Welcome to the Parenting Well Podcast with the Parent Engagement Network! I am Dr. Shelly Mahon, your host. This podcast provides perspectives on parenting, so that you can fill your well with information, strategies, and resources that help you raise healthy, happy humans. Filling your well leaves you engaged, educated and empowered to support your children in being strong, resourceful, confident and resilient in the face of life’s challenges and adventures. Let’s fill that well!
Episodes
Feb 24, 2026
Feb 24, 2026
35 min
I am Dr. Shelly Mahon, your host, and in this episode of the Parenting Well Podcast, we’re talking about what truly shapes your child’s emotional health in the earliest years of life.
I’m joined by Emily Fried, LCSW, a specialist in infant, early childhood, and perinatal mental health, to explore what’s really happening beneath toddler behavior — and how attachment, brain development, and parental wellbeing are deeply connected from the very beginning.
We discuss how to create the right conditions for healthy development, how toddlers experience big emotions, the difference between prenatal depression and perinatal anxiety, and practical ways to support regulation in everyday moments.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re “doing it right” in these early years, this conversation will both ground you and guide you.
Register to participate in her workshop at the Stress & Anxiety Conference on Feb 28, 2026
In This Episode, We Discuss:
- What infant mental health actually is — and why it matters
- How early relationships shape the developing brain
- The link between developmental milestones and social-emotional growth
- The difference between prenatal depression and perinatal anxiety
- What secure attachment looks like in everyday parenting
- Why toddler behavior makes sense developmentally
- Concrete strategies to support co-regulation and emotional resilience
Key Takeaways
- Infant mental health is relational. Emotional wellbeing in the early years is built through responsive, connected caregiving.
- Attachment grows in everyday moments. Security comes from consistent attunement — not perfection.
- Brain development and emotional development are intertwined. Early relational experiences shape stress response and regulation.
- Toddler behavior is communication. What looks like defiance is often dysregulation.
- Perinatal mental health impacts the whole system. Supporting parents is part of supporting children.
- Regulation starts with the adult. Young children borrow calm from their caregivers.
- Prevention matters. Early relational support lays the foundation for lifelong emotional health.
Resources:
Feb 20, 2026
Feb 20, 2026
40 min
Welcome to the Parenting Well podcast with Parent Engagement Network! I am Dr. Shelly Mahon, your host and today’s well source is Melissa Holland.
Melissa Holland is a parenting coach, founder of Inner Wisdom Parenting, and a PEN Ambassador at SHMS who is passionate about helping parents raise emotionally healthy, resilient children, starting with themselves.
Melissa works with parents of young children, particularly ages 5–10, helping them better understand what’s really going on beneath behavior and how to respond with clarity, confidence, and connection. Through her coaching and workshops, she supports parents in tuning into both their child’s inner world and their own, so discipline becomes less about control and more about growth, trust, and relationship.
Grounded, compassionate, and deeply practical, Melissa’s work empowers parents to slow down, listen differently, and parent from a place of intention rather than reactivity. Her approach reminds parents that they already have much of what they need. Sometimes they just need support accessing their inner wisdom.
Melissa will be speaking at PEN's Stress & Anxiety Conference on Feb 28, 2026.
In this podcast, we talk about:
- Tapping into your inner wisdom
- What is taking place developmentally for 5-10 year olds
- Neurodevelopment for this age group
- Frustration as the gap between our expectations and reality
- Key things that cause stress and anxiety during this phase of childhood
- Defiance as a symptom of excessive stress without the ability to understand and voice their feelings
- Difference between counter-willed and strong-willed
- Ways to recognize your child’s triggers and modify your response
- Developing the capacity for self-compassion
Resources
Feb 19, 2026
Feb 19, 2026
39 min
Welcome to the Parenting Well podcast with Parent Engagement Network! I am Dr. Shelly Mahon, your host and today’s well source is Lisa Kaplan. Lisa is a Registered Nurse and Life & Mental Wellness Coach dedicated to supporting families through life’s pivotal transitions. With a background grounded in both healthcare and emotional wellness, Lisa brings a unique blend of clinical insight and compassionate coaching to her work.
