How to raise an adult

by Julie Lythcott-Haims

part 1 : what we're doing now
1. keeping them safe and sound
2. providing opportuinty
3. being there for them
4. succumbing to the college admissions arms race
5. to what end?

part 2 : why we must stop overparenting
6. our kids lack basic life skills
7. they've been psychologically harmed
8. they're becoming "study drug" addicts
9. we're hurting their job prospects
10. overparenting stresses us out, too
11. the college admission process is broken

part 3 : another way
THE CORE OF THE SELF
''self-efficacy"(1970) means having the belief in your abilities to complete a task, reach goals, and manage a situation. Give them unstructured time.
It is different than self-esteem, which is the belief in one's worth or value. Self-esteem influences self-efficacy, but eff is built by doing the work and seeing that success came from effort. eff is built in large part by the repeated trial-and-error opportunities afforded by childhood. It's in fact what the years we call "childhood" are for in the life of a developing human, what these years have always been for, what these years have always offered until relatively recently when we parents began doing so much of the work of life for our kids.
Give them unstructued time
teach life skills
teach them how to think
prepare them for hard work
let them chart their own path
normalize struggle
have a wider mind-set about colleges
listen to them

Part 4 : daring to parent differently
Reclaim your self
Be the parent you want to be