Parenting Books Archives • D-Mom Blog

June 8, 2015 by Leighann

{Bookshelf} How To Raise An Adult

I received a copy of this book, please see the disclaimer below.

How To Raise an Adult: Break free of the overparenting trap and prepare your kid for success

by Julie Lythcott-Haims

Raise An Adult

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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Links to bookstores are affiliate links and are provided so that you can find the books easily. I personally utilize the public library quite a bit, especially for audiobooks and fiction. I received this title for review consideration. Please read the disclosure statement regarding affiliate links. Book descriptions are taken directly from the book or from online sources.

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.

June 27, 2011 by Leighann

{Bookshelf} When did I get like this? : the screamer, the worrier, the dinosaur-chicken-nugget-buyer, and other mothers I swore I’d never be

When did I get like this? : the screamer, the worrier, the dinosaur-chicken-nugget-buyer, and other mothers I swore I’d never be

by Amy Wilson

Over the last seven years of long days with little children, I have had many moments of joy, calm, and peaceful reverie. This book is about the other moments.

About the Book

“What kind of mother feeds her kids dinosaur chicken nuggets . . . three times a week? What kind of mother lets hand washing slide after using the toilet, as long as it was just Number One?

When Did I Get Like This?”

My Thoughts

When Did I Get Like This I read a good portion of this book on a camping trip and then finished it in an airport during a long day of travel. While camping my husband took the kids down to the concession on a Saturday night to listen to a small town band and eat ice cream. I was more than happy to hang back in our pop-up in the air conditioning and listen to the near silence (the cicadas were pretty darn loud!). I will grab a minute of alone time whenever and wherever I can find it…even if it is in the middle of a state park with, gasp, no cell service and thus no internet access!

As I read this book, I dog-eared at least a dozen pages so that I could come back and quote them to you. Explanations of why men can’t multi-task, why we have to give fifteen step instructions lest the job not get done right (i.e, the way we want it done), why we feel the need to do things to perfection when half-ass is probably good enough. But I think the book is better read for yourself without me giving spoilers.

It’s not that Amy and I share the same path, it’s that I can relate to her journey as she became a mother. Whereas she had a difficult time getting pregnant and an easy time breastfeeding, my path was the complete opposite. But it’s the sarcasm and snark (who, me?!) that helps her deal with the stresses of mothering young children that I appreciate.

I especially nodded in agreement when she went to the Baby and Me class with her third child and had to contain herself when interacting with some first-time moms. As a veteran mom, I come across the same attitudes from some parents in my son’s preschool class who are first timers. (I can feel my eyes rolling just thinking about some of the parents.)

I will give you one quote that perhaps is applicable to my fellow d-moms and myself, even if it’s for a completely different reason. Amy says towards the end of the book after departing a flight with a child who threw up on her a dozen times and received no assistance from the flight attendants:

Again and again, motherhood will throw at me things for which I will feel, and may indeed be, completely unprepared. What will decide whether or not I am a good mother is not whether I am ready for such times, but how I move through the door. (p. 243)

I kind of feel that way about being handed a diabetes diagnosis in my young child. Of course none of us were prepared for our children to be diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, we weren’t prepared for the sheer mental and physical exhaustion of their care, we weren’t prepared to become doctors, nurses, dietitians, short-order cooks and waitresses (okay, maybe we were already short-order cooks and waitresses for our families). But so many of us have taken the diagnosis and walked through that door to a world of support and advocacy, whether it’s support and advocacy for others or just our own children. We rise to the occasion out of necessity of keeping our children alive, but end up going beyond what is expected of us to just get the job done.

It’s often so easy to feel like a failure when we’re handed an A1c that’s higher than we would have liked or expected. But we have to remember that we aren’t being graded. We are doing the best we can given the circumstances and knowledge we have at that time.

So while most of my “review” has everything to do with diabetes and nothing to do with the topics in her book, I think you will appreciate hearing another parenting story because you will see that other moms who might seem on the surface to have it all together, actually have their own struggles.

And some moms, like Amy, can actually sit back and laugh about it.

Learn more about Amy Wilson on her website.

Purchase When did I get like this? : the screamer, the worrier, the dinosaur-chicken-nugget-buyer, and other mothers I swore I’d never be by Amy Wilson from my affiliate Amazon.