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Inside Out Parenting: How to Build Strong Children from a Core of Self-Esteem
Silver Award Winner - Mumii Best Baby and Toddler Gear, Parenting Books.
What is the value of our achievements without self esteem? Dr Holan Liang presents her practical approach to bringing up children from the inside out, setting aside exterior results in favour of building a core of self-esteem, resilience and social ability.
Inside Out Parenting is a witty blend of hard science from a research and professional point of view, memoir and hands-on anecdotal evidence, offering an assured route to both happiness and success. With a balance of top tips and failed attempts, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist Holan Liang offers an empowering and holistic approach to parenting that champions building a strong base of 'inside things' so that the 'outside things', such as achievement in musical exams and academia, have a strong foundation and core of security, giving them a deeper meaning for your child.
What is the value of our achievements without self esteem? Dr Holan Liang presents her practical approach to bringing up children from the inside out, setting aside exterior results in favour of building a core of self-esteem, resilience and social ability.
Inside Out Parenting is a witty blend of hard science from a research and professional point of view, memoir and hands-on anecdotal evidence, offering an assured route to both happiness and success. With a balance of top tips and failed attempts, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist Holan Liang offers an empowering and holistic approach to parenting that champions building a strong base of 'inside things' so that the 'outside things', such as achievement in musical exams and academia, have a strong foundation and core of security, giving them a deeper meaning for your child.
316 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 18, 2017
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August 4, 2019
Take any review of a parenting book with a pinch of salt. I believe how useful one finds the advice in any parenting book ultimately depends on whether the book fundamentally resonates in some ways with your core beliefs and value systems. In other words, does it offer you confirmation bias. If the book suggests something antithetical to your belief system (for instance, if it suggests you let your kid cry it out by way of sleep training and you’re a firm believer in attachment parenting), you’re likely to view the advice with skepticism. Unless you’ve already tried everything that fits within, or is adjacent to, your belief system and are now desperate for anything that might just work for your kid.
On that front, Inside Out Parenting resonated with me. I had a bit of a rocky start with the book, when I felt that the author, Dr Holan Liang (her parents migrated to the UK from Taiwan and when her mother went into labour, her father was studying in Holland at the time, hence her unusual name), in trying to establish her credentials and also set up the narrative for the book, was engaging a bit too much in the humblebrag. But once she gets going into the substance of the book, she comes across as credible, sensible and accessible. It helps that she writes not only from the perspective of a child psychiatrist, but also as a parent of two young kids, and can tell you what she advocates from a scientific perspective, but what succeeded (and failed) when she tried put scientific theory into practice.
Liang starts off by stressing that what sets our children up for success in life is what goes on on the inside. A self-acknowledged tiger parent, Liang says she thinks that “the tiger parents, the helicopter parents, the micro-managers and maxi-organisers, the French parents whose children don’t throw food, the Chinese who are all about the tutoring, have been getting their priorities wrong. They’ve been sweating the small stuff and worrying over the less important aspects of what makes a successful child. Does it really matter if a toddler throws food, eats quinoa or can recite Latin declensions? I call these things the “outside stuff” – the things that are relatively superficial, whether they are appearances, or manners, or all the other stuff that children can get a certificate for (and parents can brag to their friends about)….the crux of the matter, the part you cannot afford to get wrong, the part that will make it all worthwhile in the long run, is the “inside stuff”…the stuff you cannot see, but you can feel in your child”. So how to go about setting your child up for life with a healthy sense of self-esteem, and a sense that they are loved and inherently worthy of love, so that the icing on the cake – thriving socially, academically and creatively – comes much more easily?
Liang stresses that genetics matters immensely in terms of shaping your children, whether it is their ability or temperament. Ignoring your child’s essential nature and natural disposition can be very corrosive to a child’s self-esteem e.g. finding ways and means of getting your child into an academically competitive school where your child may be prematurely confronted with the limitations of their ability, or coercing an introverted child who loves reading and drawing into competitive sports. Of course, environment is important too; Liang argues that it is not productive to discuss the question of nature versus nurture. As parents, what we should be concerned about is how we can best nurture nature. “By understanding our own and observing our children’s ‘genetically determined’ personality traits, we as parents are in a position to shape and manipulate their environments to suit their needs”, both their strengths and their weaknesses.
