By loading kids with high expectations and micromanaging their lives at every turn, parents aren’t actually helping. At least, that’s how Julie Lythcott-Haims sees it. With passion and wry humor, the former Dean of Freshmen at Stanford makes the case for parents to stop defining their children’s success via grades and test scores. Instead, she says, they should focus on providing the oldest idea of all: unconditional love.

Julie Lythcott-Haims speaks and writes on the phenomenon of helicopter parenting and the dangers of a checklisted childhood — the subject of her book, “How to Raise an Adult.”