Welcome to the Where Parents Talk podcast. We help grow better parents through science, evidence, and the lived experience of other parents. Learn how to better navigate the mental and physical health of your tween teen or young adult through proven expert advice. Here's your host, Lianne Castelino.

Foreign welcome to Where Parents Talk. My name is Lianne Castelino. Our guest today is a pediatrician and a podcast host. Dr. Kristin Cook has been caring for kids as a physician for over 15 years. She's also an author. Her first book is called Parenting A Guide to understanding and nurturing your child's behavior to help them thrive. Dr. Cook is also a mother of two. She joins us today from Libertyville, Illinois. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Oh, I'm so thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.

Looking forward to this conversation, especially because of the lens that you bring to it in terms of being a pediatrician, a mom, and now an author. Now you believe that today's parents are overwhelmed by conflicting viewpoints. What do you think, firstly is driving that confusion?

I just think the access to all the information and misinformation that's out there, I mean, you can hop on Google at 3 o' clock in the morning and really search for almost anything, and a lot of the advice is conflicting. So in addition to being overwhelmed with just the general tasks of being a parent, now you've got information that contradicts itself, and now you're really confused.

So when you were setting out to write Parenting Redefined, by the way, it's an intriguing title. It's a large concept. What was your objective in writing this book?

So over the course of my career, I, I really started to notice very early on that about half of the things that I was talking about with parents in my medical clinic were related to parenting, not to medicine. So I got very, very curious about child development and why people behave the way that they do. And I thought over the years I've been telling parents really the same thing, just a little bit differently. And one day I realized, my goodness, if the parents in my medical clinic are having these questions, parents everywhere must be having these questions.

And we discussed the fact that you've been a physician for 15 or so years and so much has happened in the parenting space in that time. So what are some of the trends that you've noticed over the course of that period?

Yeah, so one of the most important trends that I have noticed from the beginning of my career till now is parents are really starting to understand the importance of emotional Development and emotional intelligence. And instead of telling their kids don't feel that way, they're now embracing their child's emotions and helping them cultivate ways to express those emotions in a healthful manner.

Absolutely. When you talk about parenting redefined, what exactly are you, like, honing in on? Because a big part of what you talk about in your book has to do with distilling brain science and neuroscience. So what have you done to simplify that for parents? And why is that important?

Yeah, so the one thing that I always start with whenever I talk about neuroscience or cognition is that the human brain does not fully develop until a person Is in their mid-20s. So you expect a child to think or act like an adult because their brain is not developed enough for that yet. And that's really the place that I start. And I try to break it down for parents into two. The brain is incredibly complex, but I try to break it down for parents into the emotional reactive part of the brain. And then the, you know, think before I do something stupid part of the brain. And kids don't really have a very developed, stop what I'm doing before I do something wrong kind of brain. And so getting parents to understand that their behavior is not a reflection of defiance, it's really just an expression that their brain is overwhelmed or having trouble processing something.

So how do you go about helping parents understand that? Because it's a large concept, and we tend to sort of, you know, judge our kids in some way by how they're behaving. But understanding what is behind that behaviors, which is what you're talking about, is a whole different peace.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I always tell parents, when your child misbehaves, again, it is an expression of an overwhelmed brain or a brain that has a need that is not being met. And try to look at it from that perspective, and then you can dissect the behavior and say, okay, what is this behavior trying to tell me? What does my child need? What are they having difficulty with? And then parenting, actually, when you get good at that, becomes a whole lot easier because now you're understanding the behavior rather than trying to control it.

So let's talk about tweens and teens. Using that example you just provided. There's a. In the adolescent period, there's, you know, risk taking behavior that goes on in terms of helping parents understand the behavior. How would you go about explaining it for that grouping of parents of twins and teens?

So there is a part of the emotional reactive brain called the nucleus accumbens. And this Part of the brain is very, very active, especially in te teenagers. And this part of the brain is all about rewards. And so if a behavior seems rewarding to a teen, they're likely to continue that behavior. That's one of the reasons that teenagers experiment with marijuana or they, you know, start getting into intimate relationships. It's because they're seeking activation of that reward system.

So how does understanding the behavior behind that help a parent manage that behavior in their child?

Yeah. So understanding that behavior now again, you know, those types of risk taking behaviors, they're not wanted. Right. But instead of telling a child, don't do that, they can say, I understand why you may have been drawn to this behavior, but let's talk about why it's harmful. So, for example, I had a patient recently, a 16 year old, who the mom was very distraught because out of the blue the child started lying about everything. And I said, okay, so what was your response to the lying? And she said, well, I took her phone away for two weeks. Okay, but that doesn't teach her why lying is harmful. So the most effective discipline relates to providing education for our kids. We have to explain to them why their behavior was problematic and how they could potentially do better in the future. So taking a phone away isn't necessarily a bad strategy, it's just an incomplete one because it doesn't explain why the behavior was undesired. So we had a nice discussion and one of the things that we decided upon is that the mom and the child were going to sit down together and watch YouTube videos of different stories that people share where lying has damaged their lives.

