424. Raising a neurodivergent child: How connection, co-regulation, and self-compassion change everything with Debbie Reber

Debbie Reber (00:00):

The number one theme, the number one pain point that I heard about from parents was the sense of isolation and that nobody quite gets what’s really going on in their lives. More than the financial challenges more than school, although that’s a whole other piece, but it is still that sense that we are on a different path. The systems are not set up to support who my child is and it’s very isolating.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:34):

Raising a neurodivergent child can be beautiful, meaningful and deeply expansive and it can also be incredibly hard. Many parents find themselves trying to support a child whose nervous system, emotions, sensory needs, or learning style don’t fit neatly into the expectations of school, family life, or the wider world. And when that happens, parents can start to feel isolated, overwhelmed, or like they are constantly being asked to explain, advocate, adjust, and hold everything together for their kid. Hi, I’m Dr. Sarah Bren, a clinical psychologist, mom of two, and the host of Securely Attached. In this podcast, I’m joined each week by leaders in the field of medicine, psychology, psychiatry, and child development, and together we translate the science and research into easy to understand and actionable parenting insights. Today I’m joined by Debbie Reber. Debbie is the founder of Tilt Parenting, host of the Tilt Parenting Podcast, and author of Differently Wired: A Parent’s Guide to Raising an Atypical Child with Confidence and Hope.

(01:41):

Her work has helped countless parents better understand and support neurodivergent children through a strengths-based, compassionate, and deeply human lens. In this conversation, Debbie and I talk about what it really means to be differently wired and why so many parents of neurodivergent children still feel isolated, even as awareness has grown. And we also talk about how we can move away from seeing differences as deficits and instead begin asking what our children need in order to thrive. We also explore the emotional work of parenting a neurodivergent child from understanding meltdowns and nervous system regulation to recognizing how our own regulation shapes the family system. Debbie shares why co-regulation starts with self-compassion, why repair matters more than getting it right every time, and how raising a differently wired child can not only change the way we parent, but the way we understand ourselves.

(02:36):

Hello, Debbie Reber. It is an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for coming.

Debbie Reber (02:49):

Thank you, Sarah. I’m so happy to be here.

Dr. Sarah Bren (02:52):

I am a very big fan of your work. I have been watching from afar all of the amazing things that you’ve put out into the world over the last many years and I’m very excited to talk to you.

Debbie Reber (03:06):

Oh, good. That’s my favorite kind of conversation to have. Great.

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:11):

I like it. Well, I think one of the reasons I liked what you do and I want to set you up to tell everyone what you do, but your work on helping kind of create language and community around parents of neurodiverse kids and differently wired kids, which is the name of your book. I just feel like people have started doing it more, but I didn’t hear it until I heard it from you and I was like, at the time I was exposed to it, I was more as a clinical psychologist working with a lot of these kids and then as a parent of my own probably differently wired kids and realizing on my own journey of myself realizing I’m a very differently wired … I was a differently wired kid. I am a differently wired adult. I just like the way you talk about it. This idea of a strengths-based approach, it’s becoming more, thank goodness, mainstream, centralized in the conversation. But I think you were one of the first people I really heard shouting it out and I always appreciated that.

Debbie Reber (04:24):

Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, I think I was. I think that was one of the drivers for creating TILT parenting in the first place was because everything that I found from the time my kid got that first provisional diagnosis of ADHD and PDD NOS, which I don’t even know is a thing anymore, but it was kind of like autism light or something. I don’t know. It was like, “We don’t know what this fits in, so we’ll give you this identifier.” But at that time, all the resources were so they were such bummers. The websites were terrible and deficit focused and pathologizing and just made me feel like I do not want to be part of this club. And so that was my experience from the very beginning. And so I didn’t start TILT for almost five years, actually more than five years after that point, but I knew I wanted to do something to help parents like us feel like actually there’s nothing wrong with who our kids are.

Dr. Sarah Bren (05:26):

Yeah. So if people are coming in and they don’t know your work, can you tell a little bit about what TILT parenting is and what like when you say differently wired, and we sort of defined it as neurodiverse, but what do you picture when you were talking about that and what is TILT parenting to you?

Debbie Reber (05:47):

Yeah, and I’m taking notes because I will forget what parts of the questions were. So as I said, when I first discovered that we were on this kind of alternative path, it was really hard for me to find resources that felt in alignment with what I believed to be true, that there wasn’t anything wrong with my child, but they were moving through the world in a different way. Meanwhile, we’re getting disinvited from schools and just really struggling, right? And so I kind of always knew that I wanted to create a home for parents who were navigating this path. And so TILT parenting, which I launched 10 years ago now, I founded it as a podcast and a community. And actually the language I used was a revolution because I wanted to, in my big mission statement, I wanted to change the parenting paradigm for parents raising what I called differently wired kids.

