Child Development Specialist: When discipline begins, why punishment doesn’t work & clear vs. gentle parenting

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0:40Next thing you know, Wayfair delivers it right to your patio and sets it up. Oh, you need a new grill too? Alright, Wayfair's got you covered. With Wayfair's room of choice delivery and fast expert setup on qualifying orders, life gets a little easier. Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app. Wayfair, every style, every home. Welcome back to another episode of Two Parents in a Podcast. Today, we're going to talk about discipline. We're going to talk about childhood development with Dr. Siggy Cohen. We are so excited to have you here today. Dr. Siggy is a child development specialist with over 35 years of experience working with children and families.

1:19Thank you for being here today.

1:21Dr. Siggie Cohen:Thank you so much. I'm already loving it. That's good. That's good. That's the idea. I didn't realize I was also a discipline specialist, but only because I've sat on the wrong side of how much I was disciplined growing up as a child. That's not good. Must have done a lot wrong. We need to have your parents here. Yes. They were great discipliners, and there was a lot of reprimanding that needed to be done. Well, you turned out good. But yeah, thank you so much for joining us today. Before we get into it, we'd love to hear any additional information that you think would be helpful for our listener to know about you and your background and your experience.

2:09Sure. So I am an avid advocate of children and their well-being. And because of that, I loved from as long as I can remember being around children.

2:24Dr. Siggie Cohen:So for me, it's a joy, literally, not stress, being with kids. And I don't mean to sound like this is, you know, oh, you should all. I understand that children can be stressing and stressful, and it's not easy at all. But I'm just saying, like, personally, I always enjoyed being around kids. For me, it's like a happy place. So I basically took that into my whole career where I was a preschool teacher. I was even a camp counselor at some point. I was an after-school program director. I mean, I was around kids and families through and through. and always somehow went back to school to further my education, to do more in the same field.

3:10Dr. Siggie Cohen:So I remained in the same field. Even when I taught, for example, I taught college, I taught teachers-to-be. So even that was part of me staying within the same field always and helping parents, teachers, and children. And really, my goal is for them to all get along. I love it. I mean, if that's not the dream. Amazing. And what does that translate to in terms of formal training? You mean like the different degrees? Exactly. Right. So, yeah, I did a bachelor's degree in early childhood and a master's degree in psychology and education and a PhD in exceptionalities, which is a field within psychology and education, learning about the wide range of children and their differences, sometimes as it shows at schools and otherwise.

4:13Dr. Siggie Cohen:So I basically went into this field collecting a lot of pieces of knowledge. That's how I felt. It was not one path, and it's not a traditional path at all. I love that we were like, what else should the listener know? And she's like, I love kids, but she has a master's and a Ph.D., which we knew. But I love that you didn't lead with that. I liked it. And so to generally set the direction for today's episode, we have a daughter who's about to turn one.

4:55What are we calling it? Discipline? Yeah, I think we're going to largely call it discipline. I don't know that there's a better word for it. Rules and discipline? Yeah, well, I think discipline maybe has a negative, like an angry connotation to it. Which I don't like. But I do think that's the term we're looking for. Yeah. Probably. So I think that discipline for most people, I used to ask my students, by the way, what does the word discipline mean to you? And a whole room of people would say one word, punishment. That's one of our questions. What's the difference between discipline and punishment?

5:30Dr. Siggie Cohen:And discipline, by the way, is not punishment at all. And certainly not where I come from in my approach and philosophy. Nothing to do with punishment or rewards. It's not this kind of like bargaining, give and take, constantly conditioning. There is that somewhat related to it. People still use it a lot. I know for parents, very hard to get away from it, right? If you don't do this or here, one more cookie. But then, you know, I mean, there's a lot of that. I don't take this approach. So let's go back. The word discipline actually means structure, order, not punishment. It doesn't translate to punishment or reward.

6:14Perfect.

6:14Dr. Siggie Cohen:We need order in life because it keeps us safe. It gives us a sense of knowing and predictability or consistency, which calms us down. So discipline is the word because I love structure and I love order. because that's something that I think children need. Yes. They really need in order to thrive and succeed. So my first question is, what age does discipline start? That's a good question. I would say probably a toddlerhood, which is typically where we see them as starting from 14, somewhere between 14 to 16 months old. It's like the stage of toddlerhood. And then it continues. It's almost as if it starts with literally one day your child, your baby wakes up, stands up and says the word no.

