What is the science of rewards and threats to the brain, especially to the child’s brain? On this episode, I welcome Dr. Loretta Breuning, an author and Founder of the Inner Mammal Institute, to discuss :

• How rewards and threats shape the young brain
• How to build healthy reward pathways in your kids
• Why yelling, pleading, and bribes can create reward systems and why we want to limit these things

 

Find out what The Inner Mammal Institute has to offer at InnerMammalInstitute.org and see Videos, podcasts, books, blogs, multimedia, a training program, and a free five-day happy-chemical jumpstart.

00:00:01:01 – 00:00:22:22

Dr. Loretta Breuning

The rewards we seek are not always what’s good for us. You know, famous example would be if a person smokes and they think, oh, I’ll feel great as soon as I get a cigaret, right? So we seek rewards with the neural pathways built from our past rewards. So our challenge in life is just to find our power or to build new neural pathways.

 

00:00:23:04 – 00:00:36:05

Dr. Loretta Breuning

And our challenge as parents is to reward the behavior you want rather than the behavior you don’t want, so that you build a pathway that turns on that behavior more easily.

 

00:00:36:07 – 00:01:06:03

Dr. Mona

Hello and welcome back to the PedsDocTalk Podcast, a podcast that continues to grow because of you and your reviews. So thank you so much for tuning in for another great conversation. It’s a podcast where I get to welcome the most amazing guests to chat about all things parenting, child health, child development, and parental mental health. And today’s guest on the show is Loretta Bruning, who is a PhD, founder of the Inner Mammal Institute and professor emerita of management at California State University, East Bay.

 

00:01:06:05 – 00:01:25:05

Dr. Mona

And she’s the author of many personal developmental books, including habits of a Happy Brain Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and Endorphin Levels. And we’re talking about rewards and threats, how they shape a young brain. Thank you so much, Loretta. It’s so nice to have you on the show today.

 

00:01:25:07 – 00:01:27:03

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Hi. I’m glad to be here.

 

00:01:27:05 – 00:01:31:18

Dr. Mona

Well, tell us more about yourself. If people are not familiar with the work that you do and also your book.

 

00:01:31:20 – 00:02:06:01

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Sure. So I was a college professor for 25 years, and I had sort of learned the social science world view, which sort of suggests that children are born happy and good, and we should just let them do whatever they want. And I sort of lived that way for a few decades, and I noticed that it didn’t work. So then I went back and did my own research and noticed the animal brain has the same chemicals that we have.

 

00:02:06:03 – 00:02:36:06

Dr. Loretta Breuning

People often talk about dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphin. Animals have these chemicals and animals actually quite a lot. And was amazing to see. All the animal behavior studies of how animals seek social dominance and why they have conflict. And suddenly I understood why people have difficulty and how we can train ourselves to manage these chemicals.

 

00:02:36:08 – 00:02:56:07

Dr. Mona

That’s wonderful. And I know we could go take a deep dive into all of these chemicals, but we’re going to be chatting about rewards and threats and how they shape the young brain. So let’s talk about rewards and maybe utilizing some of that research that, you know, how do rewards impact and shape the young brain, and how can parents utilize that in their parenting?

 

00:02:56:08 – 00:03:15:13

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Sure. So a reward is anything that meets a need from your brain’s perspective. So dopamine is known as the reward chemical. And in daily life, like when you get something that you want, it is like wow, how exciting. Like if you’re playing cards and you draw the card that you want and you feel good, wow, I got it.

 

00:03:15:15 – 00:03:42:20

Dr. Loretta Breuning

So that’s a little burst of dopamine. And we want that all the time. So if you could imagine from a toddler perspective, I’m fascinated when my little grandson walks into a room with tons of toys and he’s interested in the toy in the other child’s hand. And when they see that toy, it’s like they want it so that they anticipate, like, I’m going to feel good when I get that.

 

00:03:42:22 – 00:04:05:16

Dr. Loretta Breuning

And so the rewards we seek are not always what’s good for us. You know, famous example would be if a person smokes and they think, oh, I’ll feel great as soon as I get a cigaret, right. So we seek rewards with the neural pathways built from our past rewards. So our challenge in life is just to find our power to build new neural pathways.

 

00:04:05:22 – 00:04:18:22

Dr. Loretta Breuning

And our challenge as parents is to reward the behavior you want, rather than the behavior you don’t want, so that you build a pathway that turns on that behavior more easily.