(06:43):

And the reason I even used the language of differently wired is because neurodivergent wasn’t available at the time. It was just not part of the conversation. Neurodiversity as a term was being used and it was only associated with autism at the time. And so there wasn’t any kind of positive language. Everything was a disorder. Everything was an issue, a challenge, a problem. And so I spent a lot of time thinking about, what would be a way to kind of capture the experience in a way that acknowledges difference but is also neutral, right? It’s not a good or a bad thing. So yeah, when I launched Till Parenting, I did a little Facebook live. I didn’t even know what I was doing at the time, but my kid and I did a Facebook live and we held up a sign.

(07:35):

My kid held up a sign that said differentlywired. And we’re like, we’re introducing this new term and this is a revolution and come follow us. And we launched with a few podcast episodes and now 10 years later it is … I’m still doing the podcast. I just released episode 509 this week and I love that part of it, but it’s also, I’ve written about this, I create content around it, but really I’m trying to still help parents feel different in their experience of raising their neurodivergent kids. So I want them to know that they’re not alone, that there’s nothing wrong with their kids and that when they kind of lean into the experience, it can feel so much better for the whole family. So that’s why I created it and what I’m still doing today.

Dr. Sarah Bren (08:26):

Yeah. And I’m curious, obviously it started a few episodes of a podcast and now it’s pretty big community, which probably means you have like direct market research into the minds and pain points of these parents, right? And I’m just curious, when you’re sitting in a space virtual or otherwise with these parents, what are the themes that they are … What are the patterns that you’re noticing still? Where are we as a community, as a society, as in the academic space and the social space, not social media, but like social lives like the birthday parties, the play dates, the community level, like where are we not getting it yet still?

Debbie Reber (09:21):

Yeah, that’s a great question. And can I go back because put it into some context. So when I launched Tilt, I spent the year prior to that researching and talking to parents to make sure that the things I thought were issues and that I personally was experiencing would resonate with other people. And so I gathered all this data, I created a manifesto about like, here are the different challenges, here are the systems that are in place that are keeping us stuck, here’s how we need to shift those. So I kind of came out with this vision and actually last summer knowing I was coming up on 10 years, I was like, “I wonder if these are still issues.” Because I’m still like fighting the same fight, but it’s a whole new generation of parents with their kids and there’s a lot more conversation about, as you said, strength space and neurodivergence.

(10:14):

And so I’m like, “Is this work even relevant in the same way anymore?” And so I put out a survey, actually just released the report in April and it was fascinating because the same themes came up and the number one theme, the number one pain point that I heard about from parents was the sense of isolation and that nobody quite gets what’s really going on in their lives more than the financial challenges more than school, although that’s a whole other piece, but it is still that sense that we are on a different path. The systems are not set up to support who my child is and it’s very isolating. And so that was the number one thing. School is another huge issue because really our kids’ jobs, if you will, is to learn and to play and to grow and they spend most of their time in some sort of a educational setting. And so we know that a traditional school model is not really designed to support the needs of kids who learn and think differently. So that’s a huge challenge. And then going back to that idea of systems, I think all the systems that parents on this path have to navigate like insurance systems, healthcare systems, the workplace, like there’s just so many aspects of our lives where there’s this extra onus on us to figure out how to forge a path for our families. And this is when we’re already burned out and exhausted because we’re trying to help our kids thrive and they can be perplexing little humans who kind of push us and challenge us in lots of ways.

Dr. Sarah Bren (11:55):

Wow. It’s interesting because I would think that people are still feeling super isolated. I mean, I’m not surprised in one sense because I understand this is fundamentally a very isolating experience because you’re constantly battling between kind of like when the needs of your family system and your child, when you’re out in the world, but up against friction because people are having different expectations that your family system can’t necessarily meet, that that creates this sense of disconnect always. And so that makes sense to me. But I also, I guess in the one way that that surprises me is that over the last 10 years I would think that the ability for a family who is parenting a neurodiverse kid or definitely wired kid to feel like they find their tribe, they find their people, they have more ways to connect with and feel seen by and feel like, okay, oh, we’re in this together.

(13:08):

We are not alone whether it is because of social media or parenting groups like what you do or even like our group practice has a lot of … We have parent groups for parents of kids with autism, parents of kids with adults with autism, adult children with autism, parents of kids with ADHD. And I just feel like these places are growing in, they’re more available than they used to be and people are talking about it. So like if you bump into someone the ability to in random conversations just drop in, “Oh yeah, my kid’s therapist or my kid is their IEP.” These are not like, “Wait, what’s that? ” Or, “Ooh, I didn’t…” It’s not as taboo anymore and it’s not as siloed. So I’m just surprised that it’s still feeling as isolating as it is.

