A Beacon of Hope for Parents of Differently Wired Kids w/ Debbie Reber

Join us as we venture into the rich landscape of neurodiversity with Debbie Reber, the guiding light for those parenting outside the lines. Debbie, an acclaimed author and the creator of Tilt Parenting, shares her profound insights into the joys and hurdles faced by families raising neurodivergent children. Through our conversation, we peel back the layers of her transformative book, "Differently Wired: A Parent's Guide to Raising an Atypical Child with Confidence and Hope," spotlighting the pressing need to reshape our collective view of brain differences and celebrate every unique mind.

She tackles the tough topics of navigating educational obstacles and the contentious issue of medication, all while emphasizing the power of a parent's intuition.  By sharing strategies tailored to each child's distinct needs, this episode offers a beacon of hope and a call to action for parents to stand as unwavering advocates for their children's unique paths.

Wrap up this insightful journey with us as we unveil a treasure trove of resources and support networks designed to empower families embracing neurodiversity.  Discover the Differently Wired Club, a virtual sanctuary where parents connect, learn, and find strength in community.  Debbie's message rings clear: our children don't need fixing; they need understanding and support.  So, if you're a parent championing a child's unique brilliance, let this conversation be your guide and inspiration.

"Such an uplifting conversation about the uniqueness of all children.  Debbie is at the top of her game in understanding neurodivergent children and equally talented at helping parents get to her level.  Her quote "our children don't need fixing; they need understanding and support" is a helpful message for all parents." - Brad Weisman

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Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show (formerly known as Real Estate and YOU), where we dive into the world of real estate, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealEstateRealLife #realestateandyou

Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:20

from real estate to real life and everything in between, the brad weisman show and now your host, brad weisman. All right, we are back in the studio. I am super excited about this show. It's different. It's going to be a different show than what we normally do. I mean, we do a lot of real estate, we do a lot of different things, but this one is lot of different things, but this one is just awesome.

Speaker 1: 0:43

I met this person online through another person in this area. I just can't wait to introduce her. Her name is Debbie Reber. I'm going to give you a short bio right here, because it's the best way to explain who she is. She is a parenting activist, bestseller author, speaker and the CEO and founder of Tilt Parenting, a resource, top-performing podcast, consultancy and community with a focus on shifting the paradigm for parents raising and embracing neurodivergent children. Her most recent book, differently Wired A Parent's Guide to Raising an Atypical Child with Confidence and Hope, came out in June 2018. After living abroad in the Netherlands for five years, debbie her husband and differently wired teen moved to Brooklyn in 2019. So I'm going to bring Debbie on here so we can talk about this book and talk about all the great things she's doing for children and I think it's just amazing, and it's actually not just for children. Debbie, how are you doing?

Speaker 2: 1:35

I am great and I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Speaker 1: 1:39

Absolutely. Yeah, you've been pretty busy since like 2016,. Somewhere around there.

Speaker 2: 1:45

Yeah, I'm one of those people who doesn't stop and always has a million projects going on, so that has been true for my whole life actually.

Speaker 1: 1:53

Yeah, well, that's okay, but that's how you get things done. Right, it's how you get things done. So tell me about you. You wrote a book called D wired and when I first saw this Heather Christie actually is the one that uh got me, uh, in touch with you and when I first saw it I didn't really understand what it was, you know. And then you start digging into and I started reading about the book and reading about your life and all the things that you have going on. And there's another thing there's a podcast you have called tilt parenting podcast and we'll get into that a little bit also. But let's talk about this book first. It's called Differently Wired. I have the actual book. I think it's the cover. I think is what it is of the book. Is that right? Yeah, so there's the cover of the book, if you're actually watching this and not on just the podcast. It says A Parent's Guide to Raising an Atypical Child with Confidence and Hope. Tell me about this.

Speaker 2: 2:40

Yeah, so I wrote this book for parents who are raising kids who often have what are known as invisible differences. So they're neurodivergent I use the term differently wired, but it is for parents whose kids might be autistic, maybe they have ADHD, they have learning disabilities, maybe they're gifted, maybe they have sensory processing differences, but in some way they're kind of stuck. They're not thriving in traditional school settings. Often they have behavior that can be a little more tricky to interpret and support and they just are navigating the world in a different way. And parents who are raising these kids it can be really hard to find resources and it can feel really isolating. So I wrote this book for those parents.

