Why Does My Gifted Child Have Trouble Reading? featuring Debbie Reber, founder of Tilt Parenting

"Just because a child is performing on an average way doesn't mean that we get to ignore the potential that they have"  Debbie Reber.

In today's episode we welcome  Debbie Reber, MA CEO and founder of Tilt Parenting who is also a parenting activist, bestselling author, and a speaker. We explore the world of gifted children, their unique strengths, and the challenges they face. Our discussion focuses on various aspects of giftedness, including intelligence, academics, creativity, artistic talent, and leadership. We also address the importance of recognizing and supporting gifted kids with vision issues and neurodiversity, ensuring they have the proper resources to reach their full potential. Debbie offers valuable insights on twice-exceptional learners, neurodiverse children, and embracing neurodiversity for the well-being and success of gifted children.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

(13:24) What does Neurodivergence and Twice Exceptionality mean?
(16:28) Recognizing when my kid is gifted but also needs support.
(17:26) Why our educational system needs an urgent update to also attend neurodivergent kids’ needs. 
(22:37) Non-linear brain development: learning how to NOT stress out about learning curves.
(23:36) Dealing with close ones who don’t understand the benefits of home schooling for neurodivergent kids.
(28:43) Changes in the landscape of neurodivergence over the past years and what to expect in the future.
(33:21)“What we want to do is provide information and support, so people with learning disabilities can navigate the world feeling not disable in certain environments…”
(35:44) Owning neurodivergence: fixing mode or support mode?
(38:36) Teachers should be our allies. Providing them with tips and suggestions on how to manage our especial kids is crucial. Remember: everyone’s working towards the same goal.
(43:31) Sometimes school isn’t going to fulfill all the intellectual needs of our especial kids. “Help your child to spent as much time at home in that zone of genius”. 

Resources & Links

Visit https://tiltparenting.com
Follow Tilt Parenting on IG @tiltparenting and on FB @tiltparenting

Follow us at 4D Vision Gym on Facebook and Instagram @4dvisiongymvt for the latest news and updates. DM us if you have any Vision Therapy related questions - you may hear the answer in a future episode!

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Send us a screenshot of your review and receive 10% off any one of our 4D Vision Gym products or services. And if your friends or family are experiencing inexplicable challenges, refer them to this podcast and tell them, “It Could Be Your Eyes.”   

Transcript

Dr. Juanita Collier: Welcome to the It Could Be Your Eyes podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Juanita Collier. Through my decades of work in the field of vision, I have met thousands of patients, parents, educators, therapists, and doctors searching for solutions to the seemingly unsolvable challenging traditional medicine's new normal? We'll uncover that the root cause isn't necessarily what you thought it might be. It could be your eyes. 

Hi, and welcome back to the It Could Be Your Eyes Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Juanita Collier, and today I have my co-host Jessica Liedke with me, and we're talking all about gifted kids. So Jessica, can you tell us the technical definition of giftedness?

Jessica Liedke: Sure. According to the American psychological association, giftedness is the state of possessing a great amount of natural ability, talent, or intelligence, which usually becomes evident at a very young age. Giftedness in intelligence is often categorized as an IQ of two standard deviations above the mean or higher, which is 130 for most IQ tests.

Obtained on an individually administered IQ test. Many schools and service organizations now use a combination of attributes as the basis for assessing giftedness, including one or more of the following, high intellectual capacity, academic achievement. Demonstrable real world achievement, creativity, task commitment, proven talent, leadership skills, and physical or athletic prowess.

The combination of several attributes or the prominence of one primary attribute may be regarded as a threshold for the identification of giftedness. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Okay. So I think that that was a mouthful. Mm-hmm. And I, I remember, you know, back when, we were in elementary school and you know, having the kids tested for being gifted and I was not one of those kids, but you know, I know a lot of my friends are me neither, and those kids, like they, I didn't realize that gifted prior to, you know, kind of getting into this field.

I didn't realize that gifted, spanned all of those things and wasn't really just like academic and music. Those were kinda like the two things that always kind of stood out in my mind. But it's interesting to see that there five different categories, I think. I think that it intelligence, academics, creativity, artistically and leadership.

And so there are so many areas that people can really. Show these extreme abilities and have that diagnosis as being gifted. 