Debbie Reber (14:05):

Yeah. I mean, it is interesting and for my 10 year anniversary episode, I interviewed a dozen members of my community and asked them what they have seen change the most since they realized they were on this journey and where they see the work still needs to happen. And a lot of them brought up what you just said, like that community piece, that it is easier because of social media or online groups, it’s easier to find your people which is great, but we still like the systems, the school systems, these other systems that we’re up against, they really haven’t shifted. They may have shifted some of them, I’m going to use air quotes if you’re listening to this on paper, right? So I’m thinking about the term neurodiversity affirming. I just had a conversation about this with someone on my show. That language is everywhere now.

(14:55):

Everybody’s neurodiversity affirming. Workplaces are, therapists are … And then you spend a little time on their website and you’re like, but you’re still using medicalized pathologizing language. So there is this kind of sense that there needs to be a change, but actually the deeper work to really respect the journey and not try to change who these kids are, but actually allow them to show up as who they are and think about how can we adapt environments to better support them as well That work I don’t see really happening. So I think parents are still really frustrated because it’s still hard to find the right match for them, for their kids. It’s still hard to access providers. Of course, what’s happening in the political system in terms of like what’s happening to resources for special education and therapy and all those things like that is creating additional strain. So I guess if you think about the idea of autism, for example, autism awareness of autism acceptance, like there’s different layers of this. There’s an like, okay, yeah, I get that. And like really understanding it on a deep level is a whole different game. And sometimes it can feel even more isolating if everyone thinks, well, it’s like being in a post-racial society, “Oh, we’ve cured racism, so now it’s not an issue anymore when Obama was president.” There’s a similar piece where I think some people think, “Okay, well we’ve accepted this now, so let’s move on to the next thing.” And meanwhile, a lot of families are still struggling.

Dr. Sarah Bren (16:32):

Right. It can’t just be a talk, you got to walk the walk. And that’s hard. And I think the school thing, I mean, we could talk about schools, it’s so hard because I know teachers are trying, at least in the States. I know you’ve been in the States and also in Europe, but in the States it is really hard because like you were saying, I don’t know, it’s like swimming upstream constantly. There’s not enough resources to support the teachers to support the kids and the kids really, I think we really have realized and I don’t even think it’s about neurodiversity or like diagnostics at all. It’s kids in a classroom. If you have 30 kids in a classroom, you probably have 30 different learners.

Debbie Reber (17:27):

Totally.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:28):

And if you charted them all on a bell curve, you’d have some in the middle in terms of like their ability to be dynamic learners and like learn across a variety of different models of teaching, but you’re going to have at least half of your class on one or the other end of that spectrum that needs a very different type of learning and that’s not just two different types of learning, right? There’s like 15 different needs in that classroom and you have one teacher, maybe two and they have also at least in the States, if they’re in a public school system, they have like an incredible amount of pressure to teach to certain tests. It’s like the system is not built for this and we keep trying to change it inside the classroom. It’s like, well, no wonder everybody is feeling like they’re smashing their head against a brick wall.

Debbie Reber (18:20):

Yeah. The system, as you said, it’s designed to highlight deficits and I don’t even like that word, but relative weaknesses of our neurodivergent kids, but it’s also designed to kind of keep everybody in the status quo. Even of course there are teachers and I totally recognize how under-resourced teachers are and not just under-resourced, but they’re not being taught this stuff, right? They’re being handed an IEP and not even understanding the why behind it or having the tools or resources to implement it well. And so it is a bigger issue. It’s a policy issue and that’s where I think we just keep feeling very stuck.

Dr. Sarah Bren (19:03):

Yeah. And it’s not always available to opt out of that setting. I mean for most people it is not at available.

Debbie Reber (19:10):

For most people. That is correct. Yeah.

Dr. Sarah Bren (19:12):

And so it’s very difficult, but so we don’t get too down on ourselves here, like you have a tremendous amount of really valuable offerings and resources in terms of like, okay, yes, these systems are not, we are working against systems. We are going to feel hopeless at times and disheartened at times. And also you have a lot of hope in your messaging. There’s a lot parents can do the work on themselves and in their relationship with their kid, but also just in like how you show up in the world with your kid that can make a huge difference. It’s not just about like, sure, advocate policy level changes, no question we need that. And if that feels daunting, it doesn’t mean like you’re screwed. There’s so much we can do on a very personal level to like help our kids feel like they are fitting the expectations of this family system or of … And I want to talk about all of those ideas and I also want to like asterisks that, which maybe we’ll get to in a second too. I’m getting way too many ideas at once. This is my differently wired mind going on.

Debbie Reber (20:25):

I’m taking notes. You go, Sarah. It’s all good.

Dr. Sarah Bren (20:27):

Yes. Okay. What we can do as parents on a parent level, on a self-parent level, on a parent child level and a smaller level and then also this like other piece of like, yeah, we want to help remove some of these expectations and there’s this balance of also needing to help our kid fit in a world at times, but we can get to that part later.That’s part three of this conversation.

Debbie Reber (20:59):

Going back to something that you said, I was thinking about the parents that these dozen or so parents that I talked to and circled back to for my 10 year anniversary special, one of the questions I asked them is how have you changed the most since you’ve been on this journey? And a number of them, in addition kind of doing their own deep winner work, which is like my favorite thing to talk about, but they said that really learning how to show up for their child and understanding more about themselves in the process has helped them be a more compassionate person overall and it has completely changed how they interact with the world and that to me was incredible. I wasn’t expecting that. I didn’t know what the answers were going to be when I talked to these people and I just think that’s so beautiful that when we are willing to see the humanity in our kids’ journey, it can open us up to seeing that in other people as well and that makes me feel really hopeful and excited.

Dr. Sarah Bren (22:00):

Yeah, me too. And as like a therapist, I’m like, “Ah, so when we do parenting work, we are doing life work.” It helps you on a … I often will say like, yes, I work with parents a lot. I do a parenting support where the child is technically the identified patient, but I’m working with the parents, but the goal is to help the parent create awareness and strategies to help orient their kids’ needs and build kind of like personalized strategies for their kid rather than trying to like do all the things that everyone else is telling them to do, but like what works for your kid because that’s what actually matters. It doesn’t matter if this is a good strategy. If it doesn’t work for your kid, it’s not working. So you find a different one. But in doing that work, nine times out of 10, the parent is doing, they are feeling better, like they are getting healthier, more integrated as a human, not just as a parent.

Debbie Reber (23:04):

Yeah. I mean, I often use the analogy of us being the wingsuit flyers of parenting, like parents raising neurodivergent kids because, and I say it’s an extreme sport, but it’s an extreme sport because our kids demand that we actually show up for them. We don’t have to. We can be like, “You know what? We’ll let school discipline you. We’re just going to punish. We’ll do all the things and we’ll just get through this. ” But that’s not going to work out very well for anybody, but because our kids demand that we are present with them and that we really show up for them and in order to do that, we have to dig deep into ourselves to become more resourced to learn about our own regulation or lack thereof and focus on that stuff. And it is the most incredible gift then, right? And I think about this a lot and now having a kid who’s almost 22, I’m still very much in it. I tell my therapist, “I’m kind of done with this lesson. I would like to move on, but it keeps coming up.” But I often think that for parents who have neurotypical kids who are just kind of coasting along, of course they’re going to have stuff come up.

(24:27):

It’s not like they’re not challenged by their kids and the choices their children make as they get older, but they may not be kind of forced to do the deep inner work that we are because the typical strategies are going to work and so they can just kind of go along business as usual. And so for me, I think that’s one of the best gifts of this whole thing. My life is profoundly different because of who my child is than if I was just kind of raising a kid who just went to the neighborhood school and moved through the grades and we had a graduation and they moved out of the house and that was it. And then I just like lived my life. That would be fine too. But I see my life as being so much fuller and I’ve learned so much about myself that has made my life much more meaningful and purposeful. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Dr. Sarah Bren (25:25):

Yes. And I think that’s a really good illustration of like you’re on the other side of having done that work and there’s this looking back and there’s this gratitude for having done it for yourself, not just for what the benefits have brought your kid and your family, I’m sure, but like for you. But I think you said something super important that I’m so glad you acknowledged at the beginning of that, which is like, it’s more work to parent these children. It isn’t like do the same amount of work as everybody else and just figure it out and stop complaining.

(26:00):

These kids require a lot more and it’s so important that parents hear that so that they don’t think they’re crazy and they’re not being gaslit into thinking like that’s not the case. I will tell parents a lot, like the interventions that I help parents craft for their kids are not free of labor and energy and output. And a lot of times parents, I’ve literally had parents like cry in sessions being like, “I don’t want to do all of that. ” That is exhausting. I want my kid to just turn off the TV when I say turn off the TV. I don’t want to have to do this 25 minute bridge where I sit with them and I go into their world and I ask them about the characters on the TV so I can help break the trance without like turning them into a techno tantrum.

(26:53):

I don’t want to do that. I just want to say turn off the TV and have them listen. And I’m like, “You’re right, it is so much more work, but importantly, you are front loading the work to have less work at the back end.” You are still doing so much work when you just say turn off the TV and then they don’t do it and then we have these blowouts and now I’m doing all this backend work of picking up pieces after the explosion. So I still believe it’s the same amount of work when you’re working with differently wired kids, the work is the same amount whether you front load it or backload it. It’s definitely more work, net, more work than parents and kids that aren’t definitely wired that are just like, “Okay, I’ll turn off the TV.” Yeah. “What’s for dinner?”