Speaker 1: 3:26

Wow, I think it's something. It's neat because what you're doing is you're bringing it to the forefront also, and I think parents that have and I love the words that you use and I'm going to go through this, because you use the neurodiverse and neurotypical siblings and there's a part in here where you said what can parents of neurotypical children do to help be helpful to parents of neurodiverse children? You know, because I think a lot of times people that have the neurotypical children don't know how to react or to converse about the neurodiverse.

Speaker 2: 3:59

Yeah, it's true, and I think you know, when I started Tilt now it was eight years ago. And then, it's true, and I think you know, when I started tilt now it was eight years ago. And then I wrote the book, I guess six years ago now. But one of the big things I wanted to do was change the conversation surrounding neurodivergence and make make it kind of normalized, because we tend to in society, we otherize people. Right, there's the normal people or the typical people, and then there's everybody else, and in reality there are so many neurodivergent people in the world, and so part of what I wanted to do in this book was just say you know, there's nothing wrong with having a brain that's wired differently, there's nothing wrong with being neurodivergent, and let's normalize it and get rid of the stigma and realize that we all benefit as a society when we are all more inclusive and more understanding of the neurodivergent experience.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Absolutely, and I like the terms because the terms are easier on the ear, they're easier to bring in and it actually makes the conversation easier to talk about, because sometimes the words we used in the past for people that were not the norm or whatever you want to call it, you know, like like a lot of people go, oh, they're not normal. Well, what the heck's normal? I'm not normal. I mean, none of us are normal. There is no. What are we basing it on? You know what's the baseline is my question, hopefully not using me for the baseline, but you know cause that that could be a problem. You know cause that that could be a problem. But yeah, so it's just it's interesting and you talk about it being a gift. You know it is. There's gifts involved with being ADHD and also having autism. There's a lot of gifts that we forget to talk about.

Speaker 2: 5:31

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I gave a talk for a TEDx event in Amsterdam several years ago and it was called why the future will be Wired. But one of the things I wanted to focus on was that if you think about disruptors of industry and innovation and we look at the people who are coming up with creative solutions to the big problems that we as a society are facing, we really put disruptors up on a pedestal. We value that. In reality, our kids are the disruptors. It's just that in a, you know, traditional school environment, being a kid who pushes back or who asks a million, why questions or who challenges you know why are we doing it this way? And has a very individual way of approaching a homework assignment for, say, you know, those things are not valued because that's not the job of a student, right? It's to be compliant and to do things one way. So there's a big kind of disconnect. But it is really important that we embrace all the gifts and strengths that come with being someone who looks at the world differently.

Speaker 1: 6:38

Yeah, yeah. And how do we know that we're not the ones that look at the world differently?

Speaker 2: 6:42

Yeah, I mean I will say like doing this work and especially I think COVID had a lot to do with this too because people spend more time at home and we're more introspective so many parents and I'm going to raise my hand as one of them so many parents have discovered their own neurodivergence as a result of discovering their child's neurodivergence and going through, you know, neuropsychs with their kids and you know there's just this whole generation of autistic adults who are discovering at 40 or 50, like oh wait a minute, that's me and it just wasn't identified when they were younger.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Yeah, and I agree with that, you know, and the thing I worry about sometimes too, when we talk about ADHD and this goes in a different direction I was held back in first grade. So, Hugo, don't laugh at that, but I was held back in first grade and the reason was that I couldn't I couldn't read really well and I and I think probably, if, if, if I was in that situation today, for one, there would be reading specialists and all these different things to help and I wouldn't, it would have been a much better situation, but I think I would have been diagnosed with ADHD. I really think that was part of my problem was that I could not sit down and actually concentrate and read. It was my mind was going 30 different directions. But then you look at that too, Like, do we have to be careful too? We don't over medicate for things like that.

Speaker 2: 7:57

Yeah, yeah for sure. And you know something, same with me with ADHD. I'd like all the classic things. I was, you know, the class clown. I was the excuse maker. I couldn't sit. Still, I was talking constantly. I you know all of the things. Um, I managed to through track and field and other things. I channeled all of that extra energy and managed to kind of get through. But, um, but I think you know, and and to your point of over-medicating or, um, that's not, you know. I think there are ways of just understanding one's wiring and why certain things are more difficult. That is so important, just so that we can have some context and so we can actually learn other tools and strategies to navigate things?