First, building that sense of self-esteem and self-worth by showing kids love. Liang stresses that it is not enough for you to know that you love your kids. Your kids need to feel loved and that this love is unconditional, whether they are good, naughty, are successful or have failed at something. For toddlers (aged two to four), this entails making time for your kids to make precious memories of laughing, having fun, feeling warm and fuzzy and getting a sense that they are loved, loveable and fun to hang out with. Praise young kids often (do you praise your kids more than 3 times a day?); esteem praise up to about the age of four (e.g. wow you are so clever!) and with functional praise kicking in after they turn two (wow, great job carrying that cup carefully so you didn’t spill water). When responding to kids, “active construction” is best (e.g. that’s fantastic! When do you start? What will you sing? When is the performance?), versus “passive construction” (e.g. “that’s nice, sweetheart”) or worse still, passive or active destruction.
As kids get older and start to attend school and can see that maybe they aren’t the smartest kid, the fastest runner, or the best dancer ever, how can we help reinforce their self-esteem and prepare them to face their weaknesses? Liang suggests that we “fix the field” by finding environments and activities that our kids are likely to thrive in, to build that sense of self-belief. Let your kid know that you believe in them. Showing your kids that failing is ok, by showing your children your mistakes is also important.
Where kids have siblings, Liang says creating positive bonds between siblings (vs sibling rivalry) is critical. Each child must feel loved and secure in themselves so they are less prone to jealousy and generous to their siblings. They must be given opportunities to bond; where there is jealousy, it should be acknowledged, named and addressed. When siblings show care towards each other, it must be acknowledged and praised to reinforce that behavior; conversely, there must be consequences for negative behaviours in order to discourage them. Liang says to encourage collaboration between siblings by giving rewards to children as a team (and also doling out punishments to both) so that siblings see each other as partners rather than rivals. Encourage pride amongst siblings when they see the other doing well, rather than competition and envy.
Having established the core of self-esteem, Liang writes that parents then need to help their kids build the first layer of social skills. She argues that whilst “intelligence may give you great ability, social skills allow you to tap into the infinitely greater collective ability of others around you”. Things like promotion, tickets to a gig, people to look after you when you are sick, job opportunities are “money can’t buy assets and no amount of intelligence, or wealth acquired by intelligence can give you access to these things.” Social skills are therefore more important than intelligence, in Liang’s book. Helping your kid upskill on social skills before starting school, so that they leave a good first impression is important. Do they have good manners? Can they communicate their needs and wants (so that they do not get frustrated if they can’t make themselves understood)? How do your kids play? How do they react when things don’t go their way? How do they read and respond to different emotional or social cues?
The second layer involved building emotional stability. Helping kids name their own emotions and understand them will help them manage them better. Modelling preferred responses to frustration and disappointment is important, as is teaching children how to deal with their emotions (e.g. speaking kindly to themselves, taking deep breaths and counting to ten to calm down) and helping them develop strategies to solve problems and challenges.
Layer three is about behavior and self-control using behavioural management, where one spells out what is desirable and undesirable behavior and rewards the desirable behaviours while punishing undesirable ones (e.g. time outs). Liang writes that behavioural management is easiest to implement if your child is “typical” and has no other problems and the parents are brilliant, have no problems and are super-consistent in what they do. In other words, you must first exclude that your child has no fundamental issues such as emotional problems or neurodevelopmental problems and even then, behavioural management is an uphill struggle for most parents.
Layer four is about building intelligence. Here, Liang states that according to the science: (a) intelligence is inherited; (b) intelligence genes are generalist genes; and (c) changes in IQ are driven mainly by environment but the influence of environment wanes over time. Genetic contribution to intelligence is approximately 20 percent in infancy, 40 percent in adolescence and 60 to 80 percent in adulthood. These statistics may or may not be consoling, depending on where you sit. In terms of parenting, it means that parents have a window up to when their kids hit 4, to “actively modify their child’s brain development, whenever possible”. This could mean working with your kids on fundamental skills such as language, attention, processing speed and memory. For older kids, it is about encouraging hard work, for kids to make the most of their natural abilities, helping children master things to grow their confidence and self-belief (e.g. in maths). By making learning fun, by customizing learning to your kids’ level, you can help them go a long way.