Debbie Reber (27:45):

Yeah, and I think that is part of that isolation piece we talked about before, because if people don’t really get it, like I remember visiting a friend, this is years ago we traveled for the weekend to visit friends in London and the mom and dad, my friends were away, but their daughters had come home from school and they let us in and they’re like, “Okay, we’ll be up in our room.” And they went up to the room and they were working on their homework and I was so confused. I was like, “Is this what actually happens in most households?” A kid comes home from school and goes to their room and does their homework. I know that that’s not what every child is doing, but my mind was so blown and it was such a contrast.

Dr. Sarah Bren (28:31):

Like seeing it out in the wild for real and you’re like, “Where am I at the zoo? What’s happening?”

Debbie Reber (28:39):

There was nothing about that experience that I could relate to on any level whatsoever and it is harder, it’s just more intense. It’s harder, it’s more work and it is exhausting and I think what you said is important. We have to just acknowledge that. And again, I bring up my therapist all the time in conversations so I apologize, but I’m always working on my stuff, right? But I will say to her, I’m really just, “I don’t want to do this anymore. This feels too hard.” And the word I would use for many years was, “This feels intolerable.” And she’s like, “Yeah, that’s really hard.” And so I had to really learn how to even just say, “Yeah, you are doing a really hard thing right now and it makes sense that you’re exhausted. This is hard and it’s harder than most of your friends are dealing with with their kids and it’s okay to feel exhausted.” And so just like giving myself a lot of self-compassion, I imagine that’s part of the work that you do with your families as well.

Dr. Sarah Bren (29:39):

Yeah. And I do think though it’s important if you’ve got a parent, I have found that I might have some strategies to give them to make it easier. And yes, they usually involve front loading the work. So it’s more work upfront, but it actually tends to make things move more smoothly in life Which lowers the work in the long run. But if I start there, if I just start with, okay, here are the strategies. Let’s just try this. It doesn’t work because these parents just really need to be seen first and have someone say, “Your experience is very, very real. This is hard.” And then there’s this exhale of thank you. I needed someone to just say that that is…

Debbie Reber (30:32):

What we all want, right? I was just having a workday with my friend here and we were having this discussion even as adults, just like our kids, we all just want to be seen for what we’re experiencing.

Dr. Sarah Bren (30:52):

Hey, I’m just jumping in for a quick minute because if today’s conversation is resonating with you, I want you to know something that I think every parent of a neurodivergent child needs to hear. You don’t have to figure this out all on your own. Raising a neurodivergent child often means navigating a world that wasn’t built with your child in mind. Between evaluations, school meetings, therapies, executive functioning challenges, and simply trying to understand what your child needs, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all of the decisions you’re expected to make. And that’s exactly why we created the Neurodiversity Services Program at Upshur Bren Psychology Group.

(31:27):

Rather than offering a one size fits all solution, we work with you to understand your child’s unique strengths, challenges, learning profile and goals, and then create a personalized plan for your family. For some families, that starts with a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation to better understand how their children learns, thinks, processes, information, and experiences the world. For others, it means reviewing a previous evaluation, providing diagnostic clarification, or helping parents better understand what a diagnosis really means and just as importantly, what it doesn’t. From there, we offer a wide range of supports that can grow alongside your child, including executive functioning therapy, individual therapy, parent coaching, therapeutic groups for children, parent process groups, and guidance for the whole family system. We also partner with families as they navigate school, helping interpret evaluation reports, advocating for appropriate accommodations, reviewing 504 plans and IEPs, and when needed attending school meetings alongside parents. Because while a diagnosis can provide important answers, it’s really just the beginning. What matters most is helping your child better understand themselves, build confidence in who they are, and receive the support they need to thrive at home, at school, and in the world. If you’re wondering what the next step might look like for your family, we’d love to help.

(32:48):

You could schedule a free 30 minute consultation with a member of our concierge care team. We’ll listen carefully to your concerns, answer your questions, and help you to determine which services, if any, would be the best fit for your family’s unique needs. To learn more or schedule your consultation, visit upshurbren.com. That’s U-P-S-H-U-R-B-R-E-N.com. All right, now let’s get back to my conversation with Debbie Reber.

(33:21):

Obviously it’s not always the case, but very often if you have a differently wired kid, there’s a fairly good chance that you or your partner is also differently wired because just statistically that’s kind of … It tends to be genetically loaded in some ways. And I think there’s certainly situations where you have a parent who’s really neurotypical and has a really hard time conceptualizing why it’s so hard. And I think that’s also a challenge for sure. And there’s a lot of helpful utility and psychoeducation around like, “Okay, let me explain the neuroscience of this so that it stops feeling personal and it starts feeling logical.” So it’s not defying your expectations all the time, but it’s matching your expectations. Creating these developmentally appropriate expectations that match your kid, not necessarily their chronological age, but their developmental level.

