Dr. Deborah Winking on Raising Capable Kids, Regardless of Diagnosis or Challenge

Debbie:

Hey Deb, welcome to the podcast.

Deborah Winking:

Thanks for having me Deb.

Debbie:

Of course, of course. I’m looking forward to learning more about your work and sharing your books with my audience. But I know your work is very connected to your personal story and your personal story is connected to your personal why. So I would love if you could just tell us a little bit about your story, kind of what’s beyond the bio and just tell us about who you are.

Deborah Winking:

Yeah, absolutely. I think the best way to frame all this is to start, kind of start with my first book. My first book, Capable, was kind of like an honest and, filled with vulnerability. Readers said funny, heart wrenching and funny at the same time account of me raising my son, Jack, who was born with a rare neurological syndrome. So he was born with a syndrome that included hypo universal hypotonia. So every one of the 600 muscles in his body were to some extent slack. It also includes learning disabilities, anxiety, and co -exists often with other neurodevelopmental conditions like autism and ADHD. So that book was kind of a seven -year labor of love. I love stories, I really get immersed in stories and I assumed other folks would too. So what I wanted to do was teach through story. It’s funny, one of my favorite authors, Jason Mott says, the only way to tell the truth is through a good story. And that’s what I hope to do with Capble. And so I wanted readers to be kind of, traveling down two tracks while they listen to the story. One is rooting for Jack to kind of prevail against a system that was designed to sort and throw him into the bin labeled less than. And the other was to kind of hear my inner monologue of mistakes, missteps and intentional decisions and kind of think about what it would mean for their parenting life. And to some extent, I actually to a large extent, it was really successful. And I had one reader say to me, you know, and she loved the book. She said, you know, you are a teacher, a teacher of kids with disabilities, no less. You have a PhD and from what I can read from the book, you appear to be annoyingly optimistic. What about the rest of us, right? And so that got me really thinking and scratch, you know, got me needing to scratch an itch that I could not get over. I knew it wasn’t me. I knew, and just like you know, Debbie, that, you know, parents with whatever kind of credentials aren’t any more, make just as many, if not more mistakes than those who don’t. And so I knew I wasn’t some once in a generation, you know, child whisperer savant that it could not be me. And, that actually led to my hypothesis that regardless of diagnosis or label, parents who are raising their kid to be capable share some really important things. And that led to about three and a half years of survey research and interview research that became the definitive set of mindsets and behaviors that parents share and that I talk about in the book. So, you know, that’s kind of my why for writing Raising Capable Kids, this new book was, hey, ain’t nothing special about me, but there is something very special about parents who are raising their kids to be capable and it’s that set of habits.

Debbie:

And I would love it if you could tell us a little bit about your kind of personal evolution in parenting Jack. You know, you described yourself, well, you said that others saw you as being annoyingly optimistic, which I kind of love. And I know that, you know, that wasn’t your experience all the time. If you could kind of share a little bit just for listeners to have a sense of the lens through which you’re kind of approaching this work. Like what did you grapple with or struggle with the most when Jack was younger and where was your biggest area of learning?

Deborah Winking:

You know, thanks for asking me that because I mean, I, like all of us in the midst of the mess, I was, you know, many times I was completely, you know, overwhelmed and demoralized and felt like the world wasn’t a fair place. There’s a place in the book that if I could pull it, I’d read it now that talked about all the messages Jack was getting from his environment. If I could paraphrase, he would say something, he would try to answer a question, but he couldn’t get his thoughts out quick enough. So others had already said the answer well before it. And then he said the same thing, loss. Others would look at how he moved or got from place to place, loss. Others would see how he was responding in class or not responding or looking or doing. He also had physical characteristics that were a hallmark of the syndrome. Each one of these was loss, loss, loss. And so one of the biggest things for me was how to hold onto two ideas sacred at the same time. That is, what is and what could be. And without doing that, I feel like we can’t get our kids to capable. I didn’t want to be a parent in denial. I needed to say, hey, today it looks like this, but what could it look like? And that’s one of the pieces I really try to get across in the book is this notion I pull it from my time Colorado skiing is just focusing on the next 15 yards, not looking down that entire expanse of the mountaintop to the terra firma below, but just what’s your next 15 yards in getting your child capable. And that to me was critical to moving Jack to where he is today.