 

00:04:19:00 – 00:04:24:11

Dr. Mona

Wonderful. And going in line with threats. How can threats impact the young brain?

 

00:04:24:13 – 00:04:51:05

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Sure. So a threat from the brain’s perspective is just anything that gets in the way of meeting your needs. So I’m obviously not saying to threaten your children, but like, the fear of, like they won’t play with me if I kick them, so I better not kick them because they won’t play with me. So that would be, you know, it’s often called natural consequences, but the brain learns from threats.

 

00:04:51:05 – 00:05:20:06

Dr. Loretta Breuning

So if someone doesn’t play with you, if you do a certain thing, then that’s a threat and you want to avoid that. So parents in the past have obviously used lots of threats and not always been successful. But I think partly that’s because we don’t understand that on some level, we’re actually rewarding the behavior we don’t want unconsciously, because to a young brain, any time they get attention, that’s a reward.

 

00:05:20:08 – 00:05:42:18

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And I think that’s one of the biggest missteps. I don’t want to say mistakes, but one of the biggest missteps I see is what you’re describing is how parents sometimes maybe purposely reward the behavior or maybe inadvertently reward behaviors that are not desired behavior. So can you give some examples of one parents may end up inadvertently or realizing it rewarding non-preferred behaviors.

 

00:05:42:20 – 00:06:07:19

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Sure. So a simple example would be if you’re at the dinner table and one child says something mean, and then the whole conversation revolves around them. So they learn. It’s like, wow, when I say something mean, I get to be like in charge of this whole family. So who wouldn’t want that? So another example would be refusing to eat.

 

00:06:07:21 – 00:06:13:05

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Then the whole life revolves around getting you to eat.

 

00:06:13:07 – 00:06:31:14

Dr. Mona

These are very important ones. And in terms of like you know, one example that I think modern parents can kind of relate to is screaming and yelling. And then we just say they want their screen time or want like, a TV on. And then they scream and yell, and we end up giving into that and say, hey, you can have more screen time.

 

00:06:31:16 – 00:06:47:05

Dr. Mona

Basically, they’re realizing that, you know what? I was able to scream and yell, and this worked, and I’ll just raise my volume a little louder next time. And this is what how we communicate. And this is what gets to my parents. And so I think all these little but very impactful things are so important for parents to hear.

 

00:06:47:05 – 00:06:48:20

Dr. Mona

And your examples are wonderful.

 

00:06:48:22 – 00:07:12:08

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Thank you. And you know what? I didn’t know any of this when I was raising my kids. And I was very shocked to learn that afterwards. And what they’ve learned from animals is and this is so hard to do, but if someone screams and cries like you said, and you resist and you resist, and then you finally give in, then that trains the behavior in even stronger.

 

00:07:12:10 – 00:07:34:15

Dr. Loretta Breuning

And there’s all kinds of animal studies. And also it’s the famous other example with adults is gambling. So if you gamble at a slot machine, let’s say, and you lose and you lose and you lose and you win and it’s like, oh, it’s called variable reinforcement when you don’t get the reward all the time, but you only get it some of the time, then you want to do it even more.

 

00:07:34:19 – 00:07:44:21

Dr. Loretta Breuning

And then the other thing is that you ramp up to the big, you know, like I’m going to start screaming immediately at the highest volume.

 

00:07:44:22 – 00:08:00:08

Dr. Mona

Oh, I you know, I see this a lot. So parenting experts or people in child development across generations because we learn so much, you know, like you said, you didn’t know this earlier on, but obviously you’re very well versed in it now. And I have my in-laws or my parents come and I’ll be talking to them about this.

 

00:08:00:08 – 00:08:23:21

Dr. Mona

And they’re like, well, when you were younger, we did this or, you know, just give it to him. He’s crying. Just give it to him. And I’m like, mom, I want you to trust us or, you know, my mother in law will say that. And it’s just so important for us to hear how things can evolve and how, you know, science evolves in our understanding, like you said, of how brain chemistry is obviously really important for us to know and how it can really impact parenting is really an awesome thing.

 

00:08:23:21 – 00:08:26:13

Dr. Mona

So I just love being able to talk about this with you.

