfers more generally.  If parents are always ensuring homework gets done, then teenagers never need to learnt to manage deadlines for themselves - and so the vicious circle of parents feeling they need to step in is born.  If parents are doing all the research and work for College applications, then teenagers never need to take responsibility for it - and again, parents feel they need to step in.  In these cases the reality if often that our children can do it on their own, and need just some support and guidance.  That's the theme of Julie Lythcott-Haims' 2015 How to Raise an Adult - that we need to find the middle ground between doing too much and too little.

As Dean of Freshmen and Undergraduate Advising for more than a decade at Stanford University, and as mother of two teenagers, Lythcott-Haims writes on the phenomenon of what she sees as parents who raise children, but not adults; helicopter parenting in other words which 'initially... appears to work.  As a kid, you're kept safe, you're given direction, and you might get a better grade.” But, ultimately, parents end up getting in the child’s way towards independence. Her basic point is a simple one; that there are four stages we should be taking kids through, and many of us are today in danger of failing to get to the fourth stage.

Julie Lythcott-Haims' four stages: You do it for them You do it with them You watch them do it They do it on their own The video here describes these in  quite a compelling way.

Lythcott-Haims' draws on Stanford’s Adina Glickman (Director of Learning Strategy Programmes) who suggest that more and more students today are failure deprived. That is, they do not seem to have the capacity to get back onto the horse and ride again when they have fallen  - a capacity which should have been cultivated in childhood.  Glickman has a project to normalize struggle – to teach students that struggling and even failure are normal parts of life, not to be feared.   But we shouldn't be waiting for College for kids to learn this!  Of course, sports are a particular place where we can often learn as much or more from losing as from winning, but it should go more widely.

I hesitate to claim parenting expertise here; and I know that cultures differ.  But it's worth reviewing Lythcott-Haims' and Glickman's advice:

1 Show your love and do not make it conditional on good grades
When your child needs you, stop what you are doing, let them see the joy their presence brings you.

• Take an interest in them. Seek to find out a little more about your child’s interests, ideas and concerns every day.
• Setbacks are a great opportunity to demonstrate that you understand. Sit with them. Tell them you care. Share your own hurts and setbacks; but don’t fall into the trap of blaming a teacher, the school, a mean friend, etc. Reassure them that you love them

2 Back off. 

Don’t undermine their confidence by indirectly teaching them that they cannot manage without you.

• Let them make age appropriate choices and decisions about how they want to do things. Don’t micro-manage them.
• Let them take risks and make mistakes. This is the only way to learn and grow a sense of authentic accomplishment.
• Help them grow from experience. You’re not meant to do nothing for your child; just not everything.
• After an experience/choice use questions to uncover the learning that has taken place.
• Continually raise the bar to make the challenge a little more daunting.
• Avoid setting perfectionism as the standard.

3  Build their character. 

Focus less on academic and sporting achievements and more on being the kind of human beings that  can be proud of themselves.

• Notice them doing good.
• Help them develop perspective – how fortunate they are, and help them develop a sense of gratitude.

4 Give specific and authentic feedback.

This should be realistic, and avoid the hyperbole that mean that out kids either know we are exaggerating (this praise is not likely to happen outside the home), or sets standards that are impossible to maintain.

• I like how you used colour in this picture.
• I like how you worked hard to follow the coach’s instructions.
• Using a glue gun can be tricky. You managed it so well.
• You left your lunch box in the hallway overnight and now there are ants swarming all over it. Please go and wash it out. No not later now please it will get worse if you leave it.

5 Model expected behaviour. 

We all know kids can smell hypocrisy a 100 yards away.  Walk the talk.

• Let your children know when you are facing hardship setbacks or failures and demonstrate your resilience in handling them.
• Let your children face disappointment and appreciate the importance this has in shaping them and growing their resilience.

(Here's Lythcott-Haims' TED talk too) .

Obvious maybe, but I found reading this advice very helpful.  



Reference
Lythcott-Haims, J (2015) How to Raise an Adult St. Martin's Griffin; Reprint edition