Julie Lythcott-Haims

Julie Lythcott-Haims draws on research, conversations with admissions officers, educators, and employers, as well as her own insights as a mother of teens and a university 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 fears that lead to overhelping, Lythcott-Haims offers practical alternative techniques that underline the importance of allowing children to make their own mistakes and develop the resilience, resourcefulness, and inner determination necessary for success.

Lythcott-Haims served as an award-winning Dean of Freshmen and Undergraduate Advising at Stanford University for over a decade. She is the New York Times bestselling author of “How to Raise an Adult,” an anti-helicopter parenting manifesto which gave rise to one of the top TED Talks of 2016, and now has over 4 million views. Her second book is the critically-acclaimed and award-winning prose poetry memoir “Real American,” which illustrates her experience with racism and her journey toward self-acceptance. Her third book called  “Your Turn: How to Be an Adult,” for young adults will be released in Spring 2021. She is a former corporate lawyer and Stanford dean, and she holds a BA from Stanford, a JD from Harvard, and an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner of over thirty years, her mother, and her itinerant young adults.