Brain-Body Parenting: Understanding and Nurturing Neurodiverse Children

This book is a must-read. It has taken me a few months to slowly take in and apply Mona Delahooke’s wisdom, and will be an ongoing practice. Anyone who interacts with children will benefit from reading these pages. She explains the nervous system, how to self-regulate as an adult (with self-compassion and self-care), how to teach your kiddos about their bodies’ sensations and what they mean, how to connect and grow together. The book is inspiring and practically helpful. If we learn this as a community, we can change the world for the next generation.

This book breaks down neuroscience research in the most understandable way. This information is invaluable for parents intending to stop negative cycles of over-reactivity from generations of well/meaning elders hoping to instill the utmost virtues and values of theirs (compliance and use of discipline) into their children.
Parenting looks different than ever before. Building connections with our children has never been so important as they become increasingly peer-oriented and electronically addicted. I love the way Dr. Delahooke reminds us that humans experience a range of emotions and that is totally normal! Each of us move from emotion to emotion throughout every day and it’s important to teach children that that it’s ok to be sad! It’s ok, and sometimes necessary, to be angry! We don’t stay in those emotions and they truly will pass or transform.
Regulation is the ability to balance. Another key piece is to recognize your own emotional state or pathway and to AVOID JUDGEMENT OF YOU. We have reasons to feel all our feelings with the recognition that they don’t define or own us. We move through them fluidly and sometimes rapidly. But we move through them. It’s important for us to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves (or our babies and others’ babies).
Read it. Listen to it. Use the accompanying pdf. It has changed my life as a mother, wife, friend, and therapist to children and families. Thank you, Dr. Delahooke for breaking down neuroscience in a way that makes sense to all of us.
It’s also worthy to note practicing this isn’t easy at first. We are literally paving new pathways into our own brains and that is a full time job in and of itself. These explanations of the brain-body connection are a gift and hopefully will be widespread practice for anyone who truly cares.

This book has great ideas and useful tips to help guide toddlers

As a first-time parent, I’ve found a lot of advice (and the resources they espouse) from well-meaning family to be confusing and not all together helpful. There isn’t a lot of evidence-based parenting guides in the mainstream, so when I heard Dr. Delahooke give an interview on the Curious Neuron podcast, I decided to give her new book a try. I am so happy I did! The information is clearly and succinctly laid out, and is backed with neuroscience. I’ve found it so helpful to see my toddler and his behaviors in a new, scientific light (rather than my own fluctuating emotional state). I feel so much more empowered as a parent to be a patient guide, rather than the authoritarian I saw in my own parents. Plus, I think the information is also relevant to relationships with other adults (coworkers and even spouse!) I will be gifting this to all of my FTM friends. Get this book—if anything, it will make you think about how parenting decisions can be better informed.

I am a fan of Dr. Delahooke’s work and as a follower, I was excited to hear about the release of her new book and pre-ordered it, thinking it would be mostly the same information as is found in her other fantastic work, Beyond Behaviors, but just re-written to be accessible to parents. And although the crucial pieces of polyvagal theory and everything is still there, it is a whole new book. It is well written through the lens and heart of a parent, not just a psychologist. I appreciate the honesty and vulnerability with which she shares many personal anecdotes.

This book really does stand out from other parenting books (even the really great ones that I also own) in that she admits that there is no one right way to approach parenting because each person is an individual with individual needs. And secondly it stands out because it calls for parents to examine their own needs and platforms, to take good care of themselves, which will help them best meet the needs of their children.

I have already recommended the book to friends and family and have used quotes from the book to connect with others and in newsletters for other parents.

I have read this, Brain Body Parenting, and Beyond Behaviors by Dr Delahooke. I have to say I liked both so very much but this one I enjoyed the most. I have 5 awesome kids. They have had each had their unique challenges and struggles from Autism to Tourette and more and I just wish that I had this when they were younger. However, my oldest 3 are in college and my younger two are in middle school and I find that this book is still very much relevant in my interactions with them now. I love that Dr Delahooke strips down the labels, tears down the behavior charts, and gives a much needed new and refreshing look at how the brain and body connect. She explains how behaviors should be looked at as clues into your child’s (and your own) nervous system and she gives clear examples to help readers understand how to change. This is not giving permission to let your children willfully misbehave but rather gives a better picture of what is a choice and what is a reaction to an overwhelmed nervous system and how to use connecting with your child to overcome these challenges. I honestly believe this is useful for people of all ages and should definitely spark some introspection within your own self as well. I know it did for me. She does this in a nonjudgmental way which I’m glad because about every time I thought oh wow- I should have done this differently she reminds the reader that the purpose isn’t to judge and that it’s never to late to make a change and a difference. Thank you Dr Mona Delahooke for making a positive difference for my family and I! I have been telling everyone who will listen to read this book! Everyone who works with children in any capacity should read this.

Essential information to know to raise kids into confident, happy adults

I am a child therapist and I work a lot with families. The concepts of nervous system regulation and the science of safety can sometimes be confusing and convoluted but DelaHooke breaks them down into manageable, easy to understand pieces for the every day person. I always recommend this book to parents and often copy pages for them to read.