Debbie:

That’s great, thank you for sharing that and I love that next 15 yards and as someone who tried to learn how to ski as an adult I also really appreciate that. So you’ve used this word capable a couple of times. Of course, that was the title of your memoir. And then this book is called Raising Capable Kids. But just so we’re all on the same page, how would you define capable? What does that mean?

Deborah Winking:

Yes, thank you. So I define capable throughout the book as an individual living a meaning -filled life determined by them and those who love them with the maximum level of autonomy and agency that they can authentically access. Now, I realize that’s a mouthful, but I want to point out the important parts of that definition. That is a meaning -filled life with the maximum amount of agency that a person can authentically access. I guess I wanna say, I’ve been asked, hey, wait, is Capable for everyone? What about kids who aren’t capable? And to that I say the short answer is capable is for everyone. And the neurodiverse community is an amazingly huge tent, as you know. They always say, if you met one person with autism, Down, CP, SOTOS, you’ve met exactly one person. So the fact is, our community is massively, massively large. But the fact is, is what we define as capable is determined by two things. Did that person have agency and autonomy? And is what they’re experiencing meaningful to them and those who love them? And so I give a lot of examples, really hopefully vivid examples in the book. You know, capable for some can look like volunteering at the senior center. For others, it can look like creating their own YouTube channel. For some, it can look like getting a degree in an area that they’re passionate about. And just as meaningfully for others, it can look like being able to be present and enjoy family gatherings, giving joy with their presence for being there. For some, you know, it can look like employment and for others, it can look like using their eye gaze to get their voice out into the world. I provide one example in the book of a boy I work with who expressed his agency by deciding, he decided, nobody did it for him, when to turn his head slightly to trigger a switch that ran a cold washcloth across his face. So I guess what I wanna say is that there is nobody who cannot reach capable as defined by offering meaning or creating meaning with the maximum level of agency that they can put in.

Debbie:

Yeah, I really appreciate that definition. It brings to mind self -determination theory for me. And I really like that reframe that I think is happening kind of broadly in the neurodivergent space, moving away from this language of independence. And this is something, when I think about this, I think about Jules Edwards and Meghan Ashburn’s book, I Will Die on This Hill. And they talk a lot about that none of us are independent as humans, right? We are not like, we all rely on other people and systems and community, right? And so, so I just really appreciate being able to have that self -determination, that agency, that autonomy, and then pairing it with something that’s meaningful to them. It’s a really, really nice lens through which to think about what we’re actually doing here when we’re supporting our kids.

Deborah Winking:

And it’s true. I mean, any of my kids, all four of my kids, what do I want? If I break it down, I want them to live a meaningful life with agency and autonomy, whether they’re self -described themselves as neurotypical or neurodiverse.

Debbie:

So in the book, you shared the 13 habits that parents can embrace to Raising Capable Kids. You talked a little bit about this. You said you kind of did a lot of you spent years researching and talking with people. I’d love to know a little bit more about your process for approaching this framework. Like, how did you kind of hone in on these specific 13 things?

Deborah Winking:

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I was trained in qualitative and quantitative, but qualitative research through Bob Stake, who was the father of case study. And I think that the importance of the case and the importance of understanding deeply lived experience is a science in itself. So what I used was I interviewed using the same protocol, a common protocol, parents that ran the gamut of raising a child where their concern was how anxiety affected their schoolwork, all the way to parents who were dealing with a child who was losing skills every day because they had a degenerative disability that they were actually ultimately going to lose their child to that disability. So what I wanted to do was make sure that I captured a sample that reflected the range of what we might call disability or challenge. And then I also looked at cross socioeconomic status, race, all the factors that might contribute to, hey, how do we get a sample of parents that truly represent this broad community of folks who are neurodiverse. And then I used the same interview protocol for all those parents. And then of course the process was the typical research process of triangulating themes across all those interviews. And that resulted in the common set of 12 habits.