Layer five is on creativity and conscience. This is about helping your kids find something that they enjoy (and can enjoy with you hopefully!) and also passing on your values. The outer layers of our children – their attitudes, opinions and the activities they enjoy engaging in – are the most immediately visible. But values and opinions have their foundations in the values we hold and parents have an immense role in shaping these.
Layer six, the final layer, is about identity, gender and race. Liang urges parents to be mindful about the subliminal messages they might be passing on about gender and race to their children – what it means to be a boy, how a girl is supposed to act, what the colour of someone’s skin says about the kind of person they are. If we don’t want our children to be limited by their gender or their race, we have to make sure that are actions do not suggest otherwise.
A practical and accessible read.
On that front, Inside Out Parenting resonated with me. I had a bit of a rocky start with the book, when I felt that the author, Dr Holan Liang (her parents migrated to the UK from Taiwan and when her mother went into labour, her father was studying in Holland at the time, hence her unusual name), in trying to establish her credentials and also set up the narrative for the book, was engaging a bit too much in the humblebrag. But once she gets going into the substance of the book, she comes across as credible, sensible and accessible. It helps that she writes not only from the perspective of a child psychiatrist, but also as a parent of two young kids, and can tell you what she advocates from a scientific perspective, but what succeeded (and failed) when she tried put scientific theory into practice.
Liang starts off by stressing that what sets our children up for success in life is what goes on on the inside. A self-acknowledged tiger parent, Liang says she thinks that “the tiger parents, the helicopter parents, the micro-managers and maxi-organisers, the French parents whose children don’t throw food, the Chinese who are all about the tutoring, have been getting their priorities wrong. They’ve been sweating the small stuff and worrying over the less important aspects of what makes a successful child. Does it really matter if a toddler throws food, eats quinoa or can recite Latin declensions? I call these things the “outside stuff” – the things that are relatively superficial, whether they are appearances, or manners, or all the other stuff that children can get a certificate for (and parents can brag to their friends about)….the crux of the matter, the part you cannot afford to get wrong, the part that will make it all worthwhile in the long run, is the “inside stuff”…the stuff you cannot see, but you can feel in your child”. So how to go about setting your child up for life with a healthy sense of self-esteem, and a sense that they are loved and inherently worthy of love, so that the icing on the cake – thriving socially, academically and creatively – comes much more easily?
Liang stresses that genetics matters immensely in terms of shaping your children, whether it is their ability or temperament. Ignoring your child’s essential nature and natural disposition can be very corrosive to a child’s self-esteem e.g. finding ways and means of getting your child into an academically competitive school where your child may be prematurely confronted with the limitations of their ability, or coercing an introverted child who loves reading and drawing into competitive sports. Of course, environment is important too; Liang argues that it is not productive to discuss the question of nature versus nurture. As parents, what we should be concerned about is how we can best nurture nature. “By understanding our own and observing our children’s ‘genetically determined’ personality traits, we as parents are in a position to shape and manipulate their environments to suit their needs”, both their strengths and their weaknesses.
First, building that sense of self-esteem and self-worth by showing kids love. Liang stresses that it is not enough for you to know that you love your kids. Your kids need to feel loved and that this love is unconditional, whether they are good, naughty, are successful or have failed at something. For toddlers (aged two to four), this entails making time for your kids to make precious memories of laughing, having fun, feeling warm and fuzzy and getting a sense that they are loved, loveable and fun to hang out with. Praise young kids often (do you praise your kids more than 3 times a day?); esteem praise up to about the age of four (e.g. wow you are so clever!) and with functional praise kicking in after they turn two (wow, great job carrying that cup carefully so you didn’t spill water). When responding to kids, “active construction” is best (e.g. that’s fantastic! When do you start? What will you sing? When is the performance?), versus “passive construction” (e.g. “that’s nice, sweetheart”) or worse still, passive or active destruction.
As kids get older and start to attend school and can see that maybe they aren’t the smartest kid, the fastest runner, or the best dancer ever, how can we help reinforce their self-esteem and prepare them to face their weaknesses? Liang suggests that we “fix the field” by finding environments and activities that our kids are likely to thrive in, to build that sense of self-belief. Let your kid know that you believe in them. Showing your kids that failing is ok, by showing your children your mistakes is also important.