Jessica Liedke: It's been really cool to see. I have family members who were identified as gifted. I have, it wasn't me either, but it was definitely some people you could just look at and be like, wow, they are really.

Smart and you see how they achieve. Or they could just be really, really talented in a certain area, and then that doesn't mean that they don't also struggle in so many ways. Right? One person that I knew that was gifted and identified as gifted and was given supports to do, you know, they were in the quote unquote gifted and talented program.

But they also had ADHD, and that meant that they were unable to really focus in something that was overstimulating to them or was not as interesting or exciting to them. And so they were lacking the supports in those areas and it became kind of a. Bigger struggle. As they got older and went on to higher education pursuits, those became really, really hard for them.

Where in elementary school they were like, oh, they're so talented. They're so gifted. And they were given all these opportunities to learn different things. But then when it came to applying those skills in other areas, it was really, really hard for them.

Dr. Juanita Collier: And that also kind of goes into what we see in our patient population all the time.

You, you know, we have these kiddos that are coming in as gifted when they're, you know, eight, nine years. And then because they don't have the appropriate resources, or people kind of think that they don't really need any resources because they're so gifted. Mm-hmm. Their talents get buried by the other things that they're struggling with.

And a lot of times they're not able to show their giftedness and shine in the way that they could have they been given proper supports? Exactly. And in our patient population, we actually see a lot of kids with vision issues. Oh. I would say, Close to 90% of our gifted children in our office have vision issues.

They have, you know, some of them will see double in their reading or they'll have tracking issues, or they'll have focusing power issues and just have a lot of trouble trying to figure it out and. They kind of expect themselves to be able to figure it out. And it's not necessarily something that most children will complain about.

Like most children are not going to complain about seeing double. Most children are are not going to complain about things being blurry when they're reading. Mm-hmm. But I feel like our gifted kiddos almost think that it's okay, or it's like that they, it's something that they should be able to kind of work through even more than our kiddos who don't have that diagnosis.

Jessica Liedke: And to take that a step further too, if they're struggling to handle it, they kind of internalize that. Sometimes I feel like, you know, it's like, well, I should be able to handle this. Everyone tells me I'm so smart. Everyone tells me I can handle more work or more responsibility or more challenge. And then when they fall short, they kind of tend to internalize that a little bit more.

They don't understand why they can't work through it or just get through. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: And I think that it's so important for parents to hear this conversation because you know, if you have that gifted kiddo and they're eight years old and they're, you know, reading high school texts and everything like that, yeah.

You wanna throw more and more at them because that's amazing. And also we need to. Make sure that they have the actual physical ability to do what they're performing. A lot of times when the vision issues come about, it's because the brain is able to do so much, and academically they're able to do so much that they're requesting more, they're pushing themselves further.

However, their bodies just are not able to do it. So technically you should not be able to read for extended period of time until you're almost eight years old. And if you are. Even a neurotypical kiddo were reading well before that. My daughter and my sons are reading when they were four in school, and that's just kind of seems to be pretty.

Normal for Connecticut and pretty standard at this point. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, for the gifted kiddos, they start reading even earlier than that. So if your visual system actually cannot physically handle all of that visual stress until you're eight and you're doing that when you are three or four years old, there are going to be, you know, some repercussions from that.

And some children can figure it out by compensating. And usually we see them once those compensations break. And other kiddos just keep compensating, compensating, compensating because mm-hmm. They just think that that's what's required of them. So I think that as parents really being able to make sure that, you know, if you do have a gifted kiddo, have them go for an eye exam as soon as you, they start reading so we can see what their visual system is capable of.

So you can get their visual system to kind of catch up into, you know, how they're performing academically so that they don't start to feel that when something's wrong with them, because, Aptitude wise can do these tasks, but in reality, their physical bodies can't handle it. 

Jessica Liedke: It's so interesting when you talk about it that way.

I mean, of course. Obviously our moral of the story in every one of our podcasts, no matter what we're talking about, we're always saying your kid needs a eye exam. Right? But even more so than that, it's just, I hear from a lot of my friends who have multiple children, they'll say, you know, oh well, so-and-so is fine.

Like, I'm not worried about them. They can read, they're great. You know, they don't struggle in school. But so-and-so can't read is having a really hard time needs interventions, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that that kiddo that can read at the age of three we're so used to saying, they're fine, they're fine, they're fine, they're fine.

