Kids who hit aren't missing the lesson — they can't brake the impulse
Parents think the job is teaching a child that hitting is wrong, but the child already knows the answer when calm. What's missing isn't knowledge — it's the ability to inhibit an impulse at a level-ten emotion.
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The biggest problem is inconsistency, not picking the wrong method
Dr. Siggy says the most common problem she sees in parents isn't using the wrong method, but constantly switching between punishment, timeout, and talking nicely. She compares parenting to a buffet — you taste a bit of everything and nothing ends up working. What she stresses isn't rigidly picking one path and never deviating, but first understanding why you do what you do, and then actually doing it, rather than "trying this, trying that." Consistency matters because a method has to genuinely fit the parent's own beliefs, culture and background, or it can't be sustained.
— Dr. Siggy CohenValidating an emotion is not the same as gratifying it
Parents swing between two extremes: managing only behavior, or going all the way to tending only emotions. Dr. Siggy says you need both, at the same time. Validating, understanding and acknowledging an emotion does not mean always accommodating it. Over-empathizing and over-validating actually robs the child of the ability to cope on their own — because the child forms an expectation: you will find a way to make me feel better, and to a child, making me feel better means giving me what I want. But people were never meant to always get what they want.
— Dr. Siggy CohenYou can be angry, but you can't hit
Her specific script is: you can be angry, I won't stop you from being angry, but hitting while angry is not okay. Children don't need to be stopped from having emotions; they need help separating the emotion from the behavior. The parent's job is to monitor the behavior, stop the behavior, and at the same time give the triggering emotion an outlet. She stresses that children are born with coping ability, resilience and problem-solving skills — they just need practice, and the parent is the coach in that practice.
— Dr. Siggy CohenA child who hits isn't short on knowledge, he's short on brakes
This is the most counterintuitive passage in the whole piece. Sarah asks: if your child is calmly curled up next to you reading a book and you ask him whether hitting is right, can he answer correctly? Yes. So what's missing isn't the knowledge of "why you can't hit." What's missing is the ability to inhibit the impulse when the emotion is at level ten and the urge to hit is there. In young children this inhibition and planning capacity is barely available at all, and in older children it comes and goes. So the question a parent should ask isn't "what do I need to teach him" but "what problem am I actually solving" — and the answer usually calls for far less lecturing than you'd think.
— Dr. Sarah BrenUnderstanding isn't doing — you have to practice
Dr. Siggy uses basketball as an analogy: you can understand basketball, love basketball, and still have to practice over and over before you can play well in a game. Understanding a parenting method is not the same as being able to execute it. She suggests that when parents say it wrong in the moment, they should re-say it right there — "wait, what I meant was..." That itself is the best practice, and it models for the child how to be a person. She rejects treating parenting as a performance that has to be perfect, saying "this isn't a production, it's a mess" — that's just what real life is like.
— Dr. Siggy CohenFirst figure out where your own triggers are
She suggests parents start by understanding themselves: if you're prone to feeling disrespected by your child, what does "disrespect" mean to you? Where does it sit in your body? What is it connected to — being belittled, demeaned, ignored? The key distinction is: is this something the child is actually doing, or is it a feeling this thing produces in you? If it's the latter, the response is completely different — not "what did he do to me" but "what am I doing myself." She calls this one of the most important tools a parent has.
— Dr. Siggy CohenNot getting the cookie is not trauma
She directly pushes back on the extreme warnings in today's parenting discourse: not giving your child a cookie, not buying a toy at Target — that is not trauma, it isn't even harm. What actually drives your fear of "will I damage my child" is something else. She says this kind of rigid warning — "if you do this, that will definitely happen" — boxes parents into rigidity. And rigidity is fragility; what life needs is fluidity and flexibility. Pushing everything to the worst case — if he doesn't sleep today he'll never sleep, if I lie next to him today he'll need it for life — is exactly what makes today's parents so fragile and so afraid of putting a foot wrong.
— Dr. Siggy CohenIn their own words · checked verbatim
We do manage behaviors, but we do it slightly differently, not from not the external way, more the internal way from the inside out.
Dr. Siggy Cohen22:31
Whoa, not okay to do this when you are angry. Definitely okay to be angry. I'm not stopping you from being angry.
Dr. Siggy Cohen26:41
What is missing is not knowledge about why we don't hit or what could happen if we hit. What's missing is their ability to inhibit an impulse.
Dr. Sarah Bren35:16
Because when you're 10 out of 10 and you have an urge to hit and you have no breaks, you're going to hit.
Dr. Sarah Bren36:21
We think they feel so big. No, we actually feel so small.
Dr. Siggy Cohen44:51
We think that it all has to be, you know, it's not a production. It's a mess.
Dr. Siggy Cohen46:56
Rigidity is brokenness. Rigidity is fragile. In life, we need fluidity and flexibility.
Dr. Siggy Cohen52:15
Glossary
- over parenting
- Parents intervening too much, gratifying too much, validating too much, which weakens the child's own coping ability.
- balance parenting
- The middle path Dr. Siggy proposes: validating the emotion and managing the behavior at the same time, without going to either extreme.
- inhibit an impulse
- The ability to brake a behavior when emotions run high, independent of knowing right from wrong.
How to listen
Parents buried under parenting advice, swinging back and forth between "empathy" and "rules," who try harder and doubt themselves more.
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