Where kids have siblings, Liang says creating positive bonds between siblings (vs sibling rivalry) is critical. Each child must feel loved and secure in themselves so they are less prone to jealousy and generous to their siblings. They must be given opportunities to bond; where there is jealousy, it should be acknowledged, named and addressed. When siblings show care towards each other, it must be acknowledged and praised to reinforce that behavior; conversely, there must be consequences for negative behaviours in order to discourage them. Liang says to encourage collaboration between siblings by giving rewards to children as a team (and also doling out punishments to both) so that siblings see each other as partners rather than rivals. Encourage pride amongst siblings when they see the other doing well, rather than competition and envy.
Having established the core of self-esteem, Liang writes that parents then need to help their kids build the first layer of social skills. She argues that whilst “intelligence may give you great ability, social skills allow you to tap into the infinitely greater collective ability of others around you”. Things like promotion, tickets to a gig, people to look after you when you are sick, job opportunities are “money can’t buy assets and no amount of intelligence, or wealth acquired by intelligence can give you access to these things.” Social skills are therefore more important than intelligence, in Liang’s book. Helping your kid upskill on social skills before starting school, so that they leave a good first impression is important. Do they have good manners? Can they communicate their needs and wants (so that they do not get frustrated if they can’t make themselves understood)? How do your kids play? How do they react when things don’t go their way? How do they read and respond to different emotional or social cues?
The second layer involved building emotional stability. Helping kids name their own emotions and understand them will help them manage them better. Modelling preferred responses to frustration and disappointment is important, as is teaching children how to deal with their emotions (e.g. speaking kindly to themselves, taking deep breaths and counting to ten to calm down) and helping them develop strategies to solve problems and challenges.
Layer three is about behavior and self-control using behavioural management, where one spells out what is desirable and undesirable behavior and rewards the desirable behaviours while punishing undesirable ones (e.g. time outs). Liang writes that behavioural management is easiest to implement if your child is “typical” and has no other problems and the parents are brilliant, have no problems and are super-consistent in what they do. In other words, you must first exclude that your child has no fundamental issues such as emotional problems or neurodevelopmental problems and even then, behavioural management is an uphill struggle for most parents.
Layer four is about building intelligence. Here, Liang states that according to the science: (a) intelligence is inherited; (b) intelligence genes are generalist genes; and (c) changes in IQ are driven mainly by environment but the influence of environment wanes over time. Genetic contribution to intelligence is approximately 20 percent in infancy, 40 percent in adolescence and 60 to 80 percent in adulthood. These statistics may or may not be consoling, depending on where you sit. In terms of parenting, it means that parents have a window up to when their kids hit 4, to “actively modify their child’s brain development, whenever possible”. This could mean working with your kids on fundamental skills such as language, attention, processing speed and memory. For older kids, it is about encouraging hard work, for kids to make the most of their natural abilities, helping children master things to grow their confidence and self-belief (e.g. in maths). By making learning fun, by customizing learning to your kids’ level, you can help them go a long way.
Layer five is on creativity and conscience. This is about helping your kids find something that they enjoy (and can enjoy with you hopefully!) and also passing on your values. The outer layers of our children – their attitudes, opinions and the activities they enjoy engaging in – are the most immediately visible. But values and opinions have their foundations in the values we hold and parents have an immense role in shaping these.
Layer six, the final layer, is about identity, gender and race. Liang urges parents to be mindful about the subliminal messages they might be passing on about gender and race to their children – what it means to be a boy, how a girl is supposed to act, what the colour of someone’s skin says about the kind of person they are. If we don’t want our children to be limited by their gender or their race, we have to make sure that are actions do not suggest otherwise.
A practical and accessible read.
May 25, 2020
I must begin with the fact that I had high expectations about this book, especially because it’s written by a Cambridge doctor. I expected more scientific arguments about child’s psychology after the stories of her kids during certain stages of development.
It was a pleasant reading, but it did not shifted my mind or my beliefs in any ways - it’s more of an awareness book regarding parenting nowadays and you must read it with a pinch of salt on managing you kids behaviour.
It was a pleasant reading, but it did not shifted my mind or my beliefs in any ways - it’s more of an awareness book regarding parenting nowadays and you must read it with a pinch of salt on managing you kids behaviour.
February 23, 2022
A book I really resonated with
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews