I want to offer some context for today’s episode. My guest is the phenomenal pediatric psychologist and author of the new book, Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids, Mona Delahooke.
Mona is not a yoga teacher; in fact, her life’s work focuses on looking beyond children’s behaviors to understand the root cause — which, in most cases, begins by looking at the nervous system.
So, although her work focuses on children and how we parent and teach our children, there is so much beneath the surface that applies to all adults. None of us were parented the way that Mona and her colleagues suggest — because the neuroscience simply wasn’t there when we were kids. Our parents didn’t have Polyvagal theory in their back pockets (we talk about this in the episode), they didn’t know that the most effective way to manage our behavior was to co-regulate with us, to make sure our “platform” was sturdy, and to practice self-compassion.
Now that we know these things, we have the opportunity to practice them in our own lives; to hold space for them in our yoga classes; to view our friends and family’s negative behaviors through the lens of the nervous system instead of instantly judging them.
This is THE stuff for me right now — the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and applied yoga philosophy or mindfulness. This is where we have the power to change our own lives and the lives of those we come into contact with.
To break it down, in this episode here are a few of the things we cover:
- Her three-part framework for how to measure the state of the autonomic nervous system, and how to utilize it in working with children
- New research about interoception and how interoceptive awareness can help children develop emotional literacy
- What is co-regulation and how it’s different from coddling or spoiling a child (plus how yoga teachers use it in their classes, even if they don’t know it!)
- Why she feels that flexibility is the cornerstone of resilience for children and adults alike
RELATED LINKS
Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids
How Emotions are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett
Interoception: The 8th Sensory System by Kelly Mahler
Episode 232: Trauma-Informed Yoga with Sarah Kadel
Episode 258: This is Your Brain on Yoga with Dr. Daya Grant
Learn more about Jason’s 500-hour Online Yoga Teacher Training
300-hour teacher training with Jason with TriYoga