Speaker 1: 8:38

Yeah, absolutely, and I think sometimes we in this, in our world today, we it's easier to just take the pill or take something to, to just trying to manage that or numb that, instead of instead of actually dealing with it and actually saying okay, why are you doing this? What's going on here? What are you thinking when you do this? You know, I think there's a lot of times we're not, we're too quick to do the, to give something for a quick fix, instead of having a real conversation with our kids or a real conversation with an adult too. But, yeah, it's. It's very interesting Some of the other things you had said, like what are the indicators? Like how, how would you know that your child is neurodivergent? You know, is it something that you pick up from from day one? Is it something that that, over time, you realize that? How, how do we look for this?

Speaker 2: 9:22

I mean it can be something you pick up from early on, oftentimes a neurodivergent kid, especially if they have some strong sensory issues like very sensitive to sounds or, you know, tactile sensations, which could be. You know a lot of autistic people. Most autistic people struggle with sensory processing differences and challenges. So if you're noticing like a baby who can't really settle, that might be a sign.

Speaker 2: 9:47

Like if this is a kid who's got colic and is just really not comfortable in the in the their own body.

Speaker 2: 9:54

That could be an indicator. Often it's when our kids start to not hit traditional milestones or they go to preschool and we start getting feedback from the preschool teachers that you know your child is emotionally dysregulated a lot or is having really big explosions and situations that you know we would expect a child at this age to be able to navigate a little better. So oftentimes it's when our kids are placed in environments that weren't designed to accommodate for their nervous systems or the way that they are navigating the world, and then we start getting feedback. But what I always say to parents is that if you suspect your child is differently wired, if you have this deep sense like there's something going on here there probably is and that's you know you'd want to start talking with. Start with the pediatrician and sometimes pediatricians and in our case our pediatrician was like, well, everything looks fine here. So sometimes you got to take it to another level. But I really encourage parents to trust their intuition.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Yeah, self-advocate too, I always say for anything in the medical field, and this is not busting on our. We have great medical field and great medicine in the area. But you know, you got to advocate for yourself and for your children, because what will happen is a lot of times they just want to, you know, kind of get to the next person and say, okay, check, we got through that one, that's good. Whereas you got to just say, okay, look, look, this isn't. We're not happy with that answer, we need to go somewhere else, we need to find out something else, and we've done that for our children already. I find too, and I wanted to ask you this is I mean, obviously you've been through this and you talk from firsthand. Does there? Is there a denial stage in there somewhere where you're like you know, you know there's something going on, but darn it. I, this just is not what I was planning on in my world us for years.

Speaker 2: 11:50

I think that's pretty normal, right, because when we become parents, we have this idea about what our family is going to look like and who our kids are going to be, and how we're going to feel as parents and how we're going to crush it as parents, right.

Speaker 2: 11:56

And so when we start getting feedback that, oh, this is not going the way I thought it was going to look, sometimes we can really, you know, think, well, I'm going to get things back on track, or if I was doing this differently, or if I tried this parenting approach, I can get this to look better or be easier. And so some of us spend a lot of time in that space and thinking, you know, no, my kid is just strong willed, I just need to be firmer, I need to do this. So, yeah, that can happen, and often, I will say, within a couple, it can be really tricky because sometimes one parent has kind of already been like, okay, we need intervention, there's stuff going on here, while the other partner might be like, nope, I was like that as a kid, we just need to do this, this or this, or you're being too easy on our kids. So it can bring up a lot of tension in relationships.

Speaker 1: 12:47

And that happens no matter what your kids do or are True? This is true, that is true. My wife I do not agree on everything. She was raised completely different than I was, so it is funny to see that, but it's true. With any parenting, parenting's not. There's no book written that says how to raise the children you have. You know every child's different and there's no book that says, okay, you need to do this with Brad or you need to do this with Debbie, that's doesn't. It's not out there and but yeah, so moving, and the other thing too, as I was going to say, is the sooner you can move off of denial, the better it is for the child, I'm assuming.

