Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome back, everybody, to another fabulous conversation on the Parenting with Impact podcast. Our guest today is Debbie Reber of TiLT Parenting who has tilted the world on its axis when it comes to parenting interesting kids, complex kids. I'm not sure how you reference them. How do you reference them, Debbie?

Debbie Reber: Differently wired is the term that I use.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Differently wired is your term. And like us, Debbie is a like-minded parenting guru who's all about empowering parents to focus on yourselves in this process, because it is called parenting, right? It's not called childing. It's called parenting for a reason. So welcome, Debbie. We are so thrilled you're here. 

Debbie Reber: Thank you so much. 

Diane Dempster: So Debbie, why don't you start by talking a little bit about how you ended up where you are now? What's the backstory? 

Debbie Reber: Yes, so this was not my big career plan to be running TiLT Parenting and a podcast for parents raising neurologically typical kids, but I found myself raising such a child who is now 17 right now, but I am someone who, before I did this, I used to write books for teenagers.

I did kind of self-help books for teens and I always found myself creating things that I needed when I was younger, or trying to use my skills of writing and creating content to support people who are a little bit further behind on their journey than I was. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Can I just interrupt you for a second? We always say in coach training that every fifth-grade or sixth-grader is God.

Debbie Reber: Yeah, right. That's great. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So that's kind of what I'm hearing. You're pretty much far ahead.

Debbie Reber: Yes, exactly. So I was doing that work when I started to learn from Asher's preschool teachers and other people that we were interacting with on a daily basis, plus, noticing my own experience as a parent, that, oh, this is a lot more involved and a different path than I was expecting. And also seemed to be a little more challenging than all of my friends and what they were going through with their kids so I really struggled.

One of my best friends I remember sent to me at the time, she's an educator, and she said, Debbie, I think that parenting Asher is a lot more a part of your life's work than you even realize. And I was like, oh, I'm doing this other thing, it's going really well.

But I think that planted the seed that at some point, I was going to have to do that pivot and take my again, my content creating skills, my writing my ability to kind of look at a lot of resources and distill it down and I wanted to support other parents in the same space,

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I was going to say the word that came to me was synthesize.

Debbie Reber: Yeah, that's the word.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: To see what's going on and to synthesize it and bring it all together and make it make sense, in a way that people can really understand. I think that's again why we love collaborating with you because there's so much synergy that we all do.

So at some point, you've moved into writing about the experience of parenting a complex kid. 

Debbie Reber: Yeah. More than anything, I wanted to create a kind of a home online, where parents could feel like they're not alone, could land somewhere where they also didn't feel like there was something wrong with my child, because at the time that I started developing TiLT Parenting, so much of what existed, did give that message it was pathologizing difference, and it just felt icky. I was like, this is not where I want to go.

I want to go to a cool place. I want to create something where parents can opt in and realize, oh, right, I found my people and this is actually a really great group of families to be a part of. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And no judgment and to do that without judgment and shame, but just like, here's where we are. Isn't this interesting? This isn't what I expected.

Debbie Reber: Isn't this interesting? Yeah. So that was really what got me thinking about developing TiLT and I launched it as a podcast primarily and an online resource in 2016. And then my book Differently Wired came out two years later, and I'm still doing the podcast.

I still love doing that work and it's really done what I hoped it would do in terms of helping parents see their experience reflected and connect with other parents who really get what they're going through.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I love that.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, so let's morph into that a little bit, Debbie. What are some of the themes? What are some of the key things that you see that parents are either longing for or missing in this process when they get to you guys?

Debbie Reber: I think more than anything, that parents feel like they're an island, right? They're the only ones who have had their child unceremoniously kicked out of school or they're the only ones in their community whose kid isn't getting invited to the right parties, or whatever and it's that sense of-

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Failed scissors at age three.

Debbie Reber: Oh, my God. Yes, failed scissors. So I think it is that that is something that, that people feel like no one else really gets what they're going through and how things are hard. They feel like they themselves have failed.

They're like, I'm reading the same books, and I'm getting a much different result. I must be a bad parent. And, then also, just like not knowing where to turn, because there's no path for us to move forward.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So a few things come up for me in that. So let's go with that last piece, there's no path for us. And what we've noticed as part of the problem is that when parents are struggling with these issues, the medical community isn't really guiding them to get the support they need. So do you have a similar experience or is it difficult?

Debbie Reber: Oftentimes pediatricians, if they're not a developmental pediatrician, they don't even know where to reference or where to send you, a parent who's known on this path, there are kind of like the default stops along the way that do tend to be pathologizing.