 

00:08:26:15 – 00:08:48:01

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Thank you. Yeah, it’s so hard because somehow there’s this illusion that the older generation was stricter, but that was actually two generations ago. You know, where they said no to everything. And then I think my generation went to the other extreme of saying yes too easily. And I’m glad that your generation is learning to moderate. Yeah.

 

00:08:48:01 – 00:09:18:11

Dr. Mona

Yeah, I will say, and I will also admit that so many of us are still learning about that, which is why I love the show and having guests like you on to understand that middle ground of hey, we are loving parents, we are allowing compassion. We are being okay with the myriad of feelings, but we also understand boundaries and that there has to be some understanding of how you’re describing, how rewards work and how threatening is not helpful, and how this impacts that growing, moldable young brain that is so just soaking it all in all at once.

 

00:09:18:13 – 00:09:42:10

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Yes. And also again, that if you get into a big argument about something that a child could perceive that as a reward, even though you don’t like that, or maybe on some level you perceive it as a reward too, because when you fight with the child, maybe they’re keeping you company and otherwise they’re just leaving the house. So you have to really look underneath.

 

00:09:42:11 – 00:10:07:04

Dr. Loretta Breuning

But what we know from animals is so first, animals have a lot of conflict, as I said, and they actually seek the one up position. They try to dominate the animal next to them. So when your child is born, like, I know you think like they’re so innocent and your pet is so innocent, but in fact, if you leave them to their own devices, they try to expand their own power.

 

00:10:07:04 – 00:10:31:02

Dr. Loretta Breuning

So that’s one thing. The other thing is animals seek a herd. So this herd behavior is a natural impulse. But as they get older, they transition from the herd. Being your parents to the herd being your peers. And so that’s why they have sort of life and death feelings about running with the herd, because that’s a natural mammalian impulse.

 

00:10:31:04 – 00:10:55:13

Dr. Mona

Oh, I love how you connected to animal behavior. And obviously what we know about that, that is so important to hear. And I want to talk about, we’ve also talked about how rewards and threats can impact a young brain, which I completely agree with and resonate with. How can a parent help their child build healthy reward pathways? You know, I know you give some examples, but is there anything else you’d want to add and make sure people really take home from that conversation that we’re having?

 

00:10:55:15 – 00:11:21:14

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Sure. So a neural pathways built from repetition. So you’re not going to build it all at once. And you’re always competing with the whole reward structure that they’ve already experienced in life. So focus on one thing at a time. So let’s say you want your child to build a new pathway or to do a certain thing, let’s say, to do their homework before they watch television or something.

 

00:11:21:16 – 00:11:52:23

Dr. Loretta Breuning

So that’s the focus. So you want to reward every behavior related to that. And be sure not to reward them very carefully. No, to say you’re not rewarding any other behaviors that interfere with it. So the first thing is to break a difficult new behavior into small steps. So if doing homework before screen time is a big departure from your usual, then make it five minutes of homework.

 

00:11:52:23 – 00:12:15:21

Dr. Loretta Breuning

You know you come home, you do homework for five minutes, then you have milk and cookies. Then you work for another ten minutes. Then you talk to your siblings, then you work for another 15 minutes and then you get your screen time, for example. So you’re breaking it down into small chunks and you’re using healthy rewards, and you’re using the rewards.

 

00:12:15:21 – 00:12:37:11

Dr. Loretta Breuning

That would have been there anyway. But you have to do the behavior to get the reward. And repetition builds a pathway so that that becomes normal. And also you’re doing this without out discussion, pleading, arguing. It’s just simply either you do it, you get the reward, you don’t do it, you don’t get the reward.

 

00:12:37:13 – 00:12:52:22

Dr. Mona

And also get kind of reiterating when we start to plead, yell or even just say like plead, yell, bribe, all of that, that is negatively kind of impacting that reward pathway, right? Meaning they’re not learning anything from it. They’re just basically learning that this is what’s going to happen. And I’m just going to my parents going to yell and plead.

 

00:12:52:22 – 00:12:55:02

Dr. Mona

And that’s almost like negative attention in a way.

 

00:12:55:02 – 00:13:30:05

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Right. Exactly. And that is a reward. So that they may rather control you than get the milk and cookies. So by controlling you, by giving them your power, by giving them your 100% attention, when they misbehave, you’re rewarding them. And so then you have to say, okay, the reward is this whatever you’ve decided the reward is, and make sure not to give them other rewards, which sometimes you have to just look the other way, get busy with something else so you’re not giving them your attention for the misbehavior.

