The Key to Happiness: Raising Successful Kids Without Over-parenting

Synthesis of Julie Lythcott-Haims’s Ted Talk

Ultimately, what is the thing most parents say they want more than anything for their children? To be happy, successful, independent individuals. So, the question is, what can we do now to give them the best chances of that future becoming reality?

In her Ted Talk, “How to Raise Successful Kids Without Overparenting,” Lythcott-Haims shares some pertinent findings from the Harvard Grant Study, a 75-year longitudinal study of 268 healthy Harvard college sophomores from the classes of 1939–1944. They found that, “Happiness in life comes from love, not love of work, but love of humans: our spouse…our friends, our family.” She concludes that, “Childhood needs to teach our kids how to love, and they can't love others if they don't first love themselves, and they won't love themselves if we can't offer them unconditional love.” It seems too simple, right? But what about that independence part parents are so concerned about?

Lythcott-Haims notes that when we become overly involved in every moment of our children’s lives, never giving them the opportunity to try things out for themselves, to fail, and then pick themselves back up again, “We send our kids the message, ‘Hey kid, I don’t think you can actually achieve any of this without me.’ We deprive our kids of the chance to build self-efficacy…[which] is developed when one sees that one’s own actions lead to outcomes…If our children are to develop self-efficacy, and they must, then our children are going to have to do a whole lot more of the thinking, planning, deciding, doing, hoping, coping, trial and error, dreaming and experiencing of life for themselves.”

The beautiful thing is, that all of these opportunities are woven into the fabric of the daily Montessori environment here at MSM.

Our goal as Montessori educators is to, of course, provide each child with an individualized education that can him achieve his greatest potential. However, we also care deeply about the overall development of your child: body, mind, and spirit. We want your child to become confident learners who advocate for themselves, and who, above all, love themselves and others, and thus treat others with generosity, kindness, and respect.

We want each child to become a life-long-lover of learning; for him to know that he is loved, supported, and valued, no matter where he goes to college, or what career path he chooses. We want for him to grow up with a sense of self-efficacy, knowing that he can dream, set goals for himself, and develop the skills and determination to achieve those goals. Lythcott-Haims concludes, “I was going to carefully clip and prune and shape [my children] into some perfect form of a human...But I've come to realize…my kids aren't bonsai

trees. They're wildflowers of an unknown genus and species -- and it's my job to provide a nourishing environment…not to make them become what I would have them become, but to support them in becoming their glorious selves.”

And that truly, is our ultimate goal as

.

So, what kind of gardener will you be?

Source:

Lythcott-Haims, Julie. “How to Raise Successful Kids Without Overparenting.” TED. Nov. 2015. Lecture.