2019 Diamonds Conference Keynote Speaker

Debbie Reber announced as 2019 Diamonds in the Rough General Conference Keynote Speaker

Deborah Reber is a New York Times bestselling author, certified life coach, and speaker who moved her career in a more personal direction in 2016 when she founded TiLT Parenting, a website, weekly podcast, and social media company for parents like her who are raising differently wired children. The TiLT Parenting Podcast has grown to be a top podcast in iTunes’ Kids and Family category, with more than 400,000 downloads and a slate of guests that includes high-profile thought leaders across the parenting and education space. Debbie’s newest book is Differently Wired: Raising an Exceptional Child in a Conventional World (Workman Publishing, 2018).

Prior to launching TiLT, Debbie spent fifteen years writing inspiring books for women and teens. In doing so, she built a successful brand as a teen authority, was frequently interviewed and spoke about issues like media literacy, self-esteem, and confidence, and consulted for clients including the Girl Scouts, the Disney Channel, McGraw Hill, and Kaplan.

Debbie is no stranger to writing and publishing books. Since 1999, she’s authored many books, including Doable: The Girls’ Guide to Accomplishing Just About Anything, Language of Love, Chill: Stress-Reducing Techniques for a More Balanced, Peaceful You, In Their Shoes: Extraordinary Women Describe Their Amazing Careers, the teen self-help series Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul: The Real Deal, Run for Your Life: A Book for Beginning Women Runners, and more than a dozen preschool books based on the series Blue’s Clues. In 2008, she had the privilege of creating and editing the first-ever series of teen-authored memoirs with HCI Books, Louder Than Words.

Before becoming a writer and coach, Debbie worked in TV and video production, producing documentaries and PSAs for CARE and UNICEF, working on Blue’s Clues for Nickelodeon in New York, and developing original series for Cartoon Network in Los Angeles. She has an MA in Media Studies from the New School for Social Research and a BA in Communications from Pennsylvania State University.
In the summer of 2013, Debbie moved from Seattle to Amsterdam, where she currently lives with her husband Derin, homeschools her 13-year-old son Asher, and serves as lap-of-choice for her mischievous cat, Alex. She is an avid runner, traveler, and hiker, and claims reality shows and Twizzlers as her guiltiest of pleasures.

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Differently Wired

Right now, millions of children are growing up in a world that doesn’t respect, support, or embrace who they inherently are.
These are children Debbie refers to as “differently wired”—the kids with neurodifferences such as ADHD, giftedness, autism, learning disorders, and anxiety, as well as those with no formal diagnosis, who are being told day in and day out that there is something wrong with them. And because their differences are for the most part invisible, these kids are stuck trying to fit into a world that wasn’t designed to accommodate their unique way of being.

Their challenges are many. But for the parents who love them, their challenges are just as hard. They’re the parents frequently fielding emails from frustrated teachers and dealing with glares when their children behave inappropriately in public. They’re the exhausted moms and dads pushed into nonstop advocacy mode, the ones whose kids people think twice about inviting to their child’s birthday party. They’re overwhelmed, misunderstood, and isolated, which is ironic considering their kids are in every classroom across the country. Debbie knows this because she is one of these parents.

Differently Wired lays out a new vision for not only redefining the way neurodiversity is perceived in the world, but shifting the parenting paradigm so parents raising extraordinary kids can do so from a place of peace, joy, and most importantly, choice.

Each chapter in the book centers on one big tangible idea—or as Debbie calls them, “Tilts”—that will shift parents’ thinking and actions in a way that will change not only the family dynamic, but will allow for these unique children to fully realize their best selves. By making these shifts, parents everywhere will be rejecting what’s broken in the status quo. And that leads to moving the world closer to a place where difference is genuinely seen and valued.

“Differently Wired will help parents of children who think differently to accept their child for who they are and facilitate their successful development.” — Dr. Temple Grandin