Speaker 2: 13:27

Yeah, because if we are, you know, being an authoritative parent or, you know, really focusing on punishments and consequences when you have a child who is really just completely dysregulated by their environment and that's what you want to focus is changing the environment and help your child know how to cope, in that we're working on the completely wrong things. So a lot of harm can be done if we kind of keep going down the road we're on and we're not stopping and saying actually, what is happening with my kid, what does my kid need right now? So making that pivot is important.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Yeah, very much so, very much so. And do you find a stigma still with this? Because I was on the board for the Mental Health Alliance here locally for like six years and the biggest thing we used to talk about all the time was stigma. You know, and how you know the public as soon as you say a word, uh, they all right away, oh, they have that or who they're suffering from. You know, and and mental illness is, is is a big deal with that. Like we're talking about depression and anxiety and and all these different things and bipolar. Do you find the stigma? I think autism the word autism is now out in the public more than I never heard the word in my life until probably 20 years ago. You know, is that? Do you find that happening?

Speaker 2: 14:33

Yeah, I think it's slowly changing. I think even people's awareness of what autism is. You know, when I grew up it was like the way Tom Cruise, you know, and Dustin Hoffman in Rain man, right, that was the presentation of autism.

Speaker 2: 14:48

So I think there's more and more awareness of what it is. I think younger people are growing up with more, with a better idea of what it could look like, because they're probably in classrooms with autistic students or other things, but I do think there is a lot of stigma still. I think it's a little better in the US. I'll just share that. I recently spoke with a school in Paris and they're really wanting to, you know, to expand awareness of the neurodivergent students there, but the word autism is a huge like. It just shuts people down there because there's still so much stigma that this is a bad thing and it's something nobody wants.

Speaker 1: 15:26

I would never have thought that.

Speaker 2: 15:28

Yeah, it's um. It's still very misunderstood and and I do think you know part of the work that I do and I'm so glad we're having this conversation too is it just? It is normalizing it. In the U S, it's like one in 36 kids get an autism diagnosis. That's not a small number of of kids right. So we all know autistic people and and those people are not broken, there's nothing wrong with them. So, um, I think the more we have these conversations, the more it is going to normalize it.

Speaker 1: 15:59

Absolutely, and that's why I love about having having these kinds of conversations. It was, uh, the one thing I noticed in here that you'd said that, um, it's important to talk to differently wired kiddos about who they are and how their brain works. And it says why do you think most parents don't do this? They don't have the actual conversation of hey, by the way you're, you are differently wired, or you you know, do you? That's a conversation, obviously, and that's gotta be a tough conversation.

Speaker 2: 16:27

Yeah, I think a lot of parents are afraid, right, that they're going to make their child feel worse about who they are, and so I hear from parents all the time. I haven't told my child about their diagnosis, whether it's autism or ADHD or anything else, because I'm afraid they're going to have a target on their back. They already have low self-esteem, they're going to think they're broken and what we know from autistic adults and other neurodivergent adults who were, who only discovered or their parents told them later. There's a lot of pain in that, because if you're a neurodivergent kid, you already know that things are harder for you, you know that, you know you're struggling, and so to give it a name is a gift that way. It's not something that's wrong with me. There's actually a reason why this is difficult for me.

Speaker 2: 17:17

So I really encourage parents to to do their own work to understand what am I making it mean, that my? What am I making the autism label mean or the ADHD label mean, and how can I kind of do my own work so that I can just normalize this within our family? This is just who you are. It's not. It doesn't. It's not good or bad. There are strengths with it. There are challenges with it. It's all good.

Speaker 1: 17:40

Yeah, and it's funny I talk about this. Back to the mental health. That's like you know I have. I have high blood pressure. People don't hear that and go, oh my gosh, you have high blood pressure. You know. It's like we, we all have certain things you know and and I think it's a matter of we just have to get used to that Everybody has something. It's what are the things that you have and that's it. It doesn't define us, it doesn't make us who we are, and there's nothing, no reason to not talk about it either. I think it's very, very important to talk about it. Let me talk about speaking of talking your Tilt Parenting podcast. What's going on there? I mean, that sounds like it's doing very well.

Speaker 2: 18:16

Yeah, I launched that podcast It'll be eight years in April and was one of the first in the space of neurodivergent parenting space and, of course, now podcasts have kind of exploded, which is wonderful. I love podcasts, yeah. So I really wanted to just bring on experts in this you know anything to do with parenting, but especially with differently wired kids and make those conversations accessible. And I do probably what you do, like I really try to put myself in the mind of a listener and I ask those questions that I think they would really want to know if they had access to that expert. So it's um, it's my most favorite part of my job. I get to you know selfishly.

Speaker 2: 19:00

I get to like be like Hmm, this was a good book, but I want to know more. I'll bring them on my show and then I get to ask them all the questions that I have, so I benefit from it greatly as well.

Speaker 1: 19:10

And so does your audience too, because you know, if you have that, like you said, if you have those questions, other people have those questions. Yeah, it's definitely what goes on. So you have the podcast going on. Tell me about. There's also a club. You have a club that I saw on your website for parents that have the differently wired children.

Speaker 2: 19:28

Yeah. So I created the differently wired club about four and a half years ago and I created it because parents were coming to me and saying we want to find each other, like we need to be connecting. Initially people were creating these like little regional groups, so tilt together groups in different cities, and then I decided what if we just created a community online? So it is a club, a membership program and we do kind of live coaching. I have other parent coaches in there and we do office hour calls and it's just a place for parents to come and be with their people, be with other parents who get it, because if you're a parent not in this journey, it's hard to really. You know it's hard to to really get how hard it is and the things that can be especially challenging. So the club is a place to to show up and, you know, say what you need to say without feeling guilty or shame, cry if you need to cry, get some really good ideas and feel supported so you can kind of face the next day.

Speaker 1: 20:33

Yeah, it's amazing. I think that's really awesome. That was one of the things so you have. You are all over the place. You're on every social media I could ever imagine. You have a website. You have tillparentingcom. You have all kinds of information here. What is the? If somebody was looking for information, what's the best place to go? Is it the tillparentingcom?

Speaker 2: 20:54

I would have them go to tiltparentingcom and on there I have two kind of free dip your toe in the water resources. One is called the seven day differently wired challenge, where it kind of introduces some of the tilts I share in my book differently wired, which are really reframes about you know how to show up to this parenting journey.

Speaker 2: 21:14

And the other one is a 10 day video series, which is where I share 10 things I wish I'd known when I first found out my child was neurodivergent, and so there's some great resources, and then you can kind of get a sense of what tilt is all about and see if it feels like a good alignment.

Speaker 1: 21:31

That's awesome, that's really cool. And then also, one of the questions you had on here that you had said is what do you especially want our, what do you want the listeners to know? Parents of neurotypical and neurodiverse children what do you want them to know? Like, what is like if you came up to me and you said you know what. This is the one thing that is definitely is something that I'd like to talk to you about.

Speaker 2: 21:50

I mean, I think the biggest message is that neurodivergent people are not broken and they do not consequently need fixing. This isn't about fixing behavior so that neurodivergent people can look more normal in a neurotypical world. It's about how do we show up for and respectfully parent and teach and support people who have a different experience. And that isn't so. It's not about fixing. It's about understanding and then supporting. Because again, you know, you look at kind of the biggest change makers in the world. You know they're, they're all neurodivergent in some way.

Speaker 2: 22:33

So we we don't want to lose that, we don't want these kids to grow up feeling that you know, at a deficit or or that they don't have anything to contribute because they have so much, and so that's why it really involves all of us. We, we all have a stake in this. And so, yeah, I think, but that getting out of that fix it mindset and more embracing, yeah, so good, so good, amazing, so, um, yeah, yeah, I really appreciate you coming on here today.

Speaker 1: 23:00

what? What a great show. We're going to stay in touch, hopefully, and we can share your stuff and hopefully you'll be sharing the show too. So it's tilt parentingcom um, she's on facebookcom backslash tilt parenting. We've got twittercom debbie reaver. We've got twittercom backslash tilt parenting. So look up debbie rebertilt Parenting and you will find her. And once again, the book is called. It's called Differently Wired A Parent's Guide to Raising an Atypical Child with Confidence and Hope. Thank you, debbie, so much for coming on the show. I really, really appreciate it. Awesome show. Thank you so much, fred. It was great conversation. You're very welcome. All right, there we have it. Wow, what a great show, what great information. Uh, you know, if you're looking to get in touch with her, please just go to that tilt parentingcom and, uh, you can. You can get all the information you need there. I appreciate her being on and hopefully you enjoyed the show. We'll see you next thursday at 7 p. All right, that's about it.