So I get a lot of parents with new diagnoses for their kids who are using this language and going down a behavioral therapy path and doing all of these things because that's what they're told to do when they have no idea. So they come and then this whole big learning process happens. And it can be really hard because it's bucking against almost a system that we don't even realize is flawed.

So not knowing where to turn, who to trust, where to get your information from and a lot of it is just trying to find trusted resources and then following the advice of parents who are further ahead on the journey.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. I was totally about bucking the system in my mind. When Diane and I first met and started talking about what we wanted to do for parents and for families, it was changing the medical model.

It was shifting that framework to one that's more empowering that helps parents see what these kids are capable of, instead of only seeing what the problems are.

Diane Dempster: Well, I'm going to take that- oh, go ahead, Debbie.

Debbie Reber: I was just going to say that I think that for me my own journey I spent years trying to find the right fit and you know for lack of a better word, trying to fix what was wrong so that we could get back on the path I want it to be on the vision I wanted and that I don't regret.

I did what I thought was right at the time, but it was painful to do and it wasn't respectful for my child.

Diane Dempster: And I'm going to go backward a second because you use that term kind of behavior therapy and I know that that's one of the things that we've done a lot of research with parents to see what are the barriers to getting support and one of the big things is that kind of a definition of what does it really even mean behavior therapy and that's why we created Sanity School as a way to teach parents the behavior skills that they need to help their kids to begin to manage the behavior changes that they want to change.

So it's that there's so much misinformation out there. There's this I love that island kind of analogy that you gave, but it's this: how do we connect parents together and get them the information that they need at a time that they need it?

Debbie Reber: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that is well that's why we do it we all do what we do it's the more that we can be getting these resources out there the hopefully that they showed her that the journey of getting from point A to point B will be so so what

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: These quirky complex atypical differently wired kids, what do you want their parents to understand better about their kids?

Debbie Reber: I mean, I think that their children are exactly who they are supposed to be. That's the biggest thing that there's nothing wrong with them and I really hope that parents can shift their own thinking to tilt if you will, to their own thinking, so that they recognize that there's nothing wrong with their children, that it is the society that has the work to do here in terms of being more just not just aware, but accepting of and accommodating of different ways of showing up and different ways of learning and processing information and experiencing the world.

So many of us again, spend so much time kind of trying to get our kids to change to fit in, and really, when our kids can actually lean into their strengths rather than we don't pay attention to those, because we're so focused on the deficits, but if we really lean into the strengths and grow those and society recognizes those strengths, and the gifts that come with that, that is when we can have the best possible outcomes.

It's not just for our kids, but I mean, this sounds grandiose, but for the world, because these humans have such incredible ways of looking at the world and creative problem-solving skills, and just what we really need to kind of solve the problems of the world right now.

Diane Dempster: What I like about what you said, was this, yes, we're focused on society and society needs to adapt. One way to do that is to do it one parent at a time and one family at a time.

I think that there's this bigger question that I often sit with, which is this, how do we tackle that big society thing or the fact that our schools are not really designed to allow these kids to kind of fit the way that they fit?

There's not an easy answer there. I wish there was but are there things that you guys are approaching right now and ways that you're talking about it that you feel like you are getting more at the systemic components of it?

Debbie Reber: I mean, I definitely feel like even in the past five and a half years since I've launched TiLT, there's just been a deeper understanding of learning disabilities or twice-exceptionality, for example, that is the more common language and more educators are learning about that, so they can recognize it and support those kids in the classroom.

So I do feel like the shift is happening. But I also feel like every parent who learns from people like us who make that shift, and who advocates for their child in a way that paves the path for the next kid in that classroom. So I feel it is on an individual level but I feel like the trickle-down effect of one parent who gets the school to better understand what this actually looks like, or what this child needs, is then going to make it easier for every child that follows.

So it's hard, arduous work, but there are so many of us doing work in this space right now. I get so excited when I interview just incredible people who are building micro-schools and doing such important work, that I do feel this kind of sense of momentum, which is really exciting.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, that's exactly the word I was just thinking is there's this momentum like there's this shift. And part of what I think we've been witnessing, from a societal perspective, not just in our country, but around the globe is that there's this huge wave of progress happening and this other wave of anti progress for lack of a better word. Because there's a lot of progress happening quickly it's hard to be with it. There's a lot of people who are uncomfortable.

There's like, stop, just slow down a little bit but there is this wave of movement, saying that it's about accepting people for who they are. We've seen so much shift in the world of autism in the last 20 years. 

Debbie Reber: Gender identity is what we're seeing right now. You're right. And I think there is going to be a backlash against a lot of this progress as well. But this generation, they're incredible.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: They are incredible. I often say because I have three young adults now they are beautifully, wonderfully intolerant of people's intolerance. They are fully accepting of all people, except for those who don't accept all people.

