Parenting From the Inside-Out

Lately, I have been seeing an explosion of parenting advice due to shelter-in-place. Some examples are “keeping your child busy by….”, “do this anxiety reducing exercise”, “log in here for various activities”, or “how to create structure.” The common goal: keep the family harmony. (A.K.A. keep us sane!) Being forced together 24/7 has many of us digging really deep into our parenting toolbox.

I’m going to suggest a completely different way to harmonize – a tool to build relationship and parenting at the same time. It’s a theme I often discuss when I give parent seminars and seems more relevant now than ever.

I call this method: “Inside-Out.”

Do you recall this movie based on the idea of watching how our emotions can control our outer world? We had a humorous view of what might be going on inside our hearts and minds to create the actions in our outer world. Ultimately, the movie was about a girl and her parents working through a big transition and developing empathy for one another. Sounds a bit like today.

Inside-Out is about values. When was the last time you considered your values? Perhaps they have shifted? Now that you are a parent, are they different? In the age of COVID-19, do you think you have added some new ones? When we consider our own values, we can then shift into learning about someone else’s. In this case, I am speaking about our children’s. This is the inside-out. Sharing how you feel, what you believe and what drives you can bring empathy and connection in your family.

Here is an example.

Say one of your values is truth. You can sit down with your child and discuss how this is a value for you. Talk about why and how it is meaningful to you. You are not there to enforce your value on them. It is sharing from your inside self. From that platform, you can then make that into a family value or relationship value. Your child or partner will see that this is a core part of who you are and develop respect for it.

Then, you can move to the outside part. How can you manifest this in your family? Perhaps you come to an agreement that there is a rule in the family that everyone tells the truth. I think this can prompt a good discussion about what does the truth mean to each person (age-appropriate etc…), how do they feel about telling the truth, is it a shared value? If this then becomes the rule of the family, each person agrees to live by this value.

What if there is a violation of the rule?

Parents still make the choices for how a family functions. Make the consequences objective. What I mean is that keep them non-judgmental. Bring up the value and then the consequence is about the person going against the value, not against you. This can become more teachable.

Here is another example from a friend where the value wasn’t shared and still enriched their family harmony. Her daughter loves order. My friend loves the chaos of her busy artist area which the spills into the house. When they talked about values, her daughter shared this. My friend doesn’t share the value but had empathy and caring for her daughter. Further, it helped them both understand why there may be conflict. The outer conflict is not personal against her mother – it is foundational to her own inner self. The resolution for them was a conversation about this value. My friend and her daughter talked about how each could support this value in the family. It didn’t become a family rule per se, yet there was an understanding between the two of them, which harmonized the inside and the outside.

So, I challenge you to consider an inside-out approach to relationships at home. You have plenty of time to play the “values” game. Take a list of values (I like the list below adapted from Dare To Lead, by Brene Brown) and sit down with your kids and talk about them. Do you know what your children’s values are? What about your partner? What about your best friend? Not only might this discussion create some of your family’s values, it might lead to develop rules for harmony and growth within your home. Now is the time for intimate and loving conversation about who we are at the core - what is in our heart – inside and out.

Jennifer Eve Taylor, JD
Founder and Managing Consultant

Jennifer Eve Taylor, JD, is the Founder of JET ED Consulting, an academic consultation and coaching service based in San Francisco. JET ED Consulting specializes in advising and supporting students and families affected by learning differences and emotional challenges. Jennifer has extensive experience helping to place students with mental health diagnoses into appropriate therapeutic programs —which vary from acute psychiatric hospitals to wilderness camps and specialized boarding schools.

VALUES LIST

Accountability

Achievement

Adaptability

Adventure

Altruism

Ambition

Authenticity

Balance

Beauty

Being the best

Belonging

Career

Caring

Collaboration

Commitment

Community

Compassion

Competence

Confidence

Connection

Contentment

Contribution

Cooperation

Courage

Creativity

Curiosity

Dignity

Diversity

Environment

Efficiency

Empathy

Equality

Ethics

Excellence

Fairness

Faith

Family

Financial Stability

Forgiveness

Freedom

Friendship

Fun

Future

Generations

Generosity

Giving back

Grace

Gratitude

Growth

Harmony

Health

Home

Honesty

Hope

Humility

Humor

Inclusion

Independence

Initiative

Integrity

Intuition

Job security

Joy

Justice

Kindness

Knowledge

Leadership

Learning

Legacy

Leisure

Love

Loyalty

Making a difference 

Nature

Openness

Optimism

Order

Parenting

Patience

Patriotism

Peace

Perseverance

Personal Fulfillment 

Power

Pride

Recognition

Reliability

Resourcefulness

Respect

Responsibility

Risk taking

Safety

Security

Self-discipline

Self-expression

Self-respect

Serenity

Service

Simplicity

Spirituality

Sportsmanship

Stewardship

Success

Teamwork

Thrift

Time

Tradition

Travel

Trust

Truth

Understanding

Usefulness

Vision

Vulnerability

Wealth

Well-being

Wisdom