Create Thriving Families with Dr. Lisa

About Create Thriving Families with Dr. Lisa

Are you raising your children without a clear roadmap? Create Thriving Families with Dr. Lisa is the podcast for mothers who want a brain-based, holistic, nervous-system-informed framework for their child's health and development. Hosted by Dr. Lisa Pedersen, a pediatric chiropractor with 23 years of clinical experience, this show covers neurodevelopment, holistic health, primitive reflexes, sensory processing, sleep, nutrition, and the real parenting protocols that support your child's thriving — from pregnancy through childhood. If you are done guessing and ready to build a clear model for your family's health, this is your show.

Publisher

Lisa Pedersen

Category

kids & family

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

2 Jan 2026

Latest episode

2 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

27 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   2 Oct 2026

   Ep 26 - Inside Your Baby’s Right Brain: Face & Eyes — The First Channel of Connection Part 2 of 4 | The Right Brain Series

   Inside Your Baby’s Right Brain: Face & Eyes — The First Channel of Connection Part 2 of 4 | The Right Brain Series Episode runtime: approximately 48 minutes The half-second your eyes meet your baby’s looks like nothing. It is anything but. Underneath that completely ordinary moment, two nervous systems are finding each other through the face and the eyes, with no words at all. In Part 2 of the Right Brain series, Dr. Lisa goes deep on the very first channel your baby uses to connect with you — the face and eyes— and what the research actually says about why it matters so much. A newborn’s clearest vision is at eight to twelve inches, almost exactly the distance between a feeding baby and their mother’s face. Within that window, babies preferentially track face-like patterns over almost anything else. Colwyn Trevarthen’s work on primary intersubjectivity shows babies arrive wired to seek out and engage with another person’s face, eyes and expressions — waiting for a face to meet them so they can start building the right hemisphere. Eye contact isn’t a one-way look; it’s a two-way circuit. Beatrice Beebe and Frank Lachmann’s frame-by-frame video analysis documents mothers and babies co-constructing split-second patterns of gaze and expression — what they call interaction structures — thousands of times a day. Allan Schore’s framework shows your facial expressions functioning as an external regulator for your baby’s nervous system: brightening and animating for an under-aroused baby, softening and slowing for an overstimulated one. The baby looking away is a nervous system pause, not rejection. Dr. Lisa also unpacks Edward Tronick’s famous Still Face Paradigm — what actually happens when a parent’s face stops responding, and what the research really teaches: ruptures happen in every healthy relationship, and it is the repair, the return, the reconnection, that builds resilience. Your day is already full of natural windows to be working to help your baby develop a healthy right hemisphere of their brain — and face-to-face stroller positioning, baby-wearing turned toward you, and awareness of screens as competitors already do a lot of the work. What You’ll Take Away • Why the human face is the most sophisticated visual tool in your newborn’s world — and why no toy or flashcard can replace it in the first weeks and months • Why eye contact is a two-way proto-conversation, not a one-way look — and why the loop repeating thousands of times a day is what does the building • How your facial expressions function as a nervous system regulator — animated for under-arousal, soft and slow for overstimulation • What the Still Face Paradigm actually teaches: rupture isn’t the danger, repair is the mechanism that builds resilience • Why the windows are already in your day — feeding, diaper changes, the bath, the car seat — and how screens and phones can compete for them Episode Timestamps 00:00 The ordinary moment: your face as neuroscience 02:00 Why the right brain develops first 05:00 Why faces matter before anything else 13:00 What actually happens in eye contact: proto-conversations 23:00 Facial mirroring as a nervous system regulator 31:00 The Still Face Paradigm & why repair builds resilience 38:00 Building face-to-face connection into an ordinary day Free Resources for This Episode Reference list (PDF) — every researcher, study and book mentioned in this episode: https://www.createthrivingfamilies.com/offers/rqFLBTsi Related episodes — Episode 25 (Part 1 of the Right Brain series); Episodes 16–23 (8-part series on your baby’s first year) Connect with Dr. Lisa Website: www.createthrivingfamilies.com (http://www.createthrivingfamilies.com) Substack: substack.com/@drlisapedersen Instagram: @dr.lisapedersen

2. 

   24 Sept 2026

   Ep 25 - Inside Your Baby´s Right Brain: How Connection Builds the Self Part 1 of 4