We don't need to worry about them. When in reality exactly what kind of foundation are we setting for them? Or are they kind of giving themselves really developmentally to be able to sustain that kind of reading? What kind. Of setup, do they have, that may become a problem for them at some point in their development if it's not already.

And, um, the squeaky wheels get the attention, right, and as they, they should and as they deserve to. But it's also important to have the conversations that maybe, maybe you're quiet, go down the road. Wheel is the one that actually might need a little extra, extra love and attention in these. And so today's podcast, we're talking to Debbie Reber of Tilt Parenting and, and she makes some really excellent points about the twice exceptional learners or the two E kids and, and those are the kids that are gifted.

But also have a disability of some, what she calls neuro divergence. So we're talking about a differently wired kid, a kiddos that see the world a little differently, who, uh, have the potential for high achievement, but also, you know, may have. Vision disorders, speech and language disorders, emotional behavioral disorders, physical disabilities, be on the autism spectrum, A D H D.

All sorts of disabilities fall under this two e umbrella, um, when it's paired with giftedness. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: And then Debbie also speaks quite a bit about neurodiversity and all of the different ways that our children can be wired differently as far as their learning abilities. And gifted is just an example of that.

And so tell us a little bit more about neurodiversity. 

Jessica Liedke: Neurodiversity is essentially a way of, uh, describing different ways of seeing the world and it. Diagnoses such as autism and attention deficit disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders. It could also include things like sensory processing disorders like dyslexia.

Yeah, exactly. And so it's really all about how the brain is wired to process information and. Sensory information differently than your quote unquote neurotypical or run-of-the-mill brain that takes in information in a predictable or otherwise. 

Better studied, better. Understood. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Yes. I think that's the really good term for it.

Yeah. Yes, definitely. And I think that that's kind of the take home of our interview with Debbie, is that we're not trying to convert Neurodiverse kiddos into neurotypical kiddos. We want to give the all of the kiddos as much support as possible so that they can be the best thems that they are and kind of helping the people in their lives, including these schools and, um, you know, the teachers and everything, but also family members, like really helping them to understand that this child's brain is not the one.

Studied as much and not the one that society has proclaimed as much. So this is the way that we interact with our child and this is the way that is best for them to thrive. And so I thought this was a really, really great interview and I can't wait to hear what you think. And so take a listen. 

Jessica Liedke: If you could make a positive change in your child's reading, ability and confidence with reading in just 20 minutes a day.

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Hi, Debbie. Thank you so much for joining us today. Uh, we're so excited to have you in as such a rockstar in the world of parenting children with different abilities. So we can just dive in and ask you if you could define for us what Neurodivergence is and, and what it is that we're speaking about really today..

Debbie Reber: Sure. And I just to say thank you, no one has ever introduced me as a rockstar before, so I like that. Thank you very much. Um, so neuro divergence really is kind of an umbrella term to define someone who. Learns, thinks, shows up in the world, experiences the world in a way that is different from what is considered to be typical.

And the word neuro divergence or neurodiversity really stemmed from the autistic community and. That was something that they claimed the neurodiversity movement, but over the past maybe five, 10 years, it's really expanded to include any sort of neurodevelopmental difference, which could be a D H D sensory issues, learning disabilities being gifted.

So it's a really broad term at this point. 

Jessica Liedke: Awesome. Yeah, I, you hear a lot of, kind of almost buzzwords with neuro divergence or twice exceptional. Could you talk a little bit about twice exceptionality too? 

Debbie Reber: Yes. Twice exceptionality is, When someone is gifted from a more traditional perspective, that cognitive or intellectual giftedness that we think of and has one or more of these neurodevelopmental differences.

So gifted with A D H D, gifted and autistic gifted and dyslexic, gifted dyscalculia or all of the above, and it is a term that is starting to gain more recognition, which is really exciting. Twice exceptional humans are really complicated and the more that educators and people can be more aware of their unique needs, the more they'll be able to have those needs met in different environments.

Dr. Juanita Collier: And I think that it's also really. Great to have you bring up the gifted title as well, because so many parents don't realize that you can be gifted and have these other things as well. Like so many gifted kiddos have vision issues, have visual developmental issues, have double vision when they're reading.

They have all of these things and the parents don't even really know that they should be looking for those things. And a lot of times the pediatricians don't really. Know how to guide people appropriately either. So having platforms like yours is just amazing for, you know, an amazing resource for parents.

