Are we measuring our children’s success the wrong way? What if your child needs something different from what you expected? How does respect change the way we successfully communicate with our adult children?
In this podcast episode, Jennifer Froemel discusses why traditional measures of success fail our children with Julie Lythcott-Haims.
Meet Julie Lythcott-Haims
Julie Lythcott-Haims is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, activist, and former Dean of Freshmen and Undergraduate Advising at Stanford University. They are the author of How to Raise an Adult, Real American, and Your Turn: How to Be an Adult, exploring parenting, identity, race, adulthood, and what it means to live an authentic life.
Julie holds degrees from Stanford University, Harvard Law School, and California College of the Arts. Their work focuses on helping people move beyond fear, shame, and societal expectations to find their own voice, values, meaning, and joy.
Visit Julie’s website and connect on Facebook and Instagram.
In This Podcast:
- The real metric for being an adult
- Giving your kids what THEY need
- Respect is the core of adult communication
The real metric for being an adult
Julie explains that they had to come to a head with their previous ideas about what it means to be a successful adult.
Julie’s son came home from college around the time of the COVID pandemic. When the restrictions were lifted, he stayed on and didn’t move back. After a while, Julie began to feel like a “failure”, since they had written the book on how to raise an independent adult child, yet their son was back living at home.
I’ve grown so much from the parent I was then, but I do want people to hear what my concerns were then, which was, “He’s failed. We’ve failed. I’m a parenting author who wrote a best-selling book about your kid becoming independent, and now mine is the very definition of not-independent”, I thought, because he’s back with us. So, I was experiencing a mélange of feelings: embarrassment, humiliation, guilt, fear.
Julie Lythcott-Haims
What slowly shifted for Julie was what it means to be an adult, and that it has much less to do with status than with who you are and how you conduct yourself.
Here we are now, 12, 13 years later, and I’ve grown a lot in my thinking. I would tell you now that I know that being an adult is not about where you live; it’s about how you behave. I would tell you now that I know that macroeconomically, many young adults cannot afford a home … because their wages and salaries haven’t kept up with the cost of living, which is not their fault at all … I have grown to appreciate broader definitions of success.
Julie Lythcott-Haims
Giving your kids what THEY need
Parents want the best for their kids, and sometimes that desire ironically gets in the way of giving their kids what they actually need.
It turns out, I was really overlooking the [fact] that my son might need more support and help because he might have some challenges, which were finally diagnosed in the fourth grade, but which, frankly, I continued to ignore because I saw his IQ as being so high and his potential as being so vast … Look at all of that getting in the way of me being able to support my son!
Julie Lythcott-Haims
Books mentioned in this episode:
Julie Lythcott-Haims – How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kids for Success
Julie Lythcott-Haims – Your Turn: How to Be an Adult
Julie Lythcott-Haims – Real American: A Memoir
Julie Lythcott-Haims – The Bonus Years: A How-To Guide for Parents and Adult Children Living Together (upcoming)
RESOURCES MENTIONED AND USEFUL LINKS
Visit Julie’s website and connect on Facebook and Instagram.
Thanks For Being Here – Gratitude for a Life-Saving Donation Podcast Episode
Thanks For Being Here – A Full Circle Kidney Donation Story
Donate to Jennifer Froemel’s Lifesaving Work in Nepal
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ABOUT THE FEAR OF CHANGE PODCAST
Change can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. The Fear of Change podcast is all about helping you embrace change and live a more fulfilling life. Hosted by Jennifer Froemel, LCPC, a therapist with nearly 30 years of experience, we cover topics like mental wellness, holistic health, and improving relationships.
Jennifer’s down-to-earth approach makes it easy to understand why we fear change and how to move past those fears. Whether you’re dealing with anxiety, relationship issues, or just feeling stuck, there’s something here for you.
