When I'm speaking with parents, I say try to be as loving but as respectfully distant as you are with your best friend's kid.

This is Kelly Corrigan and this week I'm wondering what it would take to get our heads right for the new year.

So we're kicking off a four-part series called the 2022 regroup when we look at four parts of our lives that might need some attention.

Today I'm with New York Times best-selling author and speaker and activist Julie Lithcott-Hames.

She's the author of the anti-helicopter parenting manifesto had a raise in adults and she's incredibly honest about her own frustrations and limitations as a parent.

Julie and I take a hard look at the ways we may be unknowingly over parenting are generally more capable than we give them credit for kids.

We'll be right back. Welcome to Kelly Corrigan Wonders.

Hey, this is Kelly Corrigan and I'm back with Kelly Corrigan Wonders.

Julie Lithcott-Hames is a writer and a speaker. She has a hugely popular TED Talk based on her book How to Raise an Adult.

She's an activist committed to diversity, equal representation and inclusion and she also worked at Stanford as the Dean of Freshman where she was known for her fierce advocacy of young adults.

Her most recent book is called Your Turn, How to Be an Adult, which includes some paradigm-shifting ideas like being an adult is not a checklist, it's a process.

And as you'll hear, Julie has two children of her own, a son who's 22 and a daughter who's in college.

So Julie, the thing I wanted to talk to you about is parenting and in particular, perfectionism, agency and celebrations.

So are you feeling ready? Like you're going to get this whole audience organized intellectually and emotionally for parenting in 2022. It's a tall order but you are the girl to do it.

No pressure. Can we go back to 2021?

So you talk a lot about perfectionism and expectations. And I was reading it as if it was something I didn't do.

It didn't apply to me because in one particular area, I am not a perfectionist, which is to say, I'm not all over my kids about grades and I haven't been for ages.

I don't even know how to log into those school-ology-type tracking devices.

I had it in my head that I was better than the parent that you were talking about.

And then I had some quality time with my quasi-adult children who were home for the holidays.

And I realized that the perfectionism that I might be expecting is in all kinds of areas, like for instance, mood perfection.

It's not super tolerant of kids who are home for a short amount of time being in a crappy mood.

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