Debbie Reber: Yeah. What you say is so true that especially with gifted kids, oftentimes their intellect, their high abilities, can completely mask the challenges that they have. Their overcompensating, they're working so hard, and so their giftedness might go unrecognized for their whole life. And on the flip side, they might be so, you know, entrenched with their learning disabilities that their giftedness goes unrecognized because we're so focused on this is a child with significant learning issues.

How could they also be gifted? So it is really tricky, 

Jessica Liedke: Right, yeah, I, I love that idea. But at the same time, you know, every kid, whatever their diagnosis, whatever their, their disability, they have so many wonderful gifts. And that's kind of what I love about the two E or twice exceptional. Mode of thinking is that, you know, you're really recognizing that children have gifts that need to be celebrated and exalted, but also recognizing there are areas where children need support.

And I think that's a great way to look at every kid in a lot of ways, right? Not just kids with these labels. 

Debbie Reber: Absolutely. I think it's really just focusing on a child's strengths and then looking at this idea of relative weaknesses in relation to those strengths. But the gifts and strengths are where we wanna spend a lot of our time because that is where these kids can really grow their areas of competency and feel more confident.

And building in those areas can help support these relative weakness areas as. 

Jessica Liedke: So with all that in mind then, what's your take? What's your ideas on our educational system on kids with neurodiversity? When we're looking at standardized testing and how we structure our educational system, what impact does that have on kids who are different?

Debbie Reber: Well, I mean, no surprise probably, but there are a lot of flaws with the current traditional educational model. Exactly. Because it hasn't been updated in ever. Mm-hmm. It's so kind of far behind and it's really focused on a model of. Compliance, it's focused on a model of behavioral management. It's focused on, there is no such thing as an average student, but it's really kind of just assuming that all kids are the same and they all learn in the same way and they all matriculate at the same rate.

And that is a disservice, I think, to most students. I think even a neurotypical student. It's not ideal for most of those students to be put through an educational system that doesn't really give them an opportunity to lean into their unique strengths as we were just talking about. And so I think for neuro divergent kids, the biggest challenges are that they're being asked to demonstrate their knowledge.

They're being asked to perform in ways that really are counter. In many cases to the way that they would naturally learn, or they're being asked to show up in schools in a way that really highlights their relative challenges. So then it might show up as a behavioral challenge, and then we go down this whole road.

And so these kids are not getting a chance to grow their love of learning and to feel really good about who they are. It's not a great situation. I think it's really, really challenging for differently wired kids to have their needs met in any sort of traditional environment. It can happen, but it requires, I think, a lot more work on educator's part and on parents' parts to advocate for our kids.

Dr. Juanita Collier: I agree so much, and then when I was having kids and making those decisions, I was very much like, okay, well then from everything that I see in the office and all of the kiddos and how much stress they were coming in with, you know, six, seven year olds who are having severe anxiety when it comes to school and needing to be restrained to be walked into the building, like I was terrified of.

Having my kids feel that sort of pressure when it came to school. So I was a very strong advocate of going to Montessori because I'm like, you know, that really follows the child quite a bit more. And you still need to learn everything, but you kind of get to really express yourself in the way that you learn best and also the things that are of most interest.

And so, you know, that's what both of my kids are doing now. But I also see that, you know, my son, he's five and this is his third year in that classroom. And he's like, yeah, I like to draw. So I draw. A lot. And I'm like, okay, and we also need to learn math and reading and all of those things. And I'm like, I love that you're, you love to draw and that's great.

I really wanna foster that. And we also kind of need to reign it back in too. So as an educator, I think that that puts a lot more pressure and a lot more work on their part too, where they're trying to manage so many different children as well. So I think that having. Larger classes is not great for some things, but having smaller classes isn't great for some things.

So what have you seen working with parents and you know, helping guide parents? What have you seen as far as Neurodivergence is concerned? Sorry, that was a lot. 

Debbie Reber: I mean, no, and I agree with you also, I'll just say that I think Montessori, there's so many aspects of Montessori that are great fits. Also for neuro divergent kids because it really is such a respectful approach to looking at the individual child.

