Tag Archives: parents

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #112: Mona Delahooke, PhD – Beyond Behaviors


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Today on Dr. M’s Women and Children First, we welcome one of the most important voices in modern child development and behavioral science, Mona Delahooke.

Dr. Delahooke is a licensed clinical psychologist, internationally recognized speaker, and the author of groundbreaking books including Beyond Behaviors and Brain-Body Parenting. Her work challenges one of the deepest assumptions in modern parenting and education: that difficult behaviors are simply choices to be corrected. Instead, she invites us to ask a radically different question, what is the nervous system trying to communicate?

This conversation sits right at the crossroads of neuroscience, attachment theory, polyvagal theory, developmental psychology, and the lived experience of parenting. In many ways, Mona’s work gives language to something clinicians and parents often feel intuitively but struggle to articulate: behavior is not merely compliance or defiance, behavior is biology expressed through the body.

We explore how stress physiology, early attachment, sensory processing, trauma, neurodivergence, and autonomic nervous system states shape the way children interact with the world around them. We discuss why punishment-based models often fail vulnerable children, how “bad behavior” may actually represent adaptive survival responses, and why safety and connection are foundational to learning, resilience, and emotional regulation.

For me personally, this conversation resonates deeply with the broader themes we often discuss on this podcast, the interaction between environment, physiology, immune health, metabolism, and neurodevelopment. Mona helps bridge the gap between cellular stress and relational stress, between body and mind, between physiology and behavior.

If you’ve ever cared for a child with anxiety, ADHD, autism, sensory challenges, explosive behavior, school struggles, or chronic dysregulation, this episode offers both compassion and a fundamentally different framework. One that moves away from blame and toward curiosity. Away from control and toward connection.

This is a conversation about seeing children more clearly. And perhaps, seeing ourselves more clearly too.

Please enjoy this conversation with Dr. Mona Delahooke.

Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #111: Duey Freeman, MA – Attachment


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Welcome back to Dr. M’s Women and Children First. Today’s conversation moves into one of the deepest layers of human development: attachment, relationship, and the way early experiences shape the architecture of our emotional lives.

My guest today is Duey Freeman, a licensed therapist, teacher, mentor, and internationally respected voice in attachment theory, human development, and relational psychology. Duey has spent decades teaching therapists, graduate students, and helping professionals around the world, developing a practical framework for understanding how connection, or the absence of it, shapes the nervous system, identity, and the capacity for intimacy.

He has logged nearly 80,000 direct clinical hours and co-founded both the Gestalt Equine Institute and the Gestalt Institute of the Rockies.

What makes Duey’s work unique, and it is unique, is that he does not approach attachment as a sterile academic theory. He approaches it as lived human experience. His work centers on a simple but profound truth: what is injured in relationship is often only healed in relationship.

In this episode, we explore how attachment patterns emerge in childhood, how they quietly shape adult relationships, parenting, stress physiology, and even our sense of safety in the world. We discuss the roots of attachment theory through the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, and we move into modern concepts involving trauma, nervous system regulation, emotional attunement, and relational repair.

We also touch on an uncomfortable reality in modern culture: many people are surrounded by communication yet starving for authentic connection. Children especially do not simply need instruction or behavioral management. They need co-regulation, attunement, eye contact, emotional presence, and secure relational anchors.

This conversation is not just for therapists. It is for parents, physicians, educators, coaches, and anyone trying to understand why humans behave the way they do under stress, conflict, intimacy, or loss.

Duey brings an unusual combination of wisdom, groundedness, tenderness, and clinical depth to this discussion. I have heard him frequently called Yoda, and if you knew him, you would immediately understand and agree with that moniker. You can feel that he has spent a lifetime studying not just psychology, but people.

So sit back and enjoy this remarkable conversation with Duey Freeman on attachment, psychology, and the relational foundations of being human.

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 15 Issue 19

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For parents of special needs children, I honor you today.

I witness your strength every day in clinic.

You rise to meet challenges that many cannot begin to imagine, truly. You navigate medical appointments, therapy sessions, school meetings, and the unpredictable rhythms that come with raising a child with special needs.

Often without pause, without adequate rest, and without the recognition you deserve. For those single parents carrying this day to day reality, a double level of gratitude for you.