And what happened after that, do you know the end to that?

So it got better. You know, nothing is perfect. The first time you try a new technique with a child, it's not necessarily going to work, but at least the child was able to understand that her behavior was having negative consequences. Where what as before the visit, she didn't make that connection because the appropriate discipline wasn't in place.

Is there anything else, Dr. Cook, when we're talking about the developing brain and understanding sort of that neuroscience piece that you can share that would change the way a parent deals with their child if they only understood what that brain science piece was.

Yeah. So especially in the toddler preschool, young school age children, kids are very egocentric, meaning they have difficulty seeing the world from other people's perspective. So I have a lot of parents that come to me. Dr. Cook, my daughter's best friend fell on the playground and she didn't even seem sad. Well, that's because your daughter didn't fall. Her friend did. And she's still developing the skills that are needed to develop and express empathy. So try to understand the world from your child's perspective. And that's why I feel it's so important for parents to understand their unique child's cognitive, social, and emotional development so they can meet them where they're at now.

Along those lines, you encourage parents in your book to parent the child they have as opposed to parenting the one they wish they had. Explain what that means and why is that mindset so important?

Yeah. So first of all, we all, as parents, at times, parent the child that we wish that we had. And what do I mean by that? If you force a child to play a sport that they don't like, you're not parenting the child you have. If you tell your child, stop crying, it didn't hurt, you're not parenting the child that you have. So, again, it's important to understand your child and parent them. And that comes into play significantly, significantly, when it comes to siblings, because each sibling is going to require a slightly different parenting strategy.

What are some tips that you can offer on that front? Because that is a pain point in many households, for sure.

Absolutely. So I'll give you an example. So my son is very loud. He always has been, he always will be. My daughter is very much the opposite. She's very quiet. So one day, my husband was trying to get the kids ready for school, and he went into drill sergeant mode and started kind of barking orders. Well, my son will respond to that and get his button gear, but that just makes my daughter move slower because that's not an approach that works for her. So that's where it becomes important to understand the differences. And if parents don't know where to start, what I would suggest is looking into a concept called temperament. Now, temperament is a constellation of nine traits that are inherent to a person, and they exist on a continuum. And if you can understand your child's unique temperament, that will help you with your parenting strategies, and it will also help you to make those subtle distinctions in the way you parent siblings.

Have you tried that in your own household?

Then, yeah, we do. We do. Yes.

And what is the results?

It actually, the house is calmer. You know, when I. When I introduced this concept to my husband and I got him on board, things just run more efficiently because we understand our kids. One, yeah, maybe you can kind of yell at them and bark orders at them, but the other one, that backfires. So having that understanding Is important.

Absolutely. Now, one of the things that you also touch on in your book is to a certain extent is many parents expect children to behave with adult logic. And it's a natural default for many of us. What are we misunderstanding, do you think, as parents, about what their brains, that child's brain is actually capable of at different ages?

Yeah. And it really is dependent on the age. And it, again, it's just, you know, misbehavior is an expression of an overwhelmed brain. It's not an act of defiance. Kids don't possess the critical thinking skills to assess a situation and go, oh, this is how I'm supposed to behave here.

So then what. What is the appropriate next step for a parent in that situation?

Take a step back and, and assess what's going on. What do you think your child is feeling? What do you think your child needs in that moment? You know, and it's hard because as parents, especially when we're out in public and our kid misbehaves, it's like, oh, my gosh. And then we get all riled up. But one of the important things for parents is before you approach your child and talk to them about a behavior that you didn't like, make sure you're calm. You've got to come from. You've got to engage your fully developed, beautiful, rational brain and calm yourself down before you approach your child. Because if you're all riled up and they're all riled up, well, the bound would just have a cycle of. Of increasing.

Well, and it is so easy that that happens in so many different cases, regardless of ages, you know, every day for parents and families. So on that note, then how can parents adjust their discipline style to better align with the different temperament of each of their children and the way their brains are wired?

So one of the things that I suggest is provide discipline instead of punishment. So punishment is very punitive, usually involves taking something away. Well, the human brain doesn't do very well when we tell it what not to do. It needs to know what to do. You know, I use this example all the time. Have you ever told yourself not to cry? You probably cried harder if you ever told yourself, I'm not going to eat the cookies in the break room. You probably ate three by the end of the day. So we've got to explain to our children how they should behave or how we would like them to behave, teach them appropriate social behavior. But the key with that is we cannot do that while our child is in the middle of a meltdown. We have to wait for them to self regulate and then we can go back in and have an age appropriate discussion about behavioral expectations.