 

00:13:30:07 – 00:13:51:08

Dr. Mona

Yeah, and I think, you know, one concept in I don’t like using this terminology, but I’m gonna say current parenting. Let’s not use modern parenting, but current 2023 parenting is what you just mentioned. That concept of not giving attention to that behavior, I think is absolutely valid. Some people say, oh, well, that’s ignoring the child. And I want to really reiterate, you’re not ignoring the child and their feelings.

 

00:13:51:08 – 00:13:55:07

Dr. Mona

You’re not driving attention to that undesired behavior.

 

00:13:55:09 – 00:14:23:23

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Yes, exactly. And this whole idea about their feelings, you know, their feelings are not necessarily from an authentic place or a good guide to life. If you study like chickens, pigs, you know animals, they will steal all the food from the animals next to them. But unless the other animal is strong enough to bite them back. So this natural impulse is like, I want to control everything.

 

00:14:23:23 – 00:14:50:00

Dr. Loretta Breuning

It’s all about me. So we have to learn to moderate that. I’ll give you a fascinating example when I go and visit my grandson. So my daughter has wisely put a lot of the toys in another cabinet. So she only has a few toys out at a time, and then she rotates them. So the minute he sees me, he tries to get me to go to the toy cabinet and open it up.

 

00:14:50:02 – 00:15:11:07

Dr. Loretta Breuning

And so I want to do that for him because I hardly ever see him, because I’m so impressed. He can’t really talk, you know, he’s so little. And yet he comes up with the words like any, so excited. So I’m so excited to hear him talk. And so I’ve rewarded the bad behavior. But that’s okay because I’m not there all the time.

 

00:15:11:07 – 00:15:34:22

Dr. Loretta Breuning

But then it gets worse. The minute he gets the toy, he doesn’t want it. He just moves on. So it was obvious that controlling me. Yeah, that’s the goal. Now on the one hand communication is good. He had an act of communication and I rewarded it. Maybe once that’s okay. But then after that then I’m just becoming part of the problem.

 

00:15:35:00 – 00:15:35:07

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Well, I.

 

00:15:35:07 – 00:15:49:20

Dr. Mona

Love that you’re bringing that up because I think a lot of my listeners that are tuning in today have in-laws and grandparents that that get it. They’re coming in for just that short period. They’re wanting to be that son like, or even just because they don’t like you said, they don’t see them a lot. And then that kind of happens.

 

00:15:49:20 – 00:16:05:16

Dr. Mona

And it’s obvious when I see that, like when we have a guest in our home and those guests are usually my parents or my in-laws, Ryan, my son, who’s three at the time of this recording, he very much understands, like, how am I going to there’s a new people in my house. Yes. And I going to use I am happy to.

 

00:16:05:16 – 00:16:21:09

Dr. Mona

You’re using that word because it’s not a negative. They’re just very smart. Right. They’re learning like, this is a new boundary setter in my house. They’re not usually here. I want cookies. So what am I going to do? Oh, I’m going to come up to them really cutely and tug on their shirt or tug on their leg.

 

00:16:21:13 – 00:16:37:16

Dr. Mona

And I am just going to look with my big doll eyes and say, and nanny nanny dog cookies. And they give it. And then it’s a, you know, you give a mouse a cookie and it’s like literally cyclical. And then it’s like full blown tantrums because of the fact that it was easy to kind of get that and there were no boundaries being set.

 

00:16:37:16 – 00:16:57:18

Dr. Mona

So I think there’s a balance here. Obviously, it’s so important that we hear that because yeah, it’s not bad. They’re not like this evil manipulators, but they’re just really, really smart at learning patterns and learning. What is my voice or my tone of voice or my yelling going to get out of my caregiver? Whether that’s my mom, my dad, my grandma coming into the house.

 

00:16:57:18 – 00:17:03:16

Dr. Mona

So I like to really recognize that children are smart, but we have to be smarter as caregivers.

 

00:17:03:16 – 00:17:27:23

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Yes, exactly. And again, it’s we’re supposed to put it only in the positive context. Oh, they’re smart and everything. But that leads to thinking, you know, you have to respect their emotions and like it’s all coming from a sincere place. But we have to know that the urge to power is just a natural impulse in the brain, and we have to learn to use it in healthy ways.

