NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – It’s not easy raising kids – especially in the increasingly high-tech, competitive environment we live in.

Dr. Mark Brenner is a family expert and author of ‘When ‘No’ Gets You Nowhere,’ along with several other parenting books. TV 10-55′s Lisa Kearney sat down with him to get his tried and true parenting tips.

“What could I do for them to make[my kids] happier smarter, more cultured, more emphatic, more in tuned with current society?” asked one Tri-State area parent.

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“Perhaps he’s a little misguided about making kids happy,” Dr. Brenner said. “His job is not to make kids happy. That’s something that is on the child to understand how to do that. It’s to provide the opportunity to the child to want to learn.”

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When it comes to raising smart children, Dr. Brenner advises not to force any kind of learning that may be too much for a youngster to handle.

“Some kids are late bloomers, and a lot of parents are trying to cram all that learning in,” he said. “And so sometimes what they do is they feed the intellect and they starve the heart. Because we know a lot of intelligent people that do real well in the world but crash in relationships. “

Another parent asked: “How do you deal with 8-year-olds pushing the envelope on everything?”

“If they’re pushing the envelope on everything, that’s because there’s been inconsistency in the house,” said Dr. Brenner. “I have something called the ‘ask once’ rule. I never repeat something twice. The choice is theirs.”

When it comes to cell phones, iPads and any other new gadget your child may have or be yearning for, Dr. Brenner has a stern recommendation.

“You can’t unring the bell. Technology is here,” he said. “I ask all parents out there: Folks, don’t give your children electronic devices too early. “

For more of the interview and additional parenting tips, check out the video below.