When you talk about waiting for them to self regulate, that could mean seconds, minutes, hours. What is a parent to do in that situation? Depending on the age of that child, sure.

So for a kid that's actively having a temper tantrum, make sure the area around them is safe. Stay in the vicinity, but kind of walk away. Be in their line of sight so they know that you are still there for them. But give them the space that they need to calm themselves down. And that is really, really challenging if you are in a public place. But do your best to keep that consistent approach.

How about as children get older, the tweens, the teens, because then it might not be as, you know, externalized, it might be more internal, you might not be seeing it. What does that look like in terms of waiting for them to self regulate?

Yeah. So their brain is a little bit more developed. So you can always knock on their door and say, hey, I'd really like to have a discussion about xyz. Is this a good time for you? If not, let's set up a time. And that also gives them autonomy and it shows that you are respecting their boundaries as well.

Now, along those lines, you also talk about modeling as being foundational at just about every interview we do, and on some level talks about role modeling and the importance of it. What are children learning from us as parents in heated moments that we may not always realize?

Yeah, so they're learning that yelling is okay. They're learning that aggression is okay. They're learning that unkind words are okay. And this is not a one time situation. I usually tell parents, you know, we're looking for consistency. So if 80 to 85% of the time you don't yell, don't panic, your child's going to be fine. But if the majority of your interactions with your child when they misbehave, are aggressive, your child is going to become aggressive.

Let's talk a little bit about empathy. You emphasize empathy without permissiveness. How do parents balance that compassion with clear boundaries? Because those two things often are competing, right?

Absolutely. So I think the very first step is, if possible, from an early age, start to label your own emotions and your child's emotions and then help them to understand that thoughts, emotions and behaviors are related. And the most common pattern is that thoughts will lead to emotions and emotions will lead to actions or behaviors. So helping them understand that concept can assist with that.

Many parents carry around guilt or feel that they're constantly falling short in their parenting. What do you want overwhelmed parents to hear most?

Okay, parenting guilt will never go away, ever. But you can learn to turn it from an intense 10 to more like a level 2. And the majority of that comes from checking in with what you are thinking about your skills as a parent and reframing the thoughts that are untrue or that don't serve you.

You talked a little bit about why you've written Parenting Redefined. I'm wondering your approach on putting this book together, obviously a massive topic. You've seen a lot. You've cared for lots of kids over the span of time. As a physician, how did you go about, you know, distilling down the key concepts that you wanted to convey?

You know, I. I ran some of it by my husband. You know, I. I got input from other parents. Hey, can you read this? Well, does it seem too technical? Does this make sense? Is this providing value to you? So really getting input from, you know, the people that I trust that I know are not gonna lie to me, that was really helpful.

Was there anything in the neuroscience as you went through the writing of this book that you came upon that, you know, you reflected on, gave you perhaps,

you know, it really, as I was writing the book, I did have to go back into my own textbooks and look up the different things. And really what gave me the most pause is I could sense myself getting too technical and go, and I just told myself, you're going to lose parents. They are going to glaze over this information. They won't put the pieces together, take it a step back and just make it simpler.

Another piece of what's happening for many parents these days when we talk about a lot of information available is the lack of trust in their own instincts. Can you take us through why that is important? And then, you know, how do you differentiate between trusting your instincts versus something, you know, that is going on in their development that you may not be aware of?

Yeah. So it's really, really important to trust your gut. You know, I always tell the families in my medical practice, I may know medicine more than you, but you know your parent, your. I'm sorry, you know your child better than I could ever know your child. So I want to know your thoughts. What do you think is going on? And one of the areas where parents struggle with the. The differentiation between trusting their gut and relying on outside information is really when they don't communicate it, you know, they don't run it by somebody, talk about these things. You know, let people know, hey, my gut is telling me this, but I'm hearing this over here the great majority of times. Your gut is going to be the right answer.

Your book also includes exercises and actionable plans. What is one small change parents could implement in the short term, today, this week, in the next couple of days that would create for them noticeable improvement from your perspective?

Yeah, so it's an exercise I call Duck on a pond. And I'll give you a little brief backstory of where that came from. So many, many years ago, when my husband and I were first dating, we had a trip to an important family event and we had to fly there and our flight got canceled. And I'm very regretful to this day of my behavior, but I proceeded to not be very nice to the people that were attempting to rebook us. And as I'm getting sweaty and hot and mad, my now husband was just standing by the side smirking at me, which just made me madder. And I was like, what is going on with you? And he goes, duck on a pond, baby. I'm a duck on a pond. So what he was indicating was internally he was out of control, angry, upset, frustrated. But externally he was calm. And that is the kind of process I suggest that parents do. Your child made you something that makes you want to throttle them in the moment, but if you can maintain a calm exterior, you're going to be a lot more effective as a parent. And so where duck on a pond came from is if you think about a duck as they're gliding across the surface of the water, they look very peaceful, very serene, but underneath the water, their legs are kicking furiously. And so I encourage parents to sit down and think about, okay, what is a word, a phrase or a visualization that I can develop and practice over and over again to remind myself to calm down before I interact with my child. And the exact phrase doesn't matter. My sister in law actually uses puppies playing at a park. And that helps her when she gets upset with her children. It helps her to calm down before she reacts to their behavior.

