On the Parent Shelf: How to Raise an Adult

I read a lot. For work, for pleasure, for curiosity’s sake, and simply because I love to learn.

I’ve read a surprising number of parenting books over the years, even though the label itself kind of makes me go ugh. So many books marketed to parents seem to suggest there’s one right way to parent if you just follow the steps. Of course children are different, families are different, and context matters. Still, I read them, partly to better understand the families I work with, and partly because the best ones give me a new lens for seeing kids, learning, and development, which makes me better at the work I do.

The books below are the ones I most often recommend to parents. Most of them are not traditional parenting books. The books I find most useful are usually the ones that shift how you understand kids: how they grow, how they learn, how they think, and how they make sense of the world. I’m writing with parents in mind, though many of these books are just as useful for educators.

Books like these make us better parents and educators not by giving us scripts to follow, but by helping us understand kids more clearly. They shape the way we think about development, behavior, learning, independence, and what children need from the adults around them. That understanding guides how we respond, how we show up, and the kind of environment we create for the kids in our care.

This image is interactive. Click the 3 dots in the bottom right corner of the interactive above to expand it to full screen or simply click here. Clicking the blinking circle on the book spine will lead you to my review and key takeaways.

Today I’m highlighting How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims, a book I most often recommend to parents in middle to upper class communities, where over-parenting tends to show up most often.

This is an outlier in the list that reads more like a traditional parenting book, but it’s one I still recommend because of how clearly it captures patterns I’ve seen play out over time. It does a really good job of helping parents recognize when support starts to shift into over-management, and how that impacts a child’s development over time.

It’s especially helpful for anyone who feels like they might be over-managing their child’s life, or who wants to take a step back and think more intentionally about how to support independence.

I’ll be highlighting each of these books one at a time here on the blog over the next few weeks. As I do, I’ll keep updating the interactive book stack above with my key takeaways from each one.