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How To Raise an Adult: Break free of the overparenting trap and prepare your kid for success
by Julie Lythcott-Haims
About the Book
“In How to Raise an Adult, Julie Lythcott-Haims draws on research, on conversations with admissions officers, educators, and employers, and on her own insights as a mother and as a student dean to highlight the ways in which overparenting harms children, their stressed-out parents, and society at large. While empathizing with the parental hopes and, especially, fears that lead to overhelping, Lythcott-Haims offers practical alternative strategies that underline the importance of allowing children to make their own mistakes and develop the resilience, resourcefulness, and inner determination necessary for success.”
My Thoughts
I am raising a child with type 1 diabetes and I have been thinking a lot about giving her independence and the tools she needs to take care of herself and not be under the constant watch of her parents. While I’m not quite ready to hand over overnight care to her just yet, I want her to have many of the freedoms and experiences that her peers are having. She is doing a three-week day camp this summer where she will self-manage her diabetes and her food allergy. While we were going to get her a phone before she started middle school, we decided to get her one at the beginning of summer so that she can call or text and so that the DexCom share app will alert me if she’s been high or low for an extended period of time. (And I set the alarms on my phone so that it doesn’t alert me to highs or lows right away, rather I’m giving her a chance to respond to the alarms and deal with it herself first.)
Because they literally need to be able to take care of themselves as they become tweens/teens and young adults, it’s important to empower kids with diabetes with the tools and independence to make their own decisions in terms of their diabetes. But I see many parents of kids with diabetes over-parenting. It’s a difficult balance to be sure.
I’ll give you one example of what I personally consider diabetes over-parenting: I see parents being irritated that their child’s diabetes camp doesn’t want them carrying the Nightscout rig.
I’m so against this for so many reasons, especially because diabetes camp is the one place where there is such a high ratio of medical staff to camper that they get great diabetes care during that week. Plus, you shouldn’t be worrying about your child’s blood sugar while they are at d-camp because that week should be just as much a break for the parent! But, hey, it’s your child and I’m not judging you. It’s just not for me. In fact we use diabetes camp as a good week for her to take a CGM break.
The book How To Raise an Adult: Break free of the overparenting trap and prepare your kid for success by Julie Lythcott-Haims intrigued me because I feel like that’s something I want to be conscious of as I prepare my child for middle school, then high school, then going off to college…all with diabetes. Type 1 diabetes adds a factor to independence that kids without diabetes just don’t have to overcome.
I’ll admit that I am not finished reading the entire book yet, but I wanted to share a few thoughts.
First of all this book focuses a lot on the issues that face middle and upper income families. In fact it is pointed out many times in the book that children of lower income families gain resilience and adversity out of necessity. Many examples in the book reference Stanford or Westpoint and kids who attend public and private schools, not those serving poor communities.
A chapter that intrigued me and I thought would be applicable to parents raising kids with diabetes is titled “Normalize Struggle.” Our kids face adversity that other kids don’t face. It can be a tough life, but most kids seem to thrive despite having the medical condition. It’s as if it toughens them up in some ways, maybe because they have to work harder to do the simplest things like participating in sports and dance and other activities. If they want to do these things, they find ways to make it work.
To bring that back around to self-managing during this three-week camp, I’m not expecting Q to get it right 100% of the time. In fact I just want her to get through the day with as little distraction from diabetes as possible so that she can enjoy herself. I want to be conscious not to blame her for extended high or low blood sugars, but rather empower her to try to make the best decisions she can at the time. As the d-parent we all know that there are so many factors that go into the 20 diabetes decisions we make every day. So if she gets it mostly right, that’s great. If she gets some things wrong, then hopefully we can figure out how she can do it better next time.
Here is a page from the chapter “Normalize Struggle” that I think pertains to this (p. 235):
Help them grow from experience. You’re not meant to do nothing for them–you’re just not meant to do everything. Here’s how to help them grow from their experiences.
- After the experience, decision, or choice has been made, engage in a questioning dialogue to unpack what your kid learned from the experience. If there’s a problem, help them think for themselves how to solve it. Say, for instance, Hmmm, that sounds really tough How do you think you want to handle that? We can offer advice. We can model a solution in our own lives. But we mustn’t do it for them.