And then I was very concerned with the connection to neuroscience. So in the book, once I triangulated to a habit, I did just some research around the neuroscience behind the kind of that mindset or behavior that makes it, that, you know, just put some teeth into it. Why? Why does that one matter? I know all readers don’t care about the neuroscience. I’m particularly fascinated by why one thing or another might be more of a game changer than something else and the neuroscience that plays into that. So that was the second piece of the research. The first was triangulating the habits and then connecting it to the neuroscience.

Debbie:

I think it’s such an exciting time right now in neuroscience. And I was out for a walk with my editor of Differently Wired, which came out six years ago. And I was like, I already want to go in and edit that thing, because there’s so many things that I didn’t mention, because they weren’t even being talked about. I don’t think I mentioned Polyvagal theory in my book. I think co -regulation, there’s so many things that we’re really understanding on a deeper level. It’s exciting to see.

Deborah Winking:

I felt the same way. The notion of, I think it was called even just months ago, pathological avoidance, demand avoidance. Now they have come to realize that’s not the right term. I had to go to my editor and say, no, no, no, this is not pathological demand avoidance. This is, I can’t think of the name. This is desire.

Debbie:

Demand avoidance. Yeah, PDA. Yeah. Persistent desire for autonomy.

Deborah Winking:

Exactly. So changed it in the second book, just under the wire. But you know, because the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and education all come together, I think our understanding is changing daily about what this should look like.

Debbie:

Yeah, it’s exciting. It requires a lot of, you know, staying on top of things to keep up with the changes. 

Deborah Winking:

Or people to have grace with us when we are behind.

Debbie:

Yes, that is true. Very true. Okay, so we don’t have time to go through all 12 of the habits and listeners, I mentioned 13 habits earlier, there are 12 habits and my table of contents was incorrect. But I wanted to know a little bit more about habit three, which is set a vision of capable with your child and helping them adjust it as necessary. So. I would love to know a little bit more about that. I really, I really liked the idea behind that. So could you walk us through that?

Deborah Winking:

I’m glad that language worked for you, Debbie, because some people hate it. But then I say, then I tell them why. When I say vision, I don’t mean some kind of a crystal ball gazing epiphany. When I say vision, I mean a shared belief about your child’s future, which is informed and shaped by their interests, their motivations, their passions, as well as your hopes for them. It was really interesting. My own, my research and my own experience showed, bore out that parents who were truly raising their child to be capable actually did have some kind of idea, notion, kernel, vision of capable, even when they thought they did not. A few parents were, more than a few, very fond of saying, no, they didn’t have any predetermined notion or vision for their child. They just follow wherever their child takes them. And my research showed that that’s actually not true, that parents did have ideas for what they wanted for their child, even if they didn’t like to say that they did. And I think it’s really important to know that giving our child autonomy and voice doesn’t mean we advocate our role of being the parent who loves them, this experienced being who’s been in the world longer. Matter of fact, if I let my neurotypical, whatever that means, 14 year old, if I followed her notions of what she wanted to do, her notions of capable at 15, 16, it would be doom scrolling the social media all night and maybe throwing in a little time at the end for studying. We know some things, we have some experience that our kids don’t. So we have to be really careful because currently in the disability community were very fond of saying, and I 100 % agree with it, I read a lot about it in the book of saying nothing for me without me. In other words, the notion, particularly in the autistic community of, hey, don’t do anything for me unless it comes from me. That is all true, but that does not mean we advocate our responsibility as parents. We do have ideas, notions, and know things that our kids don’t just by virtue of experience.

If I can give one example, I worked with a group, a couple who really said they had a vision of their child navigating their tight -knit community on a bicycle. And at the time, their kid wanted to have nothing to do with a bicycle. It challenged their balance. It was a sensory thing. And this kid, now an adult, loved, you know, hopping in his parents’ car. He could get everywhere he wanted. He loved getting into his sister’s beater and listening to the radio. So he really saw no need to get on a bike. But his parents kept that vision alive because they knew that they weren’t always going to be around. And because of some cognitive challenges their son had, they did not think he was a candidate for driving. So they started with bikes with no pedals, everything with wheels, tandem, everything, and kind of over time and with support and drawing from another habit, which is challenging your child with support, got to the place where there’s, where their son was, navigating their community on the bicycle. Looking back, this boy is an adult who says that, you know what? If it weren’t for his parents, he would probably be sitting at home doing nothing. So that’s just a kind of a reminder to us as parents that allowing your kids to have agency and making sure our heads are right about that doesn’t mean that we don’t matter and what we see for our child doesn’t matter and that we shouldn’t have a vision for how we see them as capable.