(34:17):

But then you also have the parents, and I fall in this category personally as of like I’m neurodiverse. And so I’m also like, I am terrible at time management. Guess when we have the most blowups in my house when I’m in a rush and guess how often I’m in a rush all the time. So I’ve had to really look at even just where I’m causing jams in the system and then my kids are feeling it. And even my kids who … I have two kids, on too young to say. I’m highly leaning toward the probability that we’re dealing with some differently wired potentiality. Other kid, like so not just roles with it, like the most flexible human and that’s just temperament. I didn’t do it.

(35:11):

Funnily enough, I thought at the beginning, because it’s my older one that’s the more flexible one and I was like, “Oh see, I am such a good parent.” And then I had the second who’s very inflexible and got that rigid quality and I’m like, on the one hand I was like, “Okay, well I can give myself a little bit of grace, but also watch the hubris because I’m not … ” Having the second one be harder for me to parent than the first was a very important grounding moment of like, you have two very different humans with different temperaments and different wiring.

(35:48):

And what works for one, what doesn’t work for the other, and that’s not good nor bad. It just is. I have to have a different strategies for both my kids, but also I need to look at what I’m doing to contribute to the situation because even when my flexible kid is interfacing with my own dysregulation, because I’m in a rush and I’m losing my mind because we’re 15 minutes late and my keys are in like my shoebox, like in my closet, I don’t know how they got there. I’m stressing him out a lot and then he is doing things that make it worse for everyone, but that’s because of me.

Debbie Reber (36:27):

Yeah, totally. I mean, I think first of all, a little side note, I could not find my bike keys yesterday and they were in a shoe in my closet. So there you go. But that is to me is one of the most exciting things in recent years is kind of this better understanding of nervous system regulation and dance eagle’s been talking about mirror neurons for a long time, but I don’t think I really fully understood how hijacked my own nervous system was like for so many years having an explosive, intense little human.

(37:06):

I mean, I had terrible self-regulation skills until probably I became a parent and even then it took me years to finally … I have a handle on them now. I’ve got a lot of strategies, but I don’t think I had any sense of what was going on, especially when my kid was younger. It was just like my kid would lose it, I would lose it, we would get escalate more than my husband would like loop in and it was just this constant state of chaos, emotional chaos. And gosh, there’s so many things I wish I could have a do over understanding what I know now about co-regulation and the way our nervous systems are communicating with each other. So to me, that is one of the most exciting things and I’ve gotten to figure that stuff out and do my own work on it now, but I think it would have made a big difference when I had a little one 15, 18 years ago.

Dr. Sarah Bren (38:06):

Yeah. Well, this actually feels like a good place to throw in some really practical concrete things for parents because if you’re still listening to this and you’re like, “I’m nodding deeply at the lost keys and my own, I pour gasoline on the fire and I don’t want to. ” And the way that our nervous systems are like so interconnected in the family system in both directions, right? If our kid is dysregulated, we can easily catch it. And also if we’re calm, we can have such a profound ability to lower that stress response in our kid. Let’s talk a little about co-regulation and like self-regulation being the precursor to co-regulation, like what are some of the strategies that you have found to work for yourself? And again, like these are your personalized strategies, but like I think we can throw some ideas out and people can take what works, leave what doesn’t.

(39:11):

But for self-regulating when you’re in the midst of the chaos and also for what’s helped your kid, like I always talk about like, you have to figure out what your kids sort of co-regulation preferences are and what’s their sensory preferences and sensory sensitivities. Some things that might be soothing to you could be really overstimulating for your kid. Atunement is like your best friend.

Debbie Reber (39:39):

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I’ll just say in terms of self-regulation for me, like even before getting to in the moment, I’m really good at front loading my own resources so I am very like proactive about like keeping my … I’m using mixed metaphors, filling my tank. I am really good about doing what I need to do to make sure that I have capacity in the moment. In the midst of chaos, I mean, something as simple as like turning my body helps me co-regulate. So if I’m like on the receiving end of like anger, big, crazy, wild energy, like even staying in the room, but I could pivot my body so I’m not like an open … So if my child’s facing here, I’m not like an open receptacle for them and so that has helped me. I’ll ground myself, I’ll like squeeze my thighs or I’ll squeeze my arms to just like stay in my body and just kind of remind myself I’m here.

(40:51):

I’ll put my feet on the ground. I will definitely leave. I will say out loud, I will model it. I’m about to say something I don’t want to say or I’m about to lose it and I need some time and I will just walk out of the room and I will just either vent to someone. I might call my sister and vent or if she’s not available sometimes I just have to like take breaths or go for a walk or like I have to move to transport. Sometimes I use music as a way in the moment. Sometimes I’ll do that with my kid actually. I will like put on a song in the moment that I know is going to catch them off guard and will shift the energy pretty quickly. Yeah. So for me, but it is like learning how to catch that pause first and taking the breaths, getting myself grounded.