- Continue to set the bar higher. Humans want to grow and learn, to be capable of more and more and more. As your kid demonstrates her trustworthiness and good judgement, you can give her more responsibility, opportunity, challenge, and freedom. This builds competence, which builds confidence, both of which build resilience.
- Combat perfectionism. The phrase “just do your best” is quixotic. Just do your best? The best is the very best you can give; there is nothing better. How is a child–or any one of us, for that matter–going to manage to always perform at that high standard without losing their minds? What we mean when we say “just do your best” is something more like “do the best you can in that moment” or even more forgiving “try to give it your best effort.” These phrases acknowledge that in any moment a number of factors could weigh against our ability to do our actual best and that it’s the trying, the effort, that matters.
For more information about the book, visit the “How To Raise An Adult” webpage.
Purchase How To Raise an Adult: Break free of the overparenting trap and prepare your kid for success by Julie Lythcott-Haims from my affiliate Amazon.
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I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own. I received a copy of the book for review consideration, but did not receive compensation. Please read my disclosure statement.
My daughter is 11 and just finished up her first year of middle school. This past school year she gained so much more independence with her school management. I will admit that I felt she was ready for that independence the previous year, but the school wasn’t. She was almost completely independent with her diabetes care at school, only having to check in with the health office at lunch time and that was more for accountability than because they actually provided any care for her.
It was liberating for both of us to see how she handled things. We did use nightscout, and now the Dexcom share, but only again as a safety net. It provided me with peace of mind knowing that she was caring for herself without my input, and for her it allowed her more personal freedom without worry. She knew that if she missed the Dexcom alarm that I was watching too. I didn’t contact her unless a significant amount of time had gone by and a low blood sugar was not coming up, just to make sure she was okay.
This type of management works really well for us and allows her to gain some confidence, without feeling like I’ve just thrown her in the sea without a flotation device.
Successful independence is definitely the goal! 🙂 We do not have Nightscout or the Share and we manage just fine right now. Thankful for a school nurse that helps our girl to manage with an appropriate amount of independence at school, just like we are attempting to do at home. Thanks for the opportunity!
Our daughter just finished 2nd grade. With the help of our great school nurses, she has become more responsible for herself this year, asking to go to the health office when there is a class treat (which happens way too often, imo) instead of waiting for the teacher to send her to the Health Office. Earlier this year she learned that her teacher did not understand type 1 diabetes at all, despite the hour long meeting we had with her at the beginning of the school year. I’m glad the year is over, but more thankful that my daughter learned to speak up for and take more responsibility for herself.
I know! What is it with the classroom treats, anyway? My son has to call me when they have them (their rules, not mine–he would rather just quietly slip it into his backpack for later than make a big production out of it). Some weeks this year he was calling every day. I feel certain that if the other parents knew just how often their kids are getting candy they’d be annoyed too. I’ve mentioned it to a few, but probably not the ones who would be the most upset.
We started out the year with a district nurse who was totally unclear on T1d and was antagonistic toward our health assistant, who was very good. Then they both retired, and we have some excellent, proactive people in place now. My son has had to be more independent than he wanted to be, just because they were new (and fortunately, willing to listen to a 9yo). 🙂
I really appreciate your comments and thinking on the topic of independence. We do not use Nightscout or Share because my needle phobic son cannot bear the “harpoon” inverters for CGMs. I am his night scout… But as he enters 8th grade I can say that heis almost entirely independent at school and out and about. At home a level of laxness takes over. I am still hoping for that school-like independence to carry over.
Another aspect of independence has been self-advocating around his Anxiety and OCD, both issues that came to us with Type 1 diabetes. He is treated and currently medicated to help with coping and to keep stress-related blood sugar lower, but he needs school staff and others to recognize that he deals with more than just a pump when he walks the halls at school. This part is harder than diabetes self management, but with so many people experiencing Type 1 AND anxiety, etc… It turns out for us to be an important piece of working toward independence!
I think this would be a great read, thanks for sharing.