And I think that all kids would benefit if they were seen as individuals and not just part of a, a group of of kids. I think for a lot of parents with. Kids who do learn and think differently, that school can be really complicated. A lot of them do end up homeschooling for a portion of their child's educational journey just because, especially when they're younger and they're, they're struggling with emotional regulation, they may really struggle to be in an environment where we all sit at this time and we listen at this time and we line up here and we, you know, we kind of do these things.

Kids who are differently wired can struggle with the pace of that, with the unpredictability, with the demands and expectations placed on them. And they might be deep dive, they might be like your child who just wants to draw, right? And then having to pivot, wait, I was in the middle of drawing something and I'm really into this.

So, What a lot of parents of differently wired kids do is take that strength, right, that area of interest, and go all in and think, okay, how can I use this as a way to weave in math? How can I take this interest and how can we build upon it to learn these other things? Also, recognizing that with that asynchronous development, that we can be a little more.

Relaxed about when certain things happen because we often get stressed out about, well, second grade kids learn this and in third grade they're doing this. And that's not the way any brain develops, right? It's very non-linear for, for any human as they develop, but with a differently wired kid, it's, it's a lot more all over the place, I would say.

And so a lot of what we do is, is. Use those strengths, leverage those strengths, start from there, and then find other ways to build in all the other pieces, including executive function, including all of these other things. And know that when our kids are are ready, they could catch up with math in a year if they wanted to.

Right. So we try to just kind of more follow and respect the child's unique timeline and not put too much pressure on them to catch up. Cuz a lot of those timelines are, I would say, arbitrary. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Yes, and I think that that's wonderful for parents to hear because I, you know, you're a mom, we're moms. It's kind of like that mom guilt can really come and get you.

Mm-hmm. What sort of advice do you give parents as far as how to manage that and different choices with the homeschooling and working with their strengths and things like that? What sort of advice do you have for parents when they're talking to grandma who doesn't understand, or you know, like Uncle Eddie who thinks that you're, you know, ruining your child's life?

What sort of advice do you have for parents about that?. 

Debbie Reber: Yeah, that's really hard. That comes up a lot in my community, is just a lot of people don't get it. And especially if you have a child who, you know, these are invisible differences. So a lot of. Even well meaning relatives would be like, well, they seem fine to me.

You're just being indulgent, or Your child needs to be able to do this, this, and this. I think it's really important for parents to do their own work so that they can feel confident and have a deep sense of knowing about who their child is and the decisions and values that they have in their family culture, surrounding education, surrounding timelines, surrounding.

This respectful approach to the individual child. I always say that we can't get people who aren't gonna get it to get it, so I encourage parents to invite other people in if they're open, right. Well, we've actually discovered this information about who my child is and how they learn and think, and we're exploring this.

Would you like to know more? I can send you an article, or would you like to go to OT with us and see what we do? It's really cool. And you know, just kind of see if they're open to expanding their own ideas about what this should look like if you have those family members or other presence in your. Who are unsupportive and don't get it and are making you feel bad, then I, that's when you also wanna create some boundaries and say, I appreciate your perspective and we're focusing on other things right now, and we've got it, but thanks so much and, and try to nip that in the bud because there are some people who aren't just gonna get with the program and that can make us feel bad, as you said, or guilty or like we're screwing our kid up. And you know, I think we have to just always be questioning everything, every decision that we make surrounding our kids' education, their journey, the extracurriculars, the things we prioritize in our kids' lives, those are all almost an autopilot mode that a lot of us are on his parents.

I think it's really important to just sometimes stop and say, why are we doing this? Does this make sense for who my kid is? Is this the right choice and does this actually matter in the long run? But we have to be willing to do that with. All the choices that we're making and the way that we parent, because we're sorry if I'm going on, but I feel really passionate about this, that we get the message from social media from so many people, right?

That there's this one way things are supposed to look and it requires effort for parents to question that. But I think that is kind of the ongoing work that we have to do. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: And not only does that require that like work on yourself, but it also helps your child to see, because if you are ascribing to that philosophy that you know, there's only one way for things to, to work and look, and you as a child know that that's not how you work or look, then that's going to negatively impact your child.

And so even if, you know, a lot of times it's harder to do things for yourself than it is for your child. But you know, like having that confidence and that sense of. So that you can model it for your child is also really helpful as well. 

Jessica Liedke: But I, I think it's, it's so applicable to every aspect of our kids' lives, right?