This book has changed my life as a parent to three kids who can be challenging. It has help me calm down and understand my kids. It has helped me flip the script and shift my parenting paradigm. This book is a must own, must read!!!

It is a good book

Recommend to all the mothers who feel the burdens of motherhood, especially with young children. It opens your mind to new views of behavior that often seems too overwhelming to figure out. This book is filled with information, stories, and compassionate ideas to help on the journey of parenthood.

This was a great book. As an educator, it gave me many tools that I can use in my classroom.

Mona’s work has been life changing for me. She gave me the science to explain what I felt for years. It was the validation I need to shift my whole career. Now, I recommend her work to anyone who asks (and some who don’t!). Her Beyond Behaviors book is such a great resource, and now to have a book with that information specifically written for parents - with lots of “real life” examples and validation - is exciting! So glad to have this resource!

I’ve read Beyond Behaviors and loved it. I was very disappointed the way Mona Delahooke writes this book is cringe worthy to any parent, let alone one with a non neurotypical child.

Her case studies and personal stories are quasi-helpful and seem to convey solutions are quick, simple, and easy. She comes off as being the only person who can help parents understand the physiology behind behaviors (it’s more of a meta-analysis of Dan Siegel, Tina Payne Bryson, Ross Greene, Jeane Ayres…).

She consistently conveys the message that parents are brainwashed by society to label behaviors as good or bad. She presents herself as a messiah for the children who are subjected to mainstream discipline. The parents in the cases she includes state how their mindset and perception of their child’s behavior changed, and how they became empathetic and guilt ridden because they hadn’t been blessed with the knowledge St. Mona bestowed upon them sooner. It was gag worthy to read about the time she helped a family and the child drew her a picture out of gratitude, as if she had been saved because she was now able to experience her feelings and label her emotions since her parents were bathed in the glory of the understanding of neuroception.

It’s worth reading, but I recommend skipping her person anecdotes and cases. There’s a lack of relatable experiences for non traditional families, children with developmental differences, children with needs that require medications and therapy of multiple types…not every parent can get their kid to do “mindfulness” activities. There are no practical suggestions or guidelines for scenarios in which things aren’t progressing in a linear fashion.

The books I found more helpful prior to reading this one, are The Out of Sync Child, The Explosive Child, The Whole Brain Child, No Drama Discipline, and Parenting a Child Who Has Intense Emotions, Raising Your Spirited Child, The Highly Sensitive Child, How to Talk to Little Kids Will Listen

This is a wonderful book for parents of neurodivergent children!

This book and this author are the most important step in my understanding of neurodiverse children. Honestly I've learned many things about myself too. Highly recommend reading this 👌

Informative book that is easy to read and does not lecture. Learn about how an adult’s nervous system can help co-regulate the child’s nervous system. Wonderful insight.

All parents and educators should read this book!

The two most important sections of this book has made all the difference in my single parenting of two daughters (and most especially my 6 yo):
- Recognizing that you, as a parent, may be triggered by your children from your own childhood trauma.
- Understanding that my daughter's "red zone" behaviors almost always result from her nervous system and her sense of safety and love (and that we must accept these emotions just like we would positive ones).
Thank you Mona!

I have learned so much from this book and have already recommended it to every mom and teacher I know!
An absolute must-read!

I really wanted to love this book. I read it and tried to hi-light key points so I could show the hi lighted points to my partner. The book could have been half the size it was. I almost didn’t finish it because I was tired of reading the same thing over and over in different words. I do think the author is correct about the brain-body connection but I would have liked to have a more advice given approach on how to handle that instead of endless repetition on the fact that there is a connection.

Thank you Dr. Delahooke for such a wonderful resource. I am a counselor and Play Therapist and I have been recommending this book to all of the parents that I work with. You have provided the latest research in neuroscience to help parents better understand their children's behaviors resulting in more children feeling seen and deeply understood. So beautiful and much appreciated.

Dr. Delahooke brings a perspective that all parents, teachers, therapists, etc can benefit from. Instead of focusing on modifying behaviors, which often relies on manipulating and coercing children, she shows us how to tune into our children and discover what is behind the behavior.

Dr Mona Delahooke has written a book full of resources that help us parents consider the whole child individually. She wrote it in a way that speak not only to the children but also has us look at ourselves as parents in a non judgmental manner. I have been waiting for a book with such a paradigm shift to be written. As a early intervention mental health therapist I appreciate her majestic contribution to the field.

This is my first introduction to Dr. Delahooke and she has created a parenting guide for generations to come. I have thank my daughter for pointing me to Mona. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and I devoured the book in short order. I am now sharing its truths with my adult clients in therapy. I have for some time had a mandatory policy that parents attend the first 3 to 5 sessions with their children and “Brain Body Parenting” confirms and reaffirms this necessary practice. Children do not and cannot get better alone and it is scandalous to make the most immature brain in the room the most responsible for self regulation. Talk about adding to a child’s stress and subtracting from their body budget! This book is mandatory reading for all my parents. It is common sense yet many parents are perplexed by this “new” form of parenting. Brain Body Parenting is what parenting is intended to be.