 

00:17:27:23 – 00:17:46:05

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Otherwise you’re hurting them more in the long run because nobody will want to play with them. They won’t be able to tolerate workplace cooperation, so it’s really a valuable skill that you’re giving them by training them to manage that urge for power and delay getting what you want.

 

00:17:46:07 – 00:18:04:02

Dr. Mona

Yeah, I know the example you gave about the homework, right? For that older child’s school age child. But all of these things obviously go downstream into that those toddler years when power struggles are really starting to show itself. You know, like that two year old, especially three year old, four year old, I, I talked to so many parents who are feeding into that power struggle.

 

00:18:04:02 – 00:18:23:21

Dr. Mona

Right. They’re creating like we said, that reward cycle of yelling back, pleading back, bribery back. And they’re like, why isn’t it changing? Why is there just keep doing this behavior? And I’d say, like you just said, you’re rewarding them by giving them attention for that activity. But if you just kind of tell them this is what’s going to happen, take a step back.

 

00:18:23:21 – 00:18:44:23

Dr. Mona

And sometimes I tell my families, don’t say anything like, if you’re going to say and yell and plead and bribe, take that breath and just take a moment. And like you said, sometimes it means being in the same room, walking away and just saying, you can have your moment, but we’re not going to get into this. I’m going to do this, and you’re going to do this, and we’re going to yell and did it add it up, because that just escalates and escalates and rewards their brains like you mentioned.

 

00:18:45:01 – 00:19:12:17

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Exactly. And so many people slide into that because that’s how they grew up. Yeah. So we have to create in our own mind what’s another scenario. So if you just go off and do something else, you might feel guilty about that. So let me give you another mental image so that you could feel more positively about it. So your ancestors, maybe they had ten kids and maybe they had to plant seeds and feed the cow.

 

00:19:12:17 – 00:19:33:04

Dr. Loretta Breuning

And if those seeds didn’t get tended, they were going to starve the next year. And if they didn’t tend the cow that were going to not have any protein. So do you think those ten kids got the kind of hundred percent catering to the mutilations that your kids are getting? No.

 

00:19:33:06 – 00:19:50:04

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And this is why I think what you’re bringing to this conversation is so important because like I said, in this current parenting space, I do like to create a little balance here, that there is a kind of reality that exists in a lot of parenting educators that, yes, you got to sit with them the entire time that they’re having these big feelings.

 

00:19:50:04 – 00:20:07:14

Dr. Mona

But we know that and I agree with you that it’s not always going to happen. Or maybe like you said at the time of this recording, this episode may go live after I have my child, but I’m going to have now two children and I’m not going to be able every single moment my son is having some big feelings to sit with him, however long that tantrum is.

 

00:20:07:16 – 00:20:25:20

Dr. Mona

Yes, Paris is back. Sometimes when I have to say, hey Ryaan, sweetie, you take your moment. I’m going to go see the baby right here and then go like you’re literally there. But I think there is this misconception that, oh, but I have to be there the entire time. And you bring up that, you know, evolutionary and that ancestor, piece that those aren’t bad parents.

 

00:20:25:20 – 00:20:43:03

Dr. Mona

These are parents that I always say you have to treasure home. You got to see, well, at this point, who needs me the most, right? Like, at this point, I can’t be everywhere for everyone, and that’s reasonable. But how am I going to let this child feel their feelings move on? Not again. Create negative reward pathways up. Okay, fine.

 

00:20:43:03 – 00:20:59:13

Dr. Mona

Here, take the cookie. Take the screen. Take this, take this. And it is that sort of big picture. And I love that you’re bringing this conversation because I think it’s needed in, a lot of what we’re hearing in the parenting space right now. And I’m just being honest, I hear it a lot of, okay, we go sit with them, and if you walk away, then that’s ignoring.

 

00:20:59:13 – 00:21:17:19

Dr. Mona

And that’s, that’s not that they’re going to feel like you don’t believe them or hear them. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. We know from psychology that that’s not what we’re seeing here. Your child still knows that you’re the leader of their home and that you love them, but you can’t be in their face 24/7, especially, all the times they’re having big feelings.

