Glenbard Parent Series: Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington offer advice on launching teens and young adults

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington offer advice on launching teens and young adults

On May 3, 2022, Glenbard Parent Series hosted Grown and Flown: How to Support your Teen, Stay Close as a Family and Raise Independent Adults authors Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington in a webinar.

Research confirms the role parents play in the later part of their children’s lives — from the final days of childhood to the threshold of adulthood — is as important as any other life stage. As the college years loom, young people are constantly changing and how we parent them must change

Heffernan and Harrington's presentation was based on their book, “Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults,” which features insights from current and former GPS speakers Lisa Damour, Lori Gottlieb, Ken Ginsburg, Frank Bruni and Rachel Simmons. Heffernan and Harrington will offered perspective on parenting and launching teens and young adults. They will addressed family life, mental health, love, academics, separating and letting go and college life.

Heffernan and Harrington, who are writers, started the online community Grown and Flown seven years ago. They were parenting teens and often felt isolated with their problems. They discovered the teen and young-adult parenting years were conspicuously devoid of resources and community. Today, Grown and Flown is recognized as the No. 1 website and online community for parents of teens, college students, and young adults.

Click here for a recording of the program.

Takeaway

Glenbard East librarian Gabe Gancarz attended the event and shared the following takeaway:

"Resist the urge to make high school all about college-don't take their high school years away from them. Don't talk about college too soon, or too often it's ok to keep some things private regarding the college search in conversation with friends and neighbors. And get out of the 1990s, those norms no longer apply - learn the facts. Sometimes kids are not looking for a solution, they are looking for an ear. Caregivers will wage the battle between helping them too little and helping them too much all of their lives.