I’ve shared enough of Julie Lythcott-Haim’s growing body of work around her book, How to Raise an Adult, that not only does she likely need no introduction to regular readers, but she also might be—through my actions, not her own—on the verge of oversaturating the Collegewise blog audience. But that’s a risk I’m willing to take. The anxiety among teens, the pressure around college admissions, the struggle for parents trying to navigate this new world with their kids that’s so much different from the one we lived in while we were in high school–Julie’s message is too vital and her perspective too wise not to share at every opportunity.
Thanks to the generous folks in the Laguna Beach Unified School District in Southern California, her recent talk to their community was both recorded and generously shared on YouTube. I hope you’ll watch it, and my guess is that most parents will be as struck as I was by how much empathy she has for her fellow parents. She and her husband have wrestled with the same questions and scenarios so many parents are experiencing as they try to balance pushing and guiding with supporting and cheerleading. I think her personal stories of her own experiences with her son will resonate with you. And I suspect you’ll be as moved as I was when she shares the tale of her sophomore, who struggled to keep up with his rigorous schedule, the culmination of which she put so endearingly: “Sawyer dropped Spanish. And we got Sawyer back.”
You can watch the entire video here. Many thanks to the LBUSD for capturing and sharing it.