In so many ways. There are differences in values, differences in that idea. I think even, especially when it's coming to a different way of looking at the world through our children. Each generation has such a different perspective in so many ways, and there are, you know, differences in how we allow or don't allow our child to dress, to eat, to walk down the street.

It doesn't matter if they are neurotypical or neuro divergent, it's just. Parenting. And so having a strong foundation, this is who we are, this is what we, we matter. Having the strong boundaries and say, this is how we're going to do it, thank you so much, but this is us. And then I think creating and, and having your community surrounding you, even if it's not necessarily people in your own neighborhood reaching out through organizations like Tilt or you know, on Facebook communities or you find your people.

And you find your parenting groupies who are gonna cheer you on and say, you're doing the right thing, mama. Keep going. It's okay. 

Debbie Reber: Yeah. That's the exciting thing about where we are now and the world with podcasts and social media, is that it is a lot easier to find our people and to find that community.

And I agree. It's really critical. If we're kind of going off the beaten path, we, we might feel like we're completely alone in this, but we're so not, and I would say this movement is really picking up a lot of speed. Like even I created tilts seven years ago now, and the landscape is completely changed for what's available and how easy it is for parents to find their, their community and access resources..

Jessica Liedke: What kind of changes in the, the landscape have you seen over the last seven years and, and can you speak to what the community future looks like? 

Debbie Reber: Well, even just the way that language has evolved, I think the. Understanding, like twice exceptional for example. That was a word that a lot of people just didn't even know.

The neurodiversity movement was really just getting started. There was just a general lack of understanding, and I think we were still working in this. These very siloed ways that like h ADHD people, you go over there, autistic people, you go over here learning disabilities, you're over there and you know you all, you're all outliers.

So let's get with the program because this is where we wanna be. Is this normal? Space. I feel like that is part of what has shifted that we are, again, the fact that neuro divergence is a much more inclusive term now. The fact that we're realizing that no normal isn't actually a thing, that it doesn't really exist.

The fact that. The language surrounding a lot of neuro divergence is becoming less pathologized. So you know, the autistic community has a lot to do with that because a lot of even adults have self-identified as autistic, and they're very vocal and passionate about the fact that there's nothing wrong with them.

They are not broken, and they are very vocal in supporting parents, raising younger kids to realize your kid is autistic, they're not defective. Right. This is just a different way of moving through the world. And so I feel like that is helping shed stigma even in the mental health space. John Federman, the newly elected governor of Pennsylvania, just checked himself into a mental health clinic like and talked about it openly.

I feel like in general, we're just more and more aware of the fact that everyone's got their things and there's no one way to be, and that's been really exciting to. I hope that, you know, this is just gonna become more and more the norm. I do feel with this generation of kids, they're really interesting, right?

They've now experienced covid. They talk pretty openly about their both mental health challenges and their neuro divergence. It's just part of who they are. They're going through this huge identity shift, and so that to me says that in the future, Things are just gonna be different. It's, it's not gonna be that these are bad things that we need to fix, that, you know, people are really gonna own their, their differences in a much more powerful way.

And tho all those people are gonna be. Getting jobs and, you know, moving into the workforce and, and having their own kids someday. And so I do feel like this kind of sea change is happening. So, I mean, ideally we're going to, in the future, workplaces are gonna be much more accommodating, much more respectful of environments that are, can be supportive or non-supportive for neurodivergent people and will kind of stop looking.

Cures, you know, for autism and other neuro divergences and start recognizing this is a different way of being. How can we support this person in living their best life in this environment? So that's where I, I hope we're. Moving towards.

Dr. Juanita Collier: And it's interesting that you say that to not look for cures for the neuro neuro divergence.

So when parents are seeking out occupational therapy and you know, speech therapy and vision therapy and all of these things to help the child function a little bit more readily into society, how is that not trying to find a cure? Like how do you kind of like balance that? 

Debbie Reber: Yeah, that's a really good question.

What I think of is that we're trying to find ways to. Our kids in living lives where they can be self-actualized and fulfilled and feel good in who they are for whatever they wanna create in their life, right? So when I think of. Curing. You know, if you use the word cure with someone who is autistic, they're like the, my brain is, this is my brain.

It's not, I don't have a disease that can be fixed with the medicine, and if you wanna cure me, you're saying that I'm wrong. Mm-hmm. With who I am. And so, but what we know is that a lot of environments do disable people, right, who are autistic or have h adhd or have other differences. And so what we want to do is provide information and support so that an autistic person, a person with a d h, adhd, a person with learning disabilities, can navigate the world in a way.