 

00:21:18:01 – 00:21:43:03

Dr. Mona

And I love that we’re having this conversation. The other thing that I wanted to talk about, which you mentioned, was about the repetition. I think a lot of times, you know, we’re talking about parenting generations and things that we learned. I think we were learning so much in this modern 2023 parenting. One thing I will say is that because of things like Amazon social media, parents do have this sort of instant gratification mindset that, okay, well, I do this and it’s going to change.

 

00:21:43:05 – 00:22:11:20

Dr. Mona

If I can order something and it comes to my door in a day, I can do this with my child and they’ll change. But it repetition. I love that you brought up repetition earlier on in this conversation. It takes consistency and repetition over and over for us to rewire. It’s not an overnight. I think a lot of parents have a misconception that, oh well, I read online or I saw someone did this and their child listen, you no, they probably listened after 20, 30, 40 times of that parent being super consistent with that.

 

00:22:11:20 – 00:22:25:23

Dr. Mona

So I love to normalize that because I feel like many times I hear it from my families in my office that it’s not working. And then I say, well, have you been consistent? They’re like, well, sometimes I do this, sometimes I do that. I’m like, well, that’s not going to work. And then I’m like, have you been repetitious about it?

 

00:22:26:03 – 00:22:34:11

Dr. Mona

But like, yeah, sometimes I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. You have to respect the human brain and understanding that repetition matters. So thanks for bringing up that repetition comment.

 

00:22:34:13 – 00:23:01:09

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Sure. Absolutely. So three things build neural pathways repetition, emotion and use. So I’ll explain them. Use. So we have a lot of myelin when we’re young. And that builds the biggest neural pathways. So once your kids myelin years are over they’re not going to be building the major highways of the brain. So they’re going to face adult life with the neural pathways they’re building.

 

00:23:01:09 – 00:23:30:14

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Now the second thing is emotion. So these chemicals of emotion, you could think that they’re like paving on a neural pathway. So if somebody gets has a tantrum and gets a reward, that reward is a good feeling, like, yes, I did it. And that paves a neural pathway. So when you want to build a new neural pathway, you’re already competing with a very large pathway paved by past rewards.

 

00:23:30:14 – 00:23:34:21

Dr. Loretta Breuning

So that’s why it takes so much repetition to compete with that.

 

00:23:34:23 – 00:23:56:11

Dr. Mona

Oh, that’s so well said. And I have really enjoyed this conversation, not only for just talking about rewards and threats and all the brain chemistry behind it, but also connecting. Like I mentioned already, the parenting experience across decades. I think it’s so important for everyone to hear. And I oftentimes feel like sometimes we feel that older generations of parenting, oh, they don’t understand.

 

00:23:56:11 – 00:24:14:14

Dr. Mona

They didn’t do anything right. I’m like, there’s so much that we can take from all different levels, right? Like we talked about. And I think this is so important to kind of bring it back to brain chemistry and rewards and threats and really building on that behavior that we want. Is there a final message for everyone listening today that you’d like to share?

 

00:24:14:16 – 00:24:43:13

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Well, I have a parenting page on my website with lots and lots of resources. It’s Inner Mammal Institute dawgs, parents, teachers, all one word parents, teachers and in addition to a variety of books and podcasts like this, I even have some resources that are written for children that are very simple. And I have like even a two minute animation that explains how your brain works and repetition and things like that.

 

00:24:43:13 – 00:24:51:14

Dr. Loretta Breuning

So it could be really helpful and especially for somewhat older children, that they can really get excited about managing their own brain.

 

00:24:51:16 – 00:24:54:19

Dr. Mona

Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining me today.

 

00:24:54:21 – 00:24:56:03

Dr. Loretta Breuning

Sure. Pleasure.

 

00:24:56:05 – 00:25:13:20

Dr. Mona

Thank you. Yeah, this was a great conversation. And for everyone listening. If you love this episode, make sure you leave a review and a rating and also share it on social media channels or share it with a friend. I just again love having these conversations about parenting and with Loretta as well, and I cannot wait to talk to another guest next time.

 

00:25:13:20 – 00:25:18:14

Dr. Mona

Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. As always, please leave a review.

 

00:25:18:16 – 00:25:20:02

Dr. Mona

Share this episode with a friend.

 

00:25:20:02 – 00:25:29:13

Dr. Mona

Share it on your social media. Make sure to follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel, PedsDocTalk TV. We’ll talk to you soon.