(41:47):

And just talking out loud about it, like almost narrating my process has been really helpful for me because it reminds me there’s no shame in what I’m feeling. Actually, this is a learning moment and it’s showing my kid that it’s okay to feel out of control and have big feelings. And then you asked about my kiddo, I think that is also like it’s all about cozy. It’s all about like a stuffy, or it was for a long time. Music, books have always been really regulating. So when I took my kid to camps or to anything where there was a potential, which was really any situation, where there was a potential for dysregulation, I was like, you have three books in your backpack and that just going alone and reading would be very regulating. So that was the strategy we used for many, many years and now it’s more music or distracting with a game or something like that.

(42:47):

Yeah. So I think it has to be very personal and I think even like the parent with the child can have their own co-regulation dynamic, you know what I mean? It looks different with my husband and my kid than it does with the two of us.

Dr. Sarah Bren (43:01):

Yeah. No, it’s true. I’m trying to think of like, because I’ll lose it a good amount. I mean, I get hot fast and a lot of times that me, I think my kids have also learned that when they watch me catch myself, even when we’re both, we’re all screaming, it’s like hot and messy and yucky. And then if I say, “Okay, I’m 10 out of 10, let me just take a second.” They know that I will usually come down relatively fast and sometimes they have not yet come down to meet me in that space, but a lot of times I’ll say … We’ve kind of come up with our own shorthand, like you said, you kind of learn your patterns with your kids, but I’ll often say like, “Okay, can we do a redo or can we start over?” That often helps in our family, mostly because we’ve done this so many times that we’ve gotten to the other side of the redo and felt better. I also think that being goofy can rewind the tape in my family a lot. If I’m like yelling and then I say, and I like to pretend to rewind myself and like be like … And my kids are young, they’re like seven and eight, so they still appreciate a little goof, although I feel like older kids do too. That usually can like let some air out of the balloon.

Debbie Reber (44:37):

Yeah. Humor is amazing. I love that you do that. I think I remember once being like, “I’m going to do an interpretive dance for you. ” And I just did, that it was so unexpected and ridiculous because I’m not a dancer that it was enough to shift. And then once the energy shifted or that moment is stopped, then you can repair and then that’s really nice. That’s a moment to connect and to learn and to hopefully process and make different choices in the future.

(45:09):

Yeah. I think even just like knowing that it’s okay to lose it. I used to feel so much shame about it because I would get like out of control and I hated that so much didn’t feel good for me. I didn’t like the way that I showed up as a parent, but I think just like giving myself grace to know that it’s okay to lose it and there’s actually going to be learning in this. I got to a point where I was like, even having my kid get really dysregulated, I’d be like, “Ooh, good, this is an opportunity. What can we learn from this? ” That didn’t happen all the time, but there is always something there.

Dr. Sarah Bren (45:47):

Yeah. I actually, I’m glad we’re both kind of as stepping off of any potential perceived pedestal of like, we teach parenting strategies, right? And also we are parents who will regularly experience dysregulation with our kids. I think it’s so important to just disclose and be real about it because actually I’m very okay. I don’t want to be scary with my kids and there are definitely times where I am. I don’t want to get that way, but I also understand that I really genuinely believe it is absolutely okay and useful for my kids to see me lose it and repair with them than for me to never lose it and always be this cool, calm, collected mom that like is just perfectly zed because one, it’s not realistic for me to expect myself to be perfectly zen. I also don’t want to show up. Let’s say I was like really good at masking it, that’s not great for my kids.

(46:42):

I want my kids to experience a mother who is a human who does model losing it and coming back down and reconnecting because that actually is so much more of a human lesson in life and they are going to have those experiences and I want them to see the full cycle and not think that there’s some invisible or like there’s some impossible ideal that I’m setting that like we’re always keeping it together and much like when they lose it, I do not expect them to never lose it. I really say like, “You’re totally losing it right now. Okay.” And the expectation is you can’t hurt people when you are losing it. And other than that, I don’t have a whole lot of expectations of them when they are 10 out of 10. I’m just, I will see you when you come back down. I will be here and I know you will come back down and I’m just really communicating a lot of confidence that this will come and it will go and we’re going to be okay.

(47:50):

And oftentimes if I say that when they’re actually melting down, they will flip out of me, but afterwards there’s always this moment where there’s like a shift in that arousal where it does come back down and it crosses some like threshold downward back to regulation and there’s this like, truthfully, I will see this like shift in behind my kids’ eyes where like, “Ah, you’re back online. Okay, you’re here again.” And I like to try to be able to physically or symbolically kind of catch them when they come back down in that moment and be like, “Oh, you’re back. I’m here.” And that’s really hard to be able to do that, one, if you don’t understand that this cycle is normal and it’s all humans go through it, this arousal and to regulation again, but also if you are mad about it, then you are going to have a hard time catching them with that open arms and being like, “Welcome back.”

Debbie Reber (48:49):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah Bren (48:49):

Because you’re still stuck in the mad about the fact that they went to that breaking point.