7:14Dr. Siggie Cohen:To you. To you. Good morning. No. And then you think, uh-oh. Uh-oh. Where did that come from? Where did you learn it? Why? What do you mean? No, that's not nice. Right there, we are starting to go down the wrong path because we misinterpret that no. We do as parents. Yes, we do as parents. And how do you misinterpret it? You think that your kid is just saying no to you, but they don't really know what they're saying. They know and they don't because a lot of it, by the way, language development is organic. We don't learn all of our language just from being around it. We do a lot of it. But it's almost as if it's being triggered in our brain, as if our brain is pre-programmed to language, which is a lot of times how you suddenly understand things or know a word like, what did I hear?

8:07Or know what it means. A lot of it is literally just there. So the word know represents a developmental stage of the beginning of sense of self for children. and we look at it as defiant, right? My child, what do you mean no? That's not nice. And you, you know, I mean, even to a little toddler, no, we don't say no. I mean, we start with that. It's just a word. I learned something new and I'm using it and I'm just a toddler. And I maybe don't exactly know what it means, but I do have a feeling of the word. And that's another thing. Language is not just words. It's almost like feelings. It's a vibe.

8:54It's an energy. It's their first sense of self? It's their first sense of self. It's like you just said good morning to me. That's you. But I don't want to say the same because I'm me. I'm different. So it's actually sweet. It's very sweet. It's actually, I would say, even important. The word no has gotten such a bad connotation now, right? Don't say no, and no is not nice, and I don't want to ever say no to my child. No is not a bad word. It's a word of boundary. It's a word of maybe pause. I mean, this word means a lot of different things, not necessarily disrespect, defiance, negativity. So back to your toddler, where does discipline start?

9:46by misunderstanding them. And now we think they need to be disciplined. I said, no, that's not okay, no. And we use that no in an almost punitive intonation, even before we use it for any real punishment, because I don't know that we punish our toddlers. So we misinterpret. We misinterpret. One of the things that I often say, which is why I in a way started by my bachelor degree was in early childhood. Understanding child development allows you to not misinterpret children. And therefore your response and reaction to what they are, who they are, what they do is different. It doesn't mean you condone every behavior and it's all, oh, this is part of their development.

10:39It just means you read it better. You have a better understanding of what it means. Guys, let's talk about Harbor Baby Monitor and why it's the best baby monitor for the stressed or tired parent. Harbor simplifies monitoring with features that reduce stress instead of adding it. Smart audio filters out unnecessary noise so you only hear what matters and you can actually sleep. And having both the dedicated beautiful 10-inch display and mobile app lets you check easily without the extra stress. It's reliable, intuitive, and designed to make parenting a little bit easier. You can do remote viewing through an app, and you can check it anytime you want.

11:19It's a plug-and-play setup, so it's perfect for travel. And you can watch up to four kids at once with custom sound thresholds for each, and there's no subscriptions. Restore your peace of mind with Harbor, the only baby monitor designed to never fail you. Plus, Harbor has a special deal for our listeners. Use code 2Parents or go to harbor.co slash 2Parents for$50 off and experience the security every parent deserves. That's H-A-R-B-O-R dot C-O slash 2Parents. And so to build off that, let's say you're a parent and your child is now 14, 16 months. You see those first signs of self-understanding and it feels like it's now time to start introducing discipline.

12:15what are the do's and what are the don'ts of disciplining a toddler? Right. So if I misinterpret this no and I think my child was just rude to me, right,

12:32Dr. Siggie Cohen:disrespectful even, right, that's not nice, right, people react like that. So now I would want to correct them. And I would repeat myself by saying a lot of that's not nice. why are you saying that? I just said good morning and now I'm going all over the place. And I almost ballooned this little incident that is significant but not the way I think. So instead of, you know, making them now feel bad about the fact that they learned something new and still don't use it so well. We don't reprimand them for standing up and falling down because they are still wobbly. Everything's practiced. They don't know how to do something, so they may not use it well enough, but there's nothing wrong with it.

13:27Dr. Siggie Cohen:So my discipline, which we go back to, is structure, order, maybe guidance. Because I understand, maybe I will guide them better. So instead of reprimanding, disciplining, right? Not okay, that's not nice. I will go with it. Wow, look at you. You learned the word no. No is a very good word. Sometimes we say no, right? Absolutely, yeah. And, you know, I am now actually expanding my little toddler's mind by explaining to them what they just did organically, but not making them feel bad for it. But I still have some discipline in there where I say we don't always say no. So, for example, right now I said good morning.