She specializes in helping parents navigate the often complex shift from raising children to relating to young adults, a season filled with pride, uncertainty, grief, growth, and opportunity. Through her work, Lisa empowers parents to move from control to collaboration, from directing to guiding, and from parenting to partnership.
At our conference, she will present “From Parenting to Partnership: Navigating the Transition to Adulthood,” offering practical tools and mindset shifts to help families foster independence while preserving connection.
In this podcast, we talk about:
- How anxiety shows up differently for people
- Ways to tap into your innate health
- Physical manifestations of anxiety
- How thinking creates our reality
- The shift in sitting with your feelings long enough to have trust and confidence in your child
- Recognizing places to let go of control
- Ways the parent-child relationship changes as children move into adulthood
- The impact of making deposits and withdrawals in your relationship with your child
- Developing agency in your child’s decision-making
Resources:
Feb 12, 2026
Feb 12, 2026
37 min
Welcome to the Parenting Well podcast with Parent Engagement Network! I am Dr. Shelly Mahon, your host and today’s well source is Marie Nowacki Ford.
Marie is a postpartum doula, new parent educator, and certified Child Passenger Safety Technician based in Boulder, Colorado. She supports families through the emotional and practical transition into parenthood, with a focus on reducing stress, building confidence, and creating sustainable support systems during the postpartum period.
Marie’s work centers on helping parents navigate anxiety, overwhelm, identity shifts, and the often-unspoken challenges of early parenting. Through overnight support, newborn education, and holistic care, she empowers families to feel more grounded, capable, and connected during one of life’s biggest transitions.
Marie also specializes in supporting grandparents as they navigate new roles, boundary setting, and effective communication, which she’ll speak about at the Reducing Stress & Anxiety Conference on February 28th.
In this podcast, we talk about:
- What it means to be a postpartum doula
- Stressors that show up for new parents with their own parents and grandparents
- How to set and hold healthy boundaries with parents, grandparents, or even strangers
- How postpartum doulas support the family holistically
- Myths about being a new parent
- The network that is available through a postpartum doula
- How to recognize postpartum depression
Resources
Feb 9, 2026
Feb 9, 2026
32 min
Welcome to the Parenting Well podcast with Parent Engagement Network! I am Dr. Shelly Mahon, your host and today’s well source is Jenny Hecht.
Jenny Hecht is a licensed therapist and parenting expert who specializes in helping families navigate anxiety, emotional regulation, and the everyday challenges of raising kids in a high-pressure world. With a warm, practical approach, Jenny supports parents in understanding what’s driving their child’s behavior and how to respond in ways that build resilience, connection, and confidence. Her work bridges clinical insight with real-life parenting tools that actually work when things feel messy. Jenny will also be speaking at PEN’s Stress and Anxiety Conference on Feb 28th at Dawson School in Lafayette, Colorado.
In this podcast, we talk about:
- Of course you feel that way. The power and purpose of compassion.
- The brain science behind our stress response
- The four choices: Fight, flee, freeze, or fawn
- Ways to be human first
- How self compassion benefits individuals and relationships
- The dissonant aspects of our nervous system and how to come back to connection
- How to model emotional regulation
- Developing your emotional vocabulary
- Ways to lay the groundwork for children to become young adults
- Creating time and space for your relationship with your child.
Resources:
- Stress and Anxiety Registration
- Jenny's Website
- Jenny's LinkedIn
- How We Feel App
- Book: Permission to Feel: The Power of Emotional Intelligence to Achieve Well-Being and Success by Marc Brackett
Jan 26, 2026
Jan 26, 2026
41 min
Welcome to the Parenting Well podcast with Parent Engagement Network! I am Dr. Shelly Mahon, your host and today’s well source is Dan Fox. Dan has spent over 25 years working with adolescents and their families as they navigate the ups and downs of growing up. He’s been a high school teacher, summer camp director, school counselor, and the director of September High School—so he really understands teens from the inside out.
As a Licensed Professional Counselor, Dan brings that experience into his work with families, grounded in the belief that there is hope for teens and real relief for parents. He works with adolescents, young adults, couples, and families, and supports schools and organizations through workshops and parent coaching as well.
