Jacelyn Tay adores her eight-month-old boy, Zavier, but she is a firm believer in tough love.

"I tell myself (you need) to be cruel to be kind. (Zavier) needs to know what is real love. Whatever I do, if I really love him, I need to build him," Tay, 36, told The New Paper in an interview on Monday.

"I scold with love and my words have to build him, not destroy him."

When the little boy fusses for no reason, the former local actress said she will put on a stern tone and tell the boy: "No."

Tay, who runs her own health and beauty salon Body Inc, returns to TV after six years, in the Channel 8 drama Pillow Talk.

She plays a single divorce lawyer, Alice, who falls in love with a married man (Thomas Ong).

Tay was initially concerned about playing a third party in a marriage on her return to TV, but she feels the role has a lot of depth.

She said Alice shows what loving someone and marriage should be.

On child-raising, Tay doesn't subscribe to the belief of teaching children through love alone.

"Discipline and love needs to be balanced, and discipline comes first. Zavier needs to be disciplined first to understand how to accept love," said Tay.

"If you just love him and give in to him every time, his definition of love is that mummy must give in to everything he wants. If he doesn't get it, then mummy doesn't love him...

"My son won't get everything he wants in life, so I need to teach him (that)."

Tay also believes that touching a child's heart is more powerful than corporal punishment.

"If I can create pain in his heart, for example taking away his TV benefits, rather than pain on his backside, I think it'll teach him a better lesson," she said.

Although she spends around five hours with the boy every day, she feels she doesn't spend enough time with him.

She juggles many tasks on top of squeezing in eight hours of sleep a day.

She is busy finishing up a book - a thriller that she has been writing for six years. It is tentatively scheduled to be released in May.

And she is also taking Christian theology studies.

So a second child will just have to wait.

"My husband (businessman Brian Wong) has his 'mini-me' (Zavier). I hope to have my 'mini-me' too, a daughter who looks like me. But I will let nature take its course because I have lots of things to do now."

This article was first published in The New Paper.