Helps them feel a sense of agency that helps them feel that they're not disabled in certain environments. And that gives them choice, right? Gives them power as opposed to feeling like I'm broken and if I don't look or act this certain way. I'll never be able to be happy. Right? So it's more providing tools and supports so that they can navigate the world on their own terms and have a sense of agency about it.

Jessica Liedke: I love that idea. I think it's, it's great. It's kind of just acknowledging who the child is, but giving them the tools to become the person that they want to be, to achieve the goals that are important to them. When I look in the therapy room and I see someone in front of me, I'm not trying to think about how I'm going to make them more normal.

I'm trying to think about how I'm going to make them more. Right. So I want to approach each kid, each adult, really every, every patient that's in front of me with the goal of helping them, as you said, Debbie, get more self actualized. So how through vision can we unlock what their potential is and how we can help them participate more fully in all of the areas of life that are important to them.

Debbie Reber: Yeah, and it's focused on the child, right? I think the challenge is, what I see is when parents are like, okay, this is wrong with my kid and I need to fix it so that they can fit into this other system so they can have the life that I think they should have. And that's where I think it's problematic, but focusing on what creates a good life, a meaningful life, and how can we support this human and having the skills, the tools necessary to design that life for themselves.

Like that's what we're trying to do. 

Awesome. 

Jessica Liedke: So what advice do you have for parents who are looking to address their kid as as they are, and to help us all as a society? Reframe our awareness of neuro divergence and. Difference in general. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: And I think the other thing to think about too is like for parents, how do you explain it to your family members?

Because family members have so many opinions about everything. If Uncle Timmy's like, oh, why is your kid doing this? Or Why are you letting them act like this? And everything like that, what advice do you give parents on how to combat that or how to answer that and inform their family members on how you're having your child kind of take ownership of themselves and really advocate for themselves.

Debbie Reber: I think one of the biggest things we can do is stop our own kind of stigmatization of neuro divergence. So a lot of parents are afraid to use diagnostic labels. They're afraid that they're gonna hurt their kids' self-esteem if they say you have this learning disability, or they're afraid other people are gonna judge their child or their family, and.

We minimize, we hide, we kind of play small and I think the more we can just kind of own it. Yeah, my kid has a D H D or my kid has this going on, that's who they are and, and just make sure that we're just owning it. I think that will have a lot to do with reducing the stigma. I think checking ourselves.

You know, we talked earlier about questioning everything. I think checking ourselves and recognizing, wait, am I in fix-it mode or am I trying to support this human? We can get really caught up in again trying to get them back in the track that we wanted them to be on the vision we had for who this.

Child was, that may not reconcile with who they actually are. So we need to always be checking ourselves, am I trying to fix this kid or am I trying to support them in living a meaningful life and having the tools to do that. And I would just say thirdly, to help our kids own their truth, right? Have that be part of the culture of our families, that we, we all have strengths, we all have things we're working on.

Knowing ourselves really well is really the tool cuz we want our kids to know who they. Really well so that they can advocate for themselves so that they know how to ask for what they need to get what they want in their lives. But it really does start with de-stigmatizing, reducing shame around any sort of neurodivergence and just really recognizing and, and living in that space that this is a difference.

It's not a deficit, it's just a different brain. It's a different way of moving through the world. 

Dr. Juanita Collier: Yeah, and I think that even past talking about parents understanding what's going on and their family members, members understanding what's going on, we have a lot of parents who come in frustrated because they're trying to.

Understand what's happening at school and try to get the teachers and the school systems to understand what's going on with their children. And they, they come in kind of wanting answers and what they should be doing when they're trying to like, almost go up against like the school system. 

Jessica Liedke: And teachers have so much going on for them right now, you know, after covid and resources and they have so many children.

So many different needs and they're under a lot of pressure to perform. What kinds of tips do you have for parents who are trying to work with their child's school system 

Dr. Juanita Collier: and also like keeping in mind that so many schools don't even have like the funding to be able to, you know, give everybody like a one-to-one para or anything like that.

So how should parents approach this so that they are advocating for their children? 