Dan also has a podcast called Therapy Dudes with Andre Karkamaz. They put the fun back in dysfunctional as they talk about how to navigate your inner and outer world to move forward in life.
In this podcast, we talk about:
- The cumulative effect of anxiety on our nervous systems.
- Being attuned to our kids.
- Being intentional about our relationship with our children, including the tone we set with them.
- Interacting with your children differently as they move from childhood to adolescence.
- Fueling more than steering our teens.
- Strategies to regulate yourself - stay centered or recenter.
- Training ourselves to react to negative energy differently - not taking it personally.
- Handling situations that you feel have crossed the line.
- Repairing the relationship when things haven’t gone as well as you would have liked.
- Owning your own stuff without making it transactional - i.e., expecting something from the other person.
Resources:
Website: Boulder Psychological Services
Podcast: Therapy Dudes with Dan Fox and Andre Karkamaz
10 Annual Reducing Stress & Anxiety Conference: Fostering Resilience & Wellbeing at Every Stage of Parenting
Jan 7, 2026
Jan 7, 2026
32 min
Welcome to the Parenting Well podcast with Parent Engagement Network! I am Dr. Shelly Mahon, your host and today’s well source is Bobby Hodgkinson.
Bobby is a Teaching Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he has been on the faculty since 2012. A graduate of CU Boulder, he holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering Sciences, with deep experience in hands-on research and applied engineering.
Today, Bobby focuses on experiential learning, helping his students learn not just what to think, but how to think, through project-based courses and capstone labs. He is deeply engaged in integrating generative AI tools into education, including the development of AI-based tutoring systems. His work explores how AI can support learning without replacing critical thinking.
Recently, he co-led a workshop for the Parent Engagement Network on navigating AI and Building a Parenting Workbook. In this podcast, Bobby brings a rare blend of technical expertise, teaching experience, and practical insight to help parents understand how AI works, where it helps, where it falls short, and how they can guide their children to use AI thoughtfully, responsibly, and creatively in a rapidly changing world.
In this podcast, we talked about:
- The evolution of AI in schools
- AI as an enhancement mechanism
- The risks associated with AI
- How to talk to your children about AI
- Teaching your children to think in the world of AI
- The importance of practicing with AI and using it with your children
- Why building a community of parents helps you navigate this journey
- Maintaining the human element when using AI
Resources:
Oct 31, 2025
Oct 31, 2025
36 min
Michael Whitaker, who goes by Whit, is a sustainability and innovation leader with a strong academic background in civil and environmental engineering, capped by a PhD in sustainable urban infrastructure. He founded a company dedicated to measuring urban sustainability, which was acquired by ICF International in 2012. Currently, Whit leads organizational innovation and AI strategy at ICF, a $2 billion professional services and technology firm. Beyond his corporate role, he authors a Substack newsletter, Navigating AI Transitions with Whit, where he explores how AI affects work, parenting, and education. Based in Boulder, Colorado, he’s also an engaged parent and advocate for integrating AI responsibly in schools. Whit will be doing a workshop on Navigating AI: Build Your Parent Playbook. Turn uncertainty into clarity, confidence, and empowerment On Saturday, November 8, 2025 from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm.
Register Here: https://parentengagementnetwork.org/navigating-ai/
In this podcast, we talk about:
- How society is adapting to AI.
- Leaning into a rapidly changing and unknown area.
- Conversations to have with your children.
- Timeless lessons you are already teaching your children that can be applied to AI.
- Three important conversations you need to have with your children.
- Maintaining creativity, mastery and grit in learning.
- Staying grounded in family values.
- The real risks to children and how to navigate them.
- Understanding what you are gaining and giving up when you use AI.
- Waypoints that can serve as boundaries for engaging with AI.
- Applying what you already know works to talk to your children about hard things.
Resources:
- Substack Newsletter: Navigating AI Transitions with Whit
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelwhitakericf/
- Email: mbwhit10@gmail.com
Direct links to some of Whit’s most relevant Substack posts:
Back to School with AI: The Clarity Crisis: school AI policies are buried - if you can't explain it in 30 seconds, you've already lost parents and students.
The AI Values Gap, Reflected: AI policies should be grounded in the broader values of the district / school and their educational philosophy - not isolated to a technology issue.
The AI Policy I Shared with My School Board: here's the language I shared with BVSD's board for an overall policy that would balance preparing our students to engage with AI with teacher autonomy in the classroom.
Beyond AI Literacy: A Future-Ready and Protective Framework for Schools - starter ideas including model language for how to integrate AI into cross-disciplinary academic standards to prepare students for the AI-infused world they are entering while protecting their developing minds by building AI-oriented lessons into social emotional learning domains.
How to Start Changing the AI Dynamics in School this Fall - a couple ideas for in classroom ways to start integrating AI.
Wake Up with Whit: Preparing Kids for AI While Protecting Their Developing Minds: a ten minute coffee-talk style video post discussing the imperative for schools to both Prepare kids for the AI future and Protect their developing brains with examples of how some teachers are doing this well now.
Jan 17, 2025
Jan 17, 2025
28 min
Welcome to the Parenting Well podcast with Parent Engagement Network! I am Dr. Shelly Mahon, your host and today’s well source is Susan Caso.
Susan Caso, MA, LPC, serves as a consultant and community leader in the area of suicide prevention. Susan has provided psychotherapy to adolescents, college students, adults and families for nearly two decades. She holds a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology and Counselor Education from the University of Colorado and has been a clinician in private practice in Colorado for 20 years She counsels clients with acute and chronic mental illnesses, earning a reputation for success in helping individuals overcome anxiety, depression, relationship issues, and unresolved issues affecting day-to-day lives. Susan imagines new tools, models, and resources to create open-hearted conversations. She works with individuals, families, and teams to eliminate the stigma of mental health issues and address the often taboo topic of suicide. A lifelong learner, Susan continues to study mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, adolescent issues, crisis management (ASSIST certified), suicidology, personality disorders, anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder.
In this podcast, we talk about:
- What it means to truly feel connected.
- How parenting has changed over time.
- The impact of pressure on today’s youth.
- Have you….? When are you going to….? You need to…. interactions.
- Finding the balance between monitoring/instructing and being in relationship.
- The difference between emotional transparency and vulnerability.
- Fostering your connection with your children.
- The importance of being present.
- Healthy attachment
Resources:
Website: https://susancaso.com/about/
Book: The Parent-Teen Connection: How to Build Lifelong Family Relationships
Dec 16, 2024
Dec 16, 2024
31 min
Thank you for joining The Parenting Well Podcast for a live conversation with Isabelle Tierney. My name is Dr. Shelly Mahon and I’ll be your host today. Isabelle will be doing a 90 minute virtual workshop on December 18th, 12-1:30. It is titled: From Surviving to Thriving: Empowering Parents to Navigate Stress and Foster Connection. You can join via zoom here:
Isabelle Tierney is a licensed therapist, stress management expert, and international speaker dedicated to helping individuals and teams thrive personally and professionally. Drawing on over two decades of experience in running a successful therapy practice, Isabelle developed the Choice Point Methodology—a simple, science-backed system that provides immediate stress relief and builds lasting resilience. Grounded in neuroscience, psychology, and mindfulness, this proven three-step approach empowers people to shift from stress and reactivity to calm, clarity, and presence within minutes, no matter the circumstances.
After experiencing burnout and the toll it took on her health and relationships, Isabelle turned her challenges into a mission to transform how people approach stress. Her methodology has helped thousands—including leaders and teams in corporate and entrepreneurial roles—prevent burnout, foster meaningful connections, and embrace a life of purpose and balance.
In this podcast, we talk about:
- Isabelle's Choice Point Methodology.
- How to move quickly out of stress.
- Managing stressful situations in a way the honors the relationship.
- Strategies for dealing with overwhelm and isolation.
- Teaching your children to recognize emotional cues and get themselves out the stress response.
- Navigating stress during the holiday season.
Resources:
Book a call or apply for her program here