Beyond the Behaviors of our G/2e Kids:

An Ode to Mona Delahooke, Ph.D.

by Marna Wohlfeld

WYKYN. When you know Dr. Mona Delahooke and her work, you know how transformative and inspirational she is. Dr. Delahooke is a thinker, writer, and speaker who has made a profound impact on parents and educators who are navigating the complex world of twice-exceptionality. I don’t remember if I first heard Dr. Delahooke speak in an interview with Debbie Reber on a Tilt Parenting podcast or as a featured speaker at the Bright and Quirky summit. I found her in both places in close succession and immediately ordered her first book, Beyond Behaviors: Using Brain Science and Compassion to Understand and Solve Children’s Behavioral Challenges. 

Dr. Delahooke captivated me with her profound compassion and understanding of WHY kids behave the way they do. Rather than focusing on how to “manage” children’s behavior, Dr. Delahooke recommends looking beneath the tip of the iceberg to try to find out what a child’s behavior is trying to communicate. 

Parents and caregivers of gifted / 2e children are familiar with seeing baffling behaviors from their children. Many gifted / 2e children have brains and bodies that are zooming along at a fast clip, making it difficult for them to keep from shouting their ideas, moving their bodies, or letting their imaginations run wild. Their highly sensitive sensory systems may impact their behaviors. And they may experience asynchronous development, which could look like reading at a college level and also throwing toddler-style tantrums when they encounter disappointment or frustration. Traditional methods for addressing challenging behaviors are often ineffective for G/2e kids and may even be demoralizing or harmful. 

Adults running schools, camps, sports teams, churches, and even homeschool co-ops often attribute challenging behaviors to malintent on the part of the child. In these scenarios, adults use punishments and rewards to try to dissuade bad behaviors and encourage good behaviors. This is what our parents and grandparents did, so it should work, right? 

Dr. Delahooke counters this view with a new outlook: behavior is a reflection of the state of the child's nervous system. In order to affect a child’s behavior, adults must try to understand how to calm the child’s nervous system, which is affected by the child’s history, their unique brain wiring, and by their present interactions with the world around them. Using her 30 years of private practice as a children’s therapist, her many years of work in schools, and her own experience as a parent, Dr. Delahooke gives wonderful, concrete examples of how to determine what each individual child needs in order to regulate their nervous system. Along the way, Dr. Delahooke also teaches parents and educators how to take care of themselves, which contributes to co-regulation between adult and child and creates an environment conducive to learning, playing, and growing.

As many of us begin the school year or continue on our year-round schooling paths, Dr. Delahooke’s work can greatly impact our relationships with the children we are parenting and educating. Assuming a child is misbehaving on purpose garners a very different response from a caregiver or educator than understanding that the child’s nervous system is dysregulated, that we can work like scientists to figure out the reasons for the dysregulation, and that we can learn the unique ways our children calm their nervous systems and prepare for learning.

Many thanks to Dr. Mona Delahooke for her compassionate, science-backed work in supporting children, their caregivers, and their teachers. Dr. Delahooke has been an inspiration to many other scholars, including Dr. Lori Desautels, who teaches Applied Educational Neuroscience at the Butler School of Education and is holding a symposium on this topic on Sept. 30th. If you are a parent educator looking for more ways to help a child who struggles with nervous system regulation and challenging behaviors, click here to learn more about this virtual and in-person symposium.

Resources:

• Dr. Mona Delahooke's Website complete with descriptions of her books, blog posts, and more
• Tilt Parenting Podcasts with Dr. Mona Delahooke interviewed by Debbie Reber: Episode 1: Dr. Mona Delahooke on Looking Beyond Children's Challenging Behaviors

Episode 2: Dr. Mona Delahooke on the Power of Brain-Body Parenting

Author’s Note: This article is being published today in honor of Dr. Delahooke and her work as many of her colleagues and supporters are sending messages of support and healing to her as she faces unexpected health challenges due to a ruptured brain aneurysm. We are all pulling for you, Dr. Delahooke, and sending well-wishes and gratitude to you!