Diane Dempster: Which is kind of ironic in itself.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It is definitely an irony. 

Debbie Reber: Yeah, I would totally agree. So that gives me hope to win all the work that we're doing right to destigmatize neuro differences and for us to do our own work so that our kids don't grow up feeling shame about a learning difference they might have, or a label that is associated with them for them to then emerge as adults more owning that and then advocating for themselves in the workplace.

It's happening. We're coming at this from all different angles so I do feel like it's inevitable that this kind of paradigm shift will happen.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I like to see it as kind of like a spiraling forward. It's not a straight line, but there's definitely a movement. So what I want to ask is to make what you just said real because one of the things you said to us earlier was about parents doing their own deep work and you just alluded to something about parents doing their work. So what's the work for parents to do?

Debbie Reber: To borrow the phrase from Tina Payne Bryson and Dan Siegel showing up the power of showing up I think really committing to showing up as our best selves for ourselves and for our kids is kind of the big work that we do.

That is complicated in that it requires us to be intentional and the way that we move through the world. It requires us to have a growth mindset to be lifelong learners to always be noticing and paying attention and striving to do better. It requires leaning into the discomfort. It requires being super vulnerable. All of these things can feel uncomfortable, especially for our generation. I don't know about you, but this was not the way I was parented and there were no apologies.

When I was a kid, there was no like, I wish I had handled that better. So I think it requires kind of unpacking some of our own stuff that we experienced as kids, these beliefs that we've had in place are just like our own default mode for how we move through the world, and what it means to parent and then leaning in and just committing to doing that work every day.

Some days, we don't do a very good job of it. And then we start over again the next day, but it's that constant, showing up constantly leaning in. 

Diane Dempster: You're not saying this, but I know that you're saying this in between the lines is this sort of if that feels like work, and I know a lot of our parents are exhausted and beleaguered and they're already challenged. So to say lean in and try and work hard.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: You don't work on yourself.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, we're not trying to make it harder for you but there's an aspect to what you just said, which is that you just keep moving it forward. Even if it's a little baby step, or even if it's just Let's start over tomorrow, let's try again tomorrow it's this conscious effort versus unconscious, just kind of letting it happen is kind of what I'm getting. Is that fair?

Debbie Reber: Yeah, I would say it's surrendering to what is as opposed to fighting. So it sounds like it might be more work, but it's actually so much easier than fighting what is actually happening.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It's liberating, actually. 

Debbie Reber: Yeah, it totally is. It's liberating, and it helps our relationship and connection with our kids, which is the most important thing of all of this, that we're doing.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I've started to say this year in 2021, that our relationship with our kids is our insurance policy for their lives and our long-term connection with them.

Like the more we build with them now, I'm talking, this is for parents of all ages kids, even young adults, and when they're still in your home, if you can really lean into that relationship that's going to set the stage for what happens in their 20s when you want them to come to you because something's going on. That's your insurance policy.

Debbie Reber: Yeah, absolutely. It's everything. I mean, really connecting with our kids is and then feeling safe and secure with us and seeing who they are. We can do that with one.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So let's talk a little bit more about liberating because Diane's point is real like parents were drained, especially after almost two years of a pandemic. So what is how doing the work actually lightens your load?

Debbie Reber: The word that comes up when you're talking about that is control. So I think many of us are trying to control everything. We're trying to control how our kids do in school, their social lives, you know what our vacations look like, what everything looks like because when you're raising a child who is moving through the world differently, none of it looks like we expected. So we're always trying to control and get and get it back.

So the liberating part is recognizing, I actually can't control this human. They are on their own path. The only thing I can control is how I am going to feel about this and how I'm going to show up to this. So just giving yourself permission to let go of that tight grasp is very free, and it is very liberating.

It does feel uncomfortable again because it's not how we're used to being, especially if you're a career person, you're used to being successful or you're a type A personality, and you're just like to just do things. It can feel very strange.

But ultimately, we can't control the outcome. No parent can for any of their children. All we can do is set the intention to show up be it a coach and a guide, and hold on for dear life for the roller coaster.

Diane Dempster: And I'm going to kind of go back to what you just said and reiterate that control is a coping mechanism. And when we're as overwhelmed as we are as humans right now you're either going to have a tendency to tighten in, and I got to make sure everything's like just buttoned up, which is what you're describing, or you're going to run away.

So I see an equal number of parents kind of going to that place. And if you're able to say, wow, I'm, I'm buckling down because I am overwhelmed. Wait, what do I need to do to kind of calm down, which will let me let off the grips of the control?

So there's that extra step that we might need to do to recognize that there's something going on in us. It's making it hard for us to let go of the tightness and the control.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, I would say you can't control what happens but you can control how you respond to what happens and that's the shift. That's your TiLT. It's how we respond.