Debbie Reber: Yeah, that's tricky. Let me start with the first one. And I would just say, generally speaking, I think we want to think of our kids' teachers as allies that we are. We wanna design an alliance with them. Of course, most teachers are doing this job because they love kids and they wanna help them learn.

And as you said, they are under-resourced. They are really struggling. They're burned out since covid. And also a lot of teachers just don't even. The educational background to be able to recognize or understand what's happening with our neuro divergent kids. Even if they have an I E P, they may not even know why they're being asked to do certain things.

Like how is this? Action or accommodation related to a neural difference. So I think, you know, as parents, we want to not look at teachers as who we're up against, but we wanna think, how can I forge a relationship with this teacher? How willing are they to hear thoughts that I have for me to provide guidance and strategies this works for us.

This can be really dysregulating, here are some ideas. And just really kind of try to compassionately educate those teachers so that we. Work together to, to support this child. I think that's really hard. A lot of parents do feel like we're up against the system and so we, we wanna always remember now we're all working towards the same thing here.

How can we do that most effectively and support this child? 

Dr. Juanita Collier: And I think that, you know, a lot of parents are looking for what sort of support they can ask for. Like as far as an i e P is concerned because, There are different resources that are available to parents and kind of just figuring out which ones are best for their child.

But even when we're thinking about our gifted kiddos, like the two E kiddos and them kind of performing at that average range, and how do parents really go about advocating for them? Because it's difficult to get testing for children who are performing at expected levels. 

Jessica Liedke: We hear that from parents a lot.

You know that their. Are at grade level, but they know there's something else going on and they aren't given all the supports that they could use to reach their fullest potential that maybe they're at grade level now, but if they were given the proper supports, they could be excelling. 

Debbie Reber: Yeah, and I would say, I just talked with someone for my podcast, Beths and felt about IEPs, and she just reminded me that there's often also a lot more.

That our schools could do for our kids that they're not gonna necessarily offer. So I encourage parents to get creative and to, if they recognize this accommodation isn't actually meeting this need, but here are some more ideas we can ask for. Those schools are often open to that and they're, there's a lot more that we could get.

But we're, we may feel afraid to ask for that. So keep pushing in a loving and compassionate way. Keep pushing for the supports that a school could provide to help your child better succeed in whatever environment. But to touch upon the other piece with the two E kids, the kids with these, you know, really high intellectual, cognitive abilities, but we know that they.

A learning disability or they're crippling social anxiety or other things? You know, according to the I D E A, and I don't remember the, there was a case with the Supreme Court, and I'm forgetting the name a couple years ago, but the case did find in favor that just because a child is performing. On an average way doesn't mean that we get to ignore the potential that they have.

So we can push for our kids to get extra supports. If we can demonstrate and show that, you know, these other areas, it could be crippling social anxiety, it could be these other pieces are really interfering with their ability to perform at the level that they're capable of. So there is some groundwork to say that we can push for that support.

So getting a good neuro. Evaluation where you could really show that asynchronicity and demonstrate, well, yeah, my kid has this, but this, their processing speed is down here. And that means my child can only operate at this level and all these other needs aren't being met. So we can push for that. And I would just also encourage parents to, if you have a child like that to.

Just, uh, look for other ways to provide enrichment opportunities. So sometimes the school isn't gonna going to be able to really meet all of those intellectual needs, and thank goodness for the internet and free courses on any subject imaginable. And just look for opportunities to really help your child spend as much time at home in that zone of genius so that they can continue building in those area.

Dr. Juanita Collier: This has just been so amazing and I feel like we could like talk to you all day and our parents are probably learning so much from this conversation and I know that you just have so much more to offer and teach our parents. So like where can they find you? 

Debbie Reber: Yeah, so the best place is tiltparenting.com and I have 320 plus episodes at this point in my podcast on every topic imaginable, including a lovely conversation with Dr. Collier. So that would be a great place to start, and a lot of other resources on my website. And same on social, on Instagram and Facebook at Tilt Parenting. 

Jessica Liedke: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the It Could Be Your Eyes Podcast.

To schedule an appointment with Dr. Collier, visit us at 4D Vision Gym dot. To train your vision at home, visit us app 4D vision therapy@home.com. Rate and review our podcast and email a screenshot to receive 10% off a new evaluation or any of our digital programs. Subscribe to join us for more eye-opening episodes as we dive deep into all the ways that it could be your eyes.