How to Raise an Adult

Last night we attended the book launch party for How to Raise an Adult, by Julie Lythcott-Haims, longtime Dean of Freshman at Stanford. Dean Julie, as she's known, has written a powerful treatise on how to avoid creating a "checklist childhood" that makes kids too busy to develop a real sense of self and purpose. Or as she wrote more eloquently, in a recent New York Times piece:

These Stanford students inspired me to loosen the reins on my own children. They taught me that a pre-programmed, enriched, spoon-fed, caged-in, “checklisted childhood” may in fact lead to an impressive “résumé” and even admission to a highly selective college, but that such achievements can come at the expense of self-efficacy — a true, innate sense of self that is undermined when a person has too much of the stuff of life planned and handled for them.

This message resonates strongly with us, and we're delighted that Julie will be speaking in our Millennium School Speaker Series this October 28th - more details on that event to come soon. In the meantime, take a look at her book, and we hope you'll find her message as valuable as we do.