   CREATE THRIVING FAMILIES WITH DR. LISA Episode 25 | Show Notes Inside Your Baby’s Right Brain: How Connection Builds the Self Part 1 of 4 | The Right Brain Series Episode runtime: approximately 44 minutes Long before your baby can say a word, they can read the whole room — your face, your tone, the tension in your body, the feeling in the air. That is the right brain at work. In this episode, Dr. Lisa opens a new 4-part series on the development of the right hemisphere of the brain, drawn from the work of Allan Schore and many other researchers looking at infant brain development. The right hemisphere develops earlier than the left and the reasons for that are essential for new parents to be aware of. From roughly zero to 18 months, the majority of brain-building is happening on the right side — the side wired for non-verbal, holistic, body-based processing: faces, tone of voice, touch, emotional state, the autonomic nervous system, the limbic system, threat and safety. The left hemisphere, which handles language, sequence, categories and linear logic, comes into its major growth spurt from around age two to three. The right brain has to come first because before your baby can think or speak, they have to regulate and stay safe. What builds the right hemisphere isn’t instruction — it’s right-brain-to-right-brain communication with a caregiver. Facial expression, eye gaze, tone of voice, touch, and the moment-to-moment timing of attunement and repair. Dr. Lisa walks through Schore’s framing of attachment not as “bonding” in a warm-fuzzy sense, but as architecture: the mechanism through which your baby’s implicit sense of self, their personality, their capacity for relationship, and the emotional foundation for the rest of their life are literally built. The takeaway for mothers: your presence is essential. Bids for connection — the look, the reach, the sound — are the raw material of right-brain development, and ordinary moments (feeding, diaper changes, meeting each other’s gaze) do more than any flashcard, screen, or brain-building toy. This episode sets up the series; Episodes 26, 27 and 28 will go deeper into all the different ways we can help our babies grow a strong, well-connected right brain. What You’ll Take Away • Why the right hemisphere develops earlier and faster than the left — and why survival, regulation and safety come before language and logic • What right-brain-to-right-brain communication actually is: face, eye gaze, tone of voice, touch and the timing of attunement and repair • Why Allan Schore frames attachment as architecture, not just bonding — the mechanism that literally builds your baby’s sense of self • Why bids for connection in ordinary moments matter more than structured activities • Why your own regulation and presence is the work — and what to do when you notice you’re physically there but emotionally somewhere else Episode Timestamps 00:00 Welcome & introducing the Right Brain series (Allan Schore, 2025) 05:00 Why the right brain develops first: structure, function & the autonomic–limbic connection 12:00 What builds it: right-brain-to-right-brain communication 19:00 The right brain as the origin of the self and implicit self-knowledge 25:00 Bids for connection: ordinary moments, not grand gestures 30:00 Presence vs. cognitive stimulation: the modern parenting trap 38:00 What’s coming in Episodes 26–28: All the ways we can build a strong and healthy right hemisphere at home Free Resources for This Episode Reference list (PDF) — https://www.createthrivingfamilies.com/offers/zFCWWRAe Related episodes — Episodes 16–23, the 8-part neurodevelopmental series on your baby’s first year Connect with Dr. Lisa Website: www.createthrivingfamilies.com (http://www.createthrivingfamilies.com) Substack: substack.com/@drlisapedersen Instagram: @dr.lisapedersen

3. 

   27 Aug 2026

   Ep 24 - My Why: Sliding Doors and the Life I Want for Your Kids - a personal mission episode

   CREATE THRIVING FAMILIES WITH DR. LISA Episode 24 | Show Notes My Why: Sliding Doors and the Life I Want for Your Kids A personal mission episode Episode runtime: approximately 28 minutes Two paths. Two versions of a life. And so often, our health is what quietly decides which one we get to live. After a deep 8-part series inside the neurology of your baby’s first year, Dr. Lisa steps back from the clinical material and gets personal — telling you the story behind Create Thriving Families and why, after 23 years in private practice, she’s building this community now. She opens by explaining why the founding philosophy of anyone we learn from matters as much as their credentials, then uses the film Sliding Doors as a lens: the version of us who catches the train vs. the version who misses it. Health, she argues, is often the train — and the version of us who actually shows up in the world, in our relationships and in our children’s lives is deeply shaped by whether our body, brain and nervous system are functioning close to their potential. Her vision is clear: give kids as clean a slate as we possibly can. Build a proactive whole-health toolbox — brain, nervous system, gut, movement, sleep, connection, emotional regulation — so they don’t reach adulthood carrying a boulder in their backpack from something that could have been supported earlier. Create Thriving Families is being built for mothers who want that, and this fall Dr. Lisa’s first online courses on developmental neurology are launching. What You’ll Take Away • Why the founding philosophy of the people you learn from matters as much as their credentials — and how to tell when someone is actually in your tribe • The Sliding Doors reframe: how health quietly decides which version of a life we get to live, and why this applies to our kids more than to anyone else • Dr. Lisa’s personal story of the version of her mother she grew up with, and how it shaped the mission behind Create Thriving Families • Why proactive whole-health for kids is one of those invisible gifts they may never notice — the hard path they never had to walk • Why treating symptoms matters, and why building health from the start matters even more — the difference between reactive and proactive parenting Episode Timestamps 00:00 Why I’m changing gears after the neurodevelopmental series 02:00 Why shared ethos matters when we learn from someone 07:00 Sliding Doors: two versions of a life through the lens of health 10:00 My mother’s story: the version who missed the train 17:00 Why proactive whole-health is the gift we give our kids 22:00 The community I’m building & what’s coming this fall Free Resources Substack — long-form articles and free resources: substack.com/@drlisapedersen The 8-part neurodevelopmental series — Episodes 16–23, everything happening in your baby’s brain in the first year of life Coming this fall — Dr. Lisa’s first online courses on developmental neurology Connect with Dr. Lisa Website: www.createthrivingfamilies.com (http://www.createthrivingfamilies.com) Substack: substack.com/@drlisapedersen Instagram: @dr.lisapedersen Music composition and guitar by Philippe Custeau.

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Guest appearances

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Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.