It certainly is a discipline and I completely understand why you suggest it should be practice. Right? Because it's not something you can just turn on in the moment depending on the situation you're dealing with. The other, the other piece that I think is important here and you talk about is a child centric approach to parenting. What does that look like in everyday routines from your perspective? You know, homework, bedtime, all those types of things.

So what it does not mean is that the child runs the show. It is very, very important with a child centric approach that the parent is still in charge. Now you don't have to throw that in chargeness in your child's face, but it should be very clear from environment in your home that you are in charge. Where the child centric approach comes in is understanding your child's triggers for misbehavior and trying to avoid them. Understanding how your child thinks and what works best for them. So for my kids, when they get home from school, I know they need a good half an hour to decompress. So that's where they get to watch their electronics. I don't try to force them to do homework during that time. If they don't want to talk to me during that time, okay, that's totally fine. Does that mean they don't get to do their homework at all? Of course not. They are still expected to do their homework, but they don't have to do it right when they get home from school.

When did you make that discovery about this is how the pattern, you know, when they come home from school, this is what it looks like and I need to understand that behavior and give them their space.

Yeah. So one thing I kind of developed really early on in my kids lives was a brief check in. What was one thing you liked about your day? What was one thing you didn't like about your day? And tell me one thing that you just want to tell me and then I can kind of get a sense of where they're at mentally and emotionally from their responses, from their behavior. And that kind of helps you key in to where your child is at in the moment and then figuring out that schedule can come down the road.

Well, and that gets tricky as they get older. Right. So the adolescents tend to not, not want to share much. What can you offer in, in terms of those age groups to when you're asking that same question, respect that and

let them know that you respect that. Hey, if you don't want to talk, it's okay. I'm here if you need anything.

I wish I'd known that many years ago. Dr. But you know, you learn as you go. You have been a pediatrician longer than you've been a parent. And I'm curious as to what you have deployed in your parenting journey that you've learned and what kind of adjustments have you made as a result of what you know as a physician. Yes.

Okay. So. Oh, one of the big boo boos that I made early on in parenting was trying to sleep train my child. My son has been a firecracker since the moment he was born, and he hated sleep. He did not sleep through the night until he was probably five years old, at least on a consistent basis. And my pediatric training taught me all these different sleep training methods, and I was like, okay, you know what? We're going to sleep train. He's four months old. It's time to sleep train. And I chose the cried out method. Well, that was a disaster. After 45 minutes of him screaming, I was like, I'm never doing this again. So it's interesting because some of the things that we learn in pediatric medicine don't necessarily work when it comes to the specific child that you're trying to parent.

Absolutely. And how does that parenting journey continue to evolve for you through your podcast, through your patients, all these different sort of outlets that you have to learn new things about parenting?

Oh, it's. It's such a blessing. I. I get to learn about life from my patients, from my kids, from the research that I do for my podcast episodes, the research I do for writing my books, and. And I change as a parent almost every day, you know, because I really think as. As humans, it's important to be constantly evolving.

Absolutely. If there was one thing you would want readers of Parenting redefine to take away from the book, what would that be?

You're doing better than you think you are.

That's a wonderful, hopeful, optimistic message. Definitely. Because it's very easy to get down and stay down.

Yeah. Yeah. And. And the thing. When people read parenting books or listen to parenting podcasts, you've got to understand that bad parents don't do those things. The simple fact that you are seeking additional knowledge on how to improve your parenting indicates that you are doing a good job.

The subtitle of your book talks about helping kids thrive. What does a thriving child, from your perspective, truly look like?

Yeah. So a thriving child is a child that pursues their passions, can express their emotions, is respectful of others over time, develops empathy, and they want the world. They want their actions to help make the world a better place.

Is there any other final message that you'd like to leave listeners or viewers of this interview with as it relates to parenting redefined and what they can learn from your book?

It's a journey, and you've got to cut yourself some slack. You are going to make mistakes, and those mistakes are actually incredibly important for your child's development, because if you can handle your mistakes with grace, your children will learn to do the same.

Dr. Kristen Cook, pediatrician and author of Parenting A Guide to Understanding and Nurturing your Child's Behavior to Help them Thrive. Thank you so much for taking the time today.

Thank you. It's been an honor. To learn more about today's podcast, guest and topic, as well as other parenting themes, visit whereparents talk.com.