In this Follow-Up episode, Dr. Mona revisits one of the most downloaded PedsDocTalk conversations, her discussion with Dr. Loretta Breuning on how rewards and threats shape a child’s brain.

They break down why yelling, pleading, and bribing often backfire, and how attention itself can accidentally reinforce behaviors parents want to stop. You will hear why giving in after resistance makes behaviors stronger over time, and how inconsistency trains kids to escalate.

This episode focuses on building healthier reward pathways with clarity and consistency, without fear, shame, or constant power struggles. If certain parenting moments feel stuck on repeat, this conversation helps explain why and what to do differently.

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00;00;00;02 – 00;00;23;26

Dr. Mona

Welcome back to the follow up. Where we revisit a favorite episode from the PedsDocTalk podcast. In less time than it takes your kid to figure out which button gets the biggest reaction out of you. Today’s clip comes from my conversation with Doctor Loretta Bruning, author and founder of the Inner Mammal Institute, where we break down the science of rewards and threats and what they actually do to a child’s brain.

 

00;00;23;29 – 00;00;46;15

Dr. Mona

We talk about how yelling, pleading, and bribes can accidentally wire behaviors we are trying to stop and how to build healthier reward pathways instead. This is one of our most down loaded episodes, and I know it resonated because so many of you told me how it changed how you looked at everyday power struggles. If this episode resonates, make sure to subscribe to the podcast.

 

00;00;46;18 – 00;01;02;00

Dr. Mona

Download and listen to the full episode available in the caption, and follow us at the PedsDocTalk podcast on social media if you love the show. Let’s get into this amazing conversation.

 

00;01;02;03 – 00;01;12;21

Dr.  Loretta Breuning

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;01;12;24 – 00;01;32;00

Dr. Mona

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;01;32;03 – 00;01;59;08

Dr. Mona

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 they they anticipate, like, I’m going to feel good when I get that.

 

00;01;59;10 – 00;02;22;11

Dr. Mona

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;02;22;13 – 00;02;35;12

Dr. Mona

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;02;35;14 – 00;02;41;00

Dr.  Loretta Breuning

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

 

00;02;41;03 – 00;03;05;14

Dr. Mona

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.

 

00;03;05;14 – 00;03;28;21

Dr. Mona

But the brain learns from threats. 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.

 

00;03;28;21 – 00;03;36;25

Dr. Mona

We don’t want unconsciously, because to a young brain, any time they get attention, that’s a reward.

 

00;03;36;28 – 00;03;59;10

Dr.  Loretta Breuning

Yeah. And I think that’s one of the biggest missteps. I don’t wanna 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 when parents may end up inadvertently or realizing it rewarding non-preferred behaviors?

 

00;03;59;12 – 00;04;24;14

Dr. Mona

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 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;04;24;17 – 00;04;29;25

Dr. Mona

Then the whole life revolves around getting you to eat.

 

00;04;29;28 – 00;04;50;14

Dr.  Loretta Breuning

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, where basically they’re realizing that, you know what?

 

00;04;50;16 – 00;05;05;16

Dr.  Loretta Breuning

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. And your examples are wonderful.

 

00;05;05;19 – 00;05;29;02

Dr. Mona

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 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;05;29;04 – 00;05;51;11

Dr. Mona

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, then 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;05;51;16 – 00;06;01;19

Dr. Mona

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;06;01;21 – 00;06;12;22

Dr.  Loretta Breuning

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.

 

00;06;12;26 – 00;06;33;00

Dr. Mona

Yeah. It’s so hard because somehow there’s this illusion that the older generation was stricter, but that was actually two generations ago where, 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.

 

00;06;33;02 – 00;07;04;09

Dr.  Loretta Breuning

Yeah, 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;07;04;11 – 00;07;15;16

Dr.  Loretta Breuning

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;07;15;18 – 00;07;41;17

Dr. Mona

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 to do a certain thing, let’s say to do their homework before they watch television or something.

 

00;07;41;20 – 00;08;13;00

Dr. Mona

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;08;13;00 – 00;08;37;14

Dr. Mona

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 that would have been there anyway.

 

00;08;37;14 – 00;08;57;15

Dr. Mona

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 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;08;57;17 – 00;09;13;02

Dr.  Loretta Breuning

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 gonna my parents going to yell and plead.

 

00;09;13;02 – 00;09;15;24

Dr.  Loretta Breuning

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

 

00;09;15;26 – 00;09;50;10

Dr. Mona

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;09;50;13 – 00;10;10;19

Dr.  Loretta Breuning

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 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 in their feelings.

 

00;10;10;19 – 00;10;14;17

Dr.  Loretta Breuning

You’re not driving attention to that undesired behavior.

 

00;10;14;19 – 00;10;43;07

Dr. Mona

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;10;43;07 – 00;11;09;11

Dr. Mona

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;11;09;13 – 00;11;30;20

Dr. Mona

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 in is 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;11;30;20 – 00;11;58;08

Dr. Mona

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;11;58;10 – 00;12;19;22

Dr. Mona

And that’s your follow up. Just a small dose of the real relatable and eye opening conversations we love to have here. If you smiled, nodded, or had an moment, go ahead and download, follow and share this episode with a friend. Let’s grow this village together for more everyday parenting wins and real talk. Hang out with us on Instagram at the PedsDocTalk podcast.

 

00;12;19;29 – 00;12;35;11

Dr. Mona

Want more? Dive into the full episode and more at PedsDocTalk.com. Because parenting is better with support and remember, consistency is key. Humor is medicine and follow ups are everything. I’m Doctor Mona. See you next time for your next dose.