14:18You can say good morning. and because they really did like it, maybe they'll say no. You know, like, you know, probably we can say no sometimes. Let's just say no a lot of times. No, no, no, no. Then we can say good morning or we can say up or let's go to the kitchen. I am again introducing them to a bigger form of interaction rather than I am confronting them for bad behavior. And so in that scenario, they're just sort of saying no, and then you're sort of playing with that word and accepting it, but not reprimanding them, punishing them for it. What if you're saying we're going to eat breakfast?

15:06And they're like, nope. Right. They will.

15:09Dr. Siggie Cohen:Once they start saying no, they will say a lot of it. And it's very hard because, you know, how do you guide a child and basically set sort of like that kind of boundary to you in almost a defiant way? So, again, yes, we are. You know, no is a good word, but yes, we are going to eat breakfast. Now, here is another thing that as they get older, we're beginning to recognize they do have a voice. They have some say, right? I'm not saying that they always make the right decision. You know, they don't want to eat as if they know exactly what it means. But maybe they do because, you know, you have a little one and you have seen her from the very beginning.

15:53If she doesn't want to nurse or take the bottle, she will, right, close her mouth. I mean, you can't force that. So how does she know that she is not hungry or full? She knows. She was born with that. So I can say, you know, oh, wait, because no.

16:12Dr. Siggie Cohen:And a toddler will say no to now all sorts of stuff. I'm putting them in the high chair. No, I'm about to put a beep. I mean, all right. And so they just basically overuse this one word because they feel really good about it. So I will actually break it down. Yes, we are going to sit in the high chair. Or are you saying no to the high chair? you can climb maybe you can help me or here we're gonna do this is the toddler really saying no about the food because a lot of times they'll say no no no and then they'll point and so you see that they misuse the word and we look at them as novices right they are inexperienced they learned something new but don't actually know how to use it so you work with it i like to break it down so like in the specific scenario of no I don't want to eat you know we're going to go have breakfast no instead of then saying yes we are like because that probably doesn't that doesn't move anybody forward but breaking it down to really helpful piece of advice of like well there's the high chair yes or no to that do you ever say that yes or no to the sure absolutely we could do the high chair we could do this babe or we could do this babe yes and then here are the food options because you do want to eat so you just kind of hear the word no you move right past it and you say we'll break this down and give you options yes but you don't get so mad about the no you just kind of say okay you work with it because your child again you see your child learning new things and it's not where'd you learn it or that's not okay you're not sort of like um segregating good bad you are allowing them and expanding their mind to understand how to use something better not not at all, all the time, never, just better.

18:02So no, again, starts with no is a great word. Wow, you say it so well. I can go on and on just about that. Because maybe your toddler just said no about, you know, even going down the stairs, or they want to do it on their own, or they want to drag something with them. Right? I mean, you break it down, because that no is one word that right now just means whatever you say is not what I say. We're not talking. So let me try and understand you better. And it makes perfect sense. So you can tell me if I'm digesting this correctly, but it feels like the key to discipline in the early stages of toddlers really all comes down to communication and it's much more a communication game than it is a discipline game yes and understanding that we don't necessarily communicate well yet and exactly where i was gonna go and it almost the thing that funny enough came to mind was it's almost like you're playing a game of charades with your child where they're giving you cues or clues as to what they're thinking or saying.

19:21And we need to, um, we need to play that kind of guess and test to figure out, all right, what do they actually mean? Um, versus, you know, taking it at face value, which like intuitively sounds pretty obvious it's like of course a 18 or 18 month old doesn't know doesn't know what they mean but like i i see how you can also not not recognize that right um and yeah so it really here just you know sounds like patience and and communication and understanding and having the knowledge because i'll give you another example that we don't actually recognize that it's exactly the same so once again we take the word no as defiance but yet young children use one word usually when they learn one word and they generalize so let's say that they learned to say tweet for the bird right tweet tweet tweet they'll see a duck and it's tweet tweet and they'll you know, something else, whatever, another kind.

20:29They will take one word. I mean, sometimes they even do it with mama and dada, right? We're both dada. Yes, they learn this one word and they'll use it with a lot of different people. No, that's not mama. But they learn this one word and they kind of get that it relates. It's in the same arena sort of, but they don't have more words. So it's what we call general language. age it we wolf at cows like we moo it makes yes exactly that of course everything is yes yeah of course they wouldn't know no means yeah it's just it's actually a really really really good point because i think one thing i see a common theme around moms that have kids our babies age is we're all really anticipating when this discipline starts you know and how best to handle it and are they being defiant, you know, or are they not?