Debbie:

And how do we talk with our kids about their capability or the word potential just popped into my head, which I think potential is a tricky word for a lot of us because we also don’t want to pressure our kids. So we want to be exuding this idea that we see you as a capable human and be holding that line while also honoring their experience. 

Deborah Winking:

It’s very tricky. And I say in the book that the messages that we send to our child over, sewn over a lifetime, create the difference between our child seeing themselves as capable or disabled. So the messages we send matter. My particular, and I give a lot of anecdotes in the book about why this is important is that even if we don’t see our kid as they’re quite yet, even if they’re not there yet. And that’s the power of yet. And we’ve all read the science around that. It’s better for us to act as if we believe our child is capable than not because in the long run, they’ll end up in a better place if we are kind of encouraging or sending the message, no, you know, I think you can do this. I really believe in you then, you know, I don’t know, you know, the way, I don’t know the way your makeup is. I just don’t think you can work out in the hot sun or I don’t think you should challenge yourself by going into that group of kids in the afterschool program because you know, they’re just a little rough. We’re better off saying our kids can, then they can’t because it sends the message to our kid that, hey, the person who cares about me most in the world believes I can. Now, we can adjust that over time, and we talk about that a lot in the book, but you’re better off with an attitude towards, I think you got this.

Debbie:

And actually, I just want to point out to listeners that one of the habits, it’s habit six is to use words and act in ways that send your child the message that you think they’re capable. I’m wondering if there are some phrases or some ways of communicating that you think can be really effective in sending the message. I’m going to give you an example of something I do a lot is I use the phrase, I notice a lot, right? I’m noticing this as a way to just kind of point things out, but not going overboard with praise or just drawing attention to things. So any other kind of ideas in terms of how we can be subtly always giving our kids the message that we see them as capable.

Deborah Winking:

Yeah, no, the language of noticing is very powerful because it kind of brings your kid along. Maybe they’re not even aware. Hey, I noticed when you sit in the beanbag chair, you can really focus on your math better. That language of noticing is really important. I also use wondering. Hey, I’m wondering. I’m wondering if you can do that. It feels like you can. And that is particularly good for older kids who don’t wanna be told anything. I’m wondering is actually good, great language. I talk in the book a little bit about not only words, but also signs and signals. Each of the habits is introduced by another story, not mine, but a story of another family that illustrates a habit. And there’s one in particular where a mom is trying to challenge her child with support and they have developed a signal.

And the signal is, I need a break now, but we’re gonna come back to this. So even that kind of a thing, a shared signal that says, hey, I know you got this, but I know we’re spent and overwhelmed now. We’re gonna come back to this. So the assumption is, I ain’t giving up on this and I ain’t giving up on you, but we’re gonna come back to that. And that shared signal makes the child feel safe. I’m not gonna be pushed beyond what I can imagine, but she’s not, but she believes in me so much that she hasn’t put this away and said, he can’t do that. And that, I guess I just want to say parenthetically, that’s also what I do with my students now is I, my students in my bilingual special needs classes, they know Ms. Deb ain’t giving up on them. They are not getting out of it, but we may be taking a break. And that is very powerful for kids because the message it sends is, wow, I am so good, I am so important that nobody’s taking the easy way and just letting me out of this. We’re gonna get back to that. So, anyway, there’s just some notions.

Debbie:

And it might seem subtle, but it’s actually really powerful. Because there’s intention behind that. There is a, you know, in some ways, you’re talking about this idea that I write about in a Differently Wired of just being fluent, right? Like fluent inner kids and like understanding where they are scaffolding to that. But knowing that there are so many things and you talk about this, there are messages we send our kids with what we say and also just what we do. So there are so many kind of hidden messages in the things that we’re not saying or the actions that we’re taking that our kids are picking up on.