Debbie Reber (48:55):

Yeah. I think just talking about being mad and anger, like a lot of us grew up where maybe I’m generalizing, but I’ve talked to many people and this was my experience where it wasn’t safe or okay to express anger as a little person. And so that is a emotion that a lot of us are uncomfortable with. And so I think that idea of letting our kids know you can be mad. I mean, of course, yes, we don’t hurt people when we’re angry, but there’s no emotion that’s so big that you’re going to lose my love. I am always here for you. And I think that that is such an important lesson for our kids to have. And yeah, I mean, in some of my most powerful moments have come on the other side of that, like you said, catching them and catching myself. I often find that my kid will be regulated before I am.

(49:54):

I need more time because I’m a Scorpio and I hold grudges and I have all kinds of things going on. So oftentimes I’ll be the one to … It’s when I soften and when I come back to myself and I’m able to say, “Oh my gosh, I don’t even know what we’re doing right now. Why are we having this conflict? This is not how I want to show up and that’ll be enough and then we can move forward. No, my kid is older, so it looked differently years ago, but still it’s ongoing work in progress.

Dr. Sarah Bren (50:26):

Yeah. And I think that messaging that you’re describing of telling explicitly and/or showing implicitly a kid that I’m not going to be … There’s nothing you can feel that is going to make me not be here for you even if I’m not here every moment because I also might be exited in my own dysregulation, but I’m like, I got you. That’s important. But also I think for differently why kids who are going to experience high highs of dysregulation a lot of the time in their life, like it’s I also from a relational standpoint, I want them to know I’m not going anywhere when you’re having these things, but that doesn’t mean I’m always going to sit and take it either. I mean more symbolically, we are okay. I might walk out of the room. We don’t have to be there all the time and like you were saying, I don’t want you to absorb all of that either, but there’s this other piece less about the relational safety and more about kind of like that resilience and distress tolerance building quality I want for these kids is to be able to say,” I know what you are experiencing.

(51:41):

It’s safe. My reaction to this is actually wanting to show you, ah, this is rage. Okay, rage is safe. This feeling will come and it will go and I know that you can handle it and when it’ll pass and then … Because I really want kids who experience really intense emotional volatility to not get freaked out by it and to really internalize like, these are the waves. These are the waves. My waves are really big and sometimes my waves last really long time and sometimes they have like a lot of ripples afterwards, but no matter what, I do come back to baseline. Because they need to learn that because they have a very sensitive system.

Debbie Reber (52:27):

That’s exactly right. Yeah. You’re making me think of Dr. Mona Delahooke’s work and her book, Brain Body Parenting and she always says that the goal isn’t to teach our kids to be these regulated, steady humans all the time. It’s to have flexible nervous systems so that they can go up and down and that’s okay so they don’t stay stuck up there. They don’t stay stuck down here in fawn or freeze, but that they can like modulate and they can go to those places, but also then come back to that baseline. So yeah, that’s what we want.

Dr. Sarah Bren (53:04):

I love it. I love Mona. Mona, she came on the podcast. I love it. She’s amazing. Yes. Well, I will link … We’ve talked about a couple different good resources to compliment what we’re talking about. So I’ll link those in the show notes too in case people are curious. But tell us a little bit about where people can connect with your work if they want to learn more about you and Tilt Parenting or your book Differently Wired. It’s phenomenal. If you have a differently wired child, you really need to read this book.

Debbie Reber (53:38):

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So tiltparenting.com is the home for really everything so that’s where you can find all the podcast episodes and I actually have them broken down by categories because there’s so many episodes at this point so you can more easily find what you’re looking for. I also have a kind of family hub there now with like some free mini courses and a resource vault and just a lot of stuff. So there’s a lot of ways to interact and I’m also on Tilt Parenting at Instagram, which I would say I’m inconsistently active there and also on Facebook. So those are all the places and Differently Wired you can find anywhere where you buy books.

Dr. Sarah Bren (54:21):

Amazing. We’ll link all that in the show notes. So if you want to find it quick and easy, just go there and thank you. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Debbie Reber (54:32):

Me too.

Dr. Sarah Bren (54:33):

It beyond exceeded my dreams of our conversation.

Debbie Reber (54:37):

We went all over the place. Those are my favorite kind of conversations to have, so thank you.

Dr. Sarah Bren (54:43):

What else could you expect about Differently Wired Moms?

Debbie Reber (54:46):

Yeah, there you go.

Dr. Sarah Bren (54:53):

If you enjoyed listening to this conversation, I want to hear from you. Share your thoughts and your feedback with me by scrolling down to the ratings and review section on your Apple Podcasts app or whatever app you’re listening on and let me know what you think of this episode or the show in general. Your support means the absolute world to me and just a simple tap of five stars can make a real impact in how this show gets reached by parents everywhere. So thank you so much for listening and don’t be a stranger.