21:24And they just, they really don't know. And so being able to delineate between the difference and understanding they have such limited language. They have no idea is very calming. I think by now you guys have probably heard of built where you can earn points on your monthly rent payment, but did you know they make it possible for you to get more outside of your home too? If you're paying rent every month without earning anything in return, let me introduce you to built you guys, because the rewards program is designed for renters who want to earn something on their largest monthly expense. By paying rent through Built, you earn flexible points that can be redeemed towards hundreds of hotels and airlines, a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and so much more.

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22:44Is there a case for punishment since we now understand the difference between discipline and punishment? Discipline is the structure and organization. But is there a time when you would need to do punishment? So if you ask me, and I really want to tell all parents, I understand, especially if you have other kids or you've come from, it's very hard to really not do it and if you do it i don't want you to feel bad okay but i know for a fact it doesn't actually work it only creates punishment does not work it doesn't work love it your children learn so quickly one to punish you back by the way okay in many many different ways they're very smart They learn to use the tactic against you in sort of like covert ways.

23:38So punishment is sort of like eye for an eye for an eye for an eye. Like where does it end? It's like we also use punishment a lot of times nowadays in the wrong form because, or I should say out of context. context because we are so giving accommodating understanding acknowledging loving and then suddenly we no you can't have this do this or don't do like we suddenly condition them it's you know in a world that wasn't so accommodating to children maybe you could have used it and maybe it worked for many years but the fact that it's so much more obsolete now it's because it didn't even worked then.

24:21But the world condoned it better and sort of like held it together. Is there an age where you think punishment becomes effective? No. Actually, it becomes less and less and less effective. And what happens is this. You begin to really rely on object and privileges as your authority as a parent. Suddenly, the screen, the dessert or even a play date or, you know, whatever it is becomes so much more important because you can give it and remove it. But what if you don't have these objects and privileges?

25:01Dr. Siggie Cohen:Don't you have the authority with your child to go, hey, uh-uh, no, but I know, I can hear you, I understand. Yes, I mean, they cry. And by the way, you said defiance. You know, it's not defiance. Some of it is defiance. They are defying us. I don't see it as disrespect to me. I see it more as learning to understand who they are in the world and using their own strengths and weaknesses or their own needs. And we have to guide them. You know, just because somebody can dribble a ball doesn't make him a basketball player or they can run the whole entire field. They still need guidance. They come with some sort of like innate talent, but we need to mold it.

25:52So they have some defiance in them. I just don't see it as me against them. Like, hey, don't say that to me. I go, oh, interesting. But yeah, no, I have the say here. This is my decision. Yeah, no, we can't do this. So we are going to do that. And I don't have to use any objects. And so let's run through it. Let's role play this. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes. Tell me if I'm going all over the place so we can bring it back. No, it's good. I get it. Don't bargain. You have a five-year-old, and the five-year-old goes into the arts and crafts drawer and draws all over the wall. Yes. How would you suggest a parent handle that?

26:37Horrible. Terrible. Like, wow. Yeah, so notice this. A lot of times it's the shock. Parents react a lot with, what did you do and how? Now, it's very upsetting. I'm not saying I'm not a real human that doesn't get upset by these things. I do. but I have a little bit of a pause button to that tells me okay what is the lesson here just me being upset at my child making them feel bad guilty I can tell you the five-year-old that did that had a very good reason and if I don't get to that reason I never actually really tackle the problem. So it's like, whoa, so not okay. I would be serious. I'd be composed.

27:26I'd be thinking, hmm, I wonder what's going on. Because I also know my child at this point, five. And I kind of can tell, is this a revenge? Is this mischievous? Is this really being creative? Five-year-olds know. And by the way, lots of times, how can you do it? Don't you know better? It's almost like a given. It's redundant. Yes, of course I know better.

27:51Dr. Siggie Cohen:And why did you do it? I can't actually explain to you. I'm going to give you some, I don't know, and I want it. And yeah, no. So I, again, understanding children and what goes on behind the scene, go, you really needed to do something that was not okay. Because obviously, you know this is not yet something to do. You really did need to do it. I'm actually not sure yet why. But if I think a little further, I will know. If I took something really important for my child, if I used a lot of that bargaining and conditioning, my child, like I said, they punish us back. This is the way they punished back.

28:35Dr. Siggie Cohen:So I have to kind of look at myself and go, yeah, that was not okay, and I don't actually have to tell you. So now let's think of how we fix this. You tell me. They have to be part of the solution, not just created a problem. Then now I have to discipline them because they created or got themselves into a problem. It's like, what do you think we can do? No, I bet you no. Okay, so yeah, I need some cleanup and so on. And you know what? We'll take our time and think, I wonder again why you needed to do it. There must have been a really good reason. It doesn't mean it's a good reason, but you must have thought it's a very good reason.