Rothbart's foundational temperament work. Gottman's emotion coaching research and the downstream outcomes it found at age five.

The full article on the three phases and what the research actually says about the terrible twos is linked below. Paid Substack subscribers get the Three-Profile Tantrum Response System, the complete phase-by-phase protocols and transition cue reading tool for each nervous system profile.

If you want the specific read on your child, that is what discovery calls are for.

Read: Tantrums Build Brains

Book a Discovery Call

In this episode Lauren Greeno, Child and Adolescent Development Specialist and founder of The Parenting Collaborative, breaks down the neuroscience behind the after-school window, why the timing of homework matters more than any strategy you've tried, and what's actually happening in your child's brain between 3:30 and 5pm that makes homework resistance almost inevitable when the sequence is wrong.

You'll learn why cortisol blocks memory encoding and what that means practically for the homework table. What the default mode network is and why screens in the after-school window interrupt a process your child's brain desperately needs to run. Why the "give them a break first" advice keeps failing for so many families and what the break actually needs to look like to work. And the variable nobody puts in the equation that determines whether any after-school sequence holds or collapses under pressure.

This is not a homework tips episode. It's a reframe that changes how you see your entire after-school routine.

Resources Mentioned:

The After-School Nervous System Framework (paid Substack subscribers): complete implementation guide including the four nervous system profiles, transition protocol, and breakdown troubleshooting. Available at https://substack.com/@theparentingcollaborative.

Book a discovery call with Lauren: https://theparentingcollaborative.as.me/Discovery

Read the full article:

Research Referenced in This Episode:

Dettweiler, U., Ünlü, A., Lauterbach, G., Becker, C., & Gschrey, B. (2017). Stress in school: Some empirical hints on the circadian cortisol rhythm of children in outdoor and indoor classes. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(5), 475.

Lupien, S. J., Maheu, F., Tu, M., Fiocco, A., & Schramek, T. E. (2007). The effects of stress and stress hormones on human cognition: Implications for the field of brain and cognition. Brain and Cognition, 65(3), 209–237.

Newcomer, J. W., Selke, G., Melson, A. K., Hershey, T., Craft, S., Richards, K., & Alderson, A. L. (1999). Decreased memory performance in healthy humans induced by stress-level cortisol treatment. Archives of General Psychiatry, 56(6), 527–533.

Raichle, M. E., MacLeod, A. M., Snyder, A. Z., Powers, W. J., Gusnard, D. A., & Shulman, G. L. (2001). A default mode of brain function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(2), 676–682.

Smallwood, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2015). The science of mind wandering: Empirically navigating the stream of consciousness. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 487–518.

Connect with Lauren:

Instagram: @theparentingcollaborative TikTok: @theparentingcollaborative Substack: https://substack.com/@theparentingcollaborativeBook a discovery call

About Lauren Greeno:

Lauren Greeno is a Child and Adolescent Development Specialist, Parenting Coach, and founder of The Parenting Collaborative. She specializes in helping parents understand the invisible dynamics shaping their children's development and redesigning family systems before patterns calcify into adult identity. With expertise in child development, family systems theory, and trauma-informed parenting, she works with families navigating neurodivergence, emotional regulation, sibling dynamics, and breaking generational patterns.

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