Debbie Reber: Yeah. And it's also what we want our kids to know, we want to model that for children because that's life.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I know, we need to start wrapping this part of the conversation up, but I'm thinking about watching young adults, as they went through processes, like college application processes, or watching my kids moving into adulthood, they get this message from the world that they're supposed to know how to adult, and they're supposed to somehow make it easy.

And when we make it when we as parents, don't show them all of the complexity of it we're actually not giving them an honest picture of what life is going to be for them. We're not really preparing them.

Debbie Reber: Yeah, it's interesting. As I am a 17-year-old now, we got a high school checking account a few weeks ago, and my goal is to make sure that he doesn't go to university and get a credit card and go into debt instantly as I did.

And it is interesting because I think there are so many things that I'm recognizing now like, oh, I actually never learned how to do this. I just figured this out a couple of years ago but this might be helpful information for my-

Diane Dempster: Kid.

Debbie Reber: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I pissed off a friend after college because I called to say, can you help me? I don't know how to clean my house and she was offended. I was like that, but I really never learned.

Debbie Reber: We're not born knowing this stuff.

Diane Dempster: So Debbie, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners or something else that you hope parents will take away before we start to wrap up?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And let's also ask, how can they get in touch with you first.

Diane Dempster: How to get in touch with you.

Debbie Reber: Yeah, thank you. And thank you again, for inviting me to have this conversation. I would say just in terms of the thought, the last thing I think again, so many parents come to me early on in their journey and there's a lot of panic and I guess I would just say don't panic. Take some breaths. You have plenty of time to figure this out.

Sometimes doing nothing but just kind of sitting with it and processing is better than signing up for like 10 different therapies and diving all in. And just notice if you're in that fixed mindset, I'm trying to fix that our kids are not broken and that's not really our job to fix them.

So that's my thought and then yeah, if people want to check out my work, my website is tiltparenting.com. And if you're curious you can find how many podcast episodes now 260 plus, so a big library. If you want to kind of dip your toe in the waters of what I do, I have a free seven-day challenge where every day you'll get a little video and just something to think about a little reframe to think about each day and that is tiltparenting.com/sevenday.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Awesome, tiltparenting.com/sevenday. That's great. I love that message that our kids are not broken. We have a number of avatars in our community. There's lost, lowest, maxed out, maxed in, and sue the super mom. One of them is Fran the fix-it mom and sounds like all three of us tried to play Fran for a lot of years before we realized it was not going to be the way to go.

Debbie Reber: Yeah, I feel like I'm all of those avatars in a little way.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We are, all of us, and many more. There's now in the book. There's like, I don't know 12 or 15 of them or so. Final wrap-up do you have a favorite quote or motto you'd like to share with us?

Debbie Reber: I do. I have a quote that I should have pulled out. I have it on postcards and I have like a little ceramic dish in my bedroom. It is from Neale Donald Walsch who wrote the book Conversations with God years ago. I never even read. I read the first chapter, but this quote stuck out to me. And the quote is life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

And I just feel that is true. That has been my experience and throughout my entire life, but especially when you're raising a differently wired kid, it is super as we've been talking about this whole conversation, it's super uncomfortable but that is where the good stuff is.

So if we can lean into the discomfort and be open and curious about what exists there, it can be such an incredible way to go through life.

Diane Dempster: That just gave me chills, Debbie, thank you. That was awesome.

Debbie Reber: Thank you.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. I do too, and I love that quote. It's hard, and what are we here for? It's interesting. It's a whole lot more interesting.

Debbie Reber: It's super hard. And I will say that I'm still in it. We're all in it. It's not like it gets easier. We have all the answers, but it is very hard, but it is still the best possible journey. I'm so grateful for it every day.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I often see that sometimes in life there are people who are growers and people who are status quo. And for me, and maybe it's my ADD wiring or something else, but status quo can get awfully boring, and getting past that comfort zone is always interesting. 

Debbie Reber: Just when you think you've mastered it something else comes up.

Diane Dempster: Something else shows up. All right. Debbie, thank you, TiLT Parenting. Glad to have you with us today. Elaine, do you want to wrap us up?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, just again, Debbie, thank you for being with us and for the work that you're doing. You're really making a difference for a long time, like really shifting the dynamic, and it's all about incremental.

We often say that transformation happens incrementally. So it's these little incremental changes one parent at a time, one insight at a time that really have this profound transformational impact. So thanks for what you're doing. And to those of you listening, thank you for being here. Thank you for what you're doing for yourself and your family. It makes a difference. Take care, everyone. 

Diane Dempster: Thanks, everybody.