I want to pause for a moment and say what is too rarely said: you are extraordinary. Truly extraordinary.

Your love is not passive, it is an active force. It shows up at 2 AM when a child can’t sleep, in the quiet patience during a meltdown, in the persistence to advocate for services in a dysfunctional system requiring resilience summoned when the system says “no” but you know your child needs a “yes.”…. and a discussion of nutritional dark matter.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 14 Issue 43

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Finding a relational balance with any person or persons can be a struggle if one side of the relationship dyad has a strong need for a gain to feel safe or whole. For example, a parent in a poor quality marriage or with significant childhood wounding may turn to the child for happiness and love when it is missing otherwise. A child in turn being young will often, out of filial love, try to meet the needs of the parent. These types of relationships can take on many forms and can become dysfunctional over time.

I remember a parent child dyad from many years ago that was a budding enmeshed/codependent relationship between a mother and her son. Mom was absolutely unable to draw boundaries with her son as she felt all of his pain and reflected all of her childhood trauma onto the child’s life with boundary-less smothering love and control. She simultaneously would restrict any behavior that she perceived as unsafe controlling his environment while drawing zero boundaries with regard to his behavior toward her and others within this controlled small world. He was a holy terror by 4 years of age. His mother was crying for help while being indignant that he was sweet and well meaning while she enabled every choice that he made. Her fear of drawing boundaries because of her own childhood restrictive parenting wounding left this child completely attached to her yet abusive because he felt completely out of control. The psychological pathology was exhausting for all in the room. Recommendations for therapy and interventions were met with scorn….plus a literature review.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 14 Issue 34

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Literature Review

1) Does oral health affect your life if you are sick and in intensive care? According to a new study in JAMA, the answer is yes. From the study: 10,742 patients – “toothbrushing was associated with significantly lower risk for Hospital Acquired Pneumonia and ICU mortality. Reduction in pneumonia incidence was significant for patients receiving invasive mechanical ventilation but not for patients who were not receiving invasive mechanical ventilation. Toothbrushing for patients in the ICU was associated with fewer days of mechanical ventilation and a shorter ICU length of stay. Brushing twice a day vs more frequent intervals was associated with similar effect estimates….Non-ICU hospital length of stay and use of antibiotics were not associated with toothbrushing.” (Ehrenzeller et. al. 2024)

Why does this matter? In effect, what this study shows is that patients with oral hygiene needs that are not met will have increased bacterial burdens leading to infectious disease risk via systemic inflammation and possibly bacterial translocation. At the end of the day, oral hygiene is very important to lower the total burden of inflammation in everyone, but especially in the most ill patient. It is super important for everyone to brush 2-3 x daily and floss daily at night…..

Plus a discussion on Back to School.

Enjoy, Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #55 – Ryan Conklin – The Grief Journey

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This weeks guest is Ryan Conklin a self described – light chasing, storytelling, thread puller, adventure bound tracker and student of myth and maps. He is transformational coach by day, and bartender and hospitalitarian by night. He is a thinker that has a beautiful way of seeing grief and leaning into it in a grounding and therapeutic way. We dive into the deep end of the pool as it relates to grief processing and life after a death. 

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 11 Issue 28

High Flying Majestic Frigate Birds

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Teenagers are in need of our guidance despite what they may tell you. Stay involved in order to love and guide them.

Do you know what your teenagers are texting?
As our teenagers learn and attempt to navigate the modern world replete with ever time consuming social media applications and devices, we must stay tied to them for safety. Dr. Laura Berman has a cautionary tale that discusses the hidden dangers of children using social media to communicate their desire to use and obtain drugs. She stated in a post, “Instead of writing out words and structuring sentences, teenagers and young adults are using emojis to express thoughts or emotions in conversations with their friends and online strangers. So, it’s important that parents become educated on the language our kids are speaking. ” (Berman, L)
The world of teenagers is a scary place for a parent to navigate as children have applications that disappear written text and pictures in seconds to minutes hiding an obvious trail of trouble if it exists……..
Read more at https://www.salisburypediatrics.com/patient-education/dr-magryta-s-newsletter
Have a great day,
Dr. M