Tiger parents have the equation for their children’s success backwards; a Taiwan-born psychiatrist explains why

It is a summer’s day in London, not that you would know it from the rain dribbling down the large windows of the cafe at Maudsley Hospital, Britain’s largest mental-health training institute. I am sitting with Dr Holan Liang, who sips a cappuccino while a baby at the next table cries intermit­tent­ly, but loudly.

Liang seems unfazed by the piercing noise, which is per­haps not surprising given her day job. A child psychia­trist by training, her specialism at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust is in paediatric neuro­psy­chiatry: she is a consul­tant with its Community Neurodevelopment Mental Health team, and often involved in the treatment of autistic children.

In addition to this busy job, Liang works in private practice at the Effra Clinic, a boutique mental health facility in central London specialising in attention deficit hyper­active disorder and autism spectrum disorder, and has somehow found the time to write her first book, Inside Out Parenting, the bold subtitle of which reads: “How to build strong children from a core of self-esteem.”

The book is the reason we have braved today’s terrible weather. Mixing professional expertise and personal reflec­tion (about Liang’s Taiwanese parents, her experiences of raising her daughter, who is now nine years old, and son, aged seven), Inside Out Parenting distils recent research in every­thing from genetics to studies about intelligence, and offers lively, common-sense advice.

“It is not the ultimate parenting manual,” says Liang. “It is about issues that are out there, and how I have struggled to answer those questions for myself. I don’t think there is a right or wrong way. You have to find that path for yourself. What I think is important is for parents to be thinking about it constantly. But I do think I think about it more than the average parent.”

Some of the arguments in the book might raise eyebrows, not least for academically focused parents. Liang argues: “Social skills come above intelligence. Social skills are one of the funda­ment­al layers for success. Intelligence is further back. I work with children with autism, which is why I am skewed to think­ing about social skills.

“You see children with high func­tioning autism who have amazing ability but can’t get them­selves dressed and to work on time. What is the point of doing PhD level maths if you can’t function in day-to-day life?”