Deborah Winking:

Yeah, I want to just take a note from that is so important. Most people say, no, I tell my kid all the time that they’ve got this. I tell them all the time that I believe in them, but we’re not so intentional or introspective about what we don’t say. And I use a number of examples in the book, but one of them is my own, because I’m as followable as all of us is my son with it. The syndrome is a twin. And there was a time in seventh grade where they were tasked with something called the passion, a passion project, something they loved. At that time, my son was so overwhelmed and negative and avoidant of schoolwork that in an effort not to tax him more, guess what I did all day long? I talked with his twin sister about her passion project, which was starting a girls soccer team, middle school girls soccer team. I talked to her about how she was going to do it, what she was going to do, what she was going to write. Guess what I didn’t do? I never talked with Jack about what might be his passion project. Message received. my sister is so worthwhile and capable that she, you know, mom’s talking to her about the passion project, but mom’s not saying anything to me. That must mean that I’m not worthy of being part of the passion project. So while the intention was great, I didn’t want to stress out my kid, the message was negative. So just to underscore the idea, it’s not only what we say and say and do, but it’s what we don’t say and what we don’t.

Debbie:

I appreciate that example. And actually, that kind of leads us to the last habit before we wrap up. I’d love it if you could talk a little bit more about that is to treat yourself with compassion, make mistakes, laugh and learn from them. And you’re very open and honest about the fact that you’re, you know, you’ve got all these credentials and you’re this experienced, you know, person working with kids who have, you know, developmental disabilities and you have so much and you’re also a parent like navigating this for the first time. So can you talk a little bit about that last habit and what you think is so important for readers to take away from it?

Deborah Winking:

I am really insecure talking about that habit with you, Deb, because I think you are kind of my guru and go -to in that area. But I realized the reason I put that habit last, but think that people should, I put in the introduction, go to 12 first and then go back to one, because if we don’t get that one right, we can’t meet our child where we are for any of the other ones. And so that’s that notion of, understanding that while what we do is so important and impactful and matters, it makes a world of difference, also we need to not take ourselves so seriously. I had a parent come to me at the last thing, something I was doing with the book, and they said, I loved your presentation. And I just, I loved all the kernels and everything, but it kind of made me feel bad. And that hit me like a ton of bricks. They had a son who was 33 and you know what I 100 % do not intend to do is the habits should empower folks to say the areas where they are working, all right, that’s affirming, and the areas where maybe they’ve been a little late in, hey, this could supercharge my efforts, but the intent is not to have folks feel bad about the habits because in fact, the best way, the only way we can meet our child where they are is to have self -compassion and also kids, our kids pick that up instantly in us. If they see us being compassionate with ourselves, then they learn how to be compassionate with themselves. And they realize that, hey, mom made a mistake and the world didn’t explode and vaporize. And so when I make a mistake, the same thing won’t happen. The world won’t explode and vaporize. So I give about seven or eight examples in the book, strategies about letting go of shoulds. So often we think parenting should be a certain way. I should be able to just relax and lean back at night while my kid does his homework independently at the table.

I should be able to come to a school event and just take pictures in the background as my kids scurries around happily with their friends. There’s all these ideas that were germinated within us from our own lives, from our parents, from what we’ve learned from the generations before us of what parenting should be like. And until we let go of our shoulds and develop our own ideas of what meaningful, joyful parenting looks like. We’re always going to have this remorse, feel bad, not able to enjoy our time together. So letting go of shoulds is just one example in that habit of having self -compassion. That is habit 12. But I guess, I guess the most important thing about that one is and you’ve been a leader in putting this out, unless we’re good to ourselves, we can’t be good to our kids. And so I provide some concrete examples about the things we need to adopt to get to that place of self -compassion.

Debbie:

That’s great. Thank you. Thanks for that. So we’re going to wrap up and I just want to remind listeners that Deb’s new book is called Raising Capable Kids, The 12 Habits Every Parent Needs Regardless of Their Child’s Label or Challenge. So can you let listeners know where they can connect with you and learn more about your work?

Deborah Winking:

Yeah, sure. Let’s see on Facebook and Instagram. It’s @capablethebook. My website is the same thing Capable the Book. You can find more about what I do at my website or at JKP. That’s Jessica Kingsley Publishing’s website. Those are my socials. 

Debbie:

Deborah, thank you so much. Congratulations on the new book. 

Deborah Winking:

Absolutely, thank you so much Debbie.