TPP 179: 12-Year-Old Rylan Talks About Growing up with Tourettes and Autism
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
36 min
2 speakers
5 chapters
transcribed 12 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
So yeah, his brain is exhausted. I don't know that I really understood that until we started doing this book and he started drawing pictures about his brain and then describing what that feels like. So it definitely helped me get more of a visual as far as when he walks into school, kind of what he's up against all day long.
Welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I'm your host, Debbie Reber, and today is a special episode as it's a mother-son conversation about growing up with Tourette's and autism. My guests are Gwen Vogelgang and her 12-year-old son, Rylan. Gwen and Rylan have teamed up to write a one-of-a-kind picture book called If I Squeeze Your Head, I'm Sorry. They wrote the book to uplift, educate, create dialogue, entertain, and allow readers to enter the brain of a child who sees, feels, and understands the world from a refreshingly unique perspective. Their book reminds us how important it is to listen to each other in an effort to truly understand and to assume immense value in one another.
Gwen and Rylan let me have a sneak peek of their book, and I absolutely loved it. They sent it to me a while back. I read it, and I thought, I have to have you on my show. So I was very excited to share their story and to be able to share their vision with you today. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Oh, and if you're interested in supporting the book launch of If I Squeeze Your Head, I'm Sorry, the book officially launches on November 5th. And now here is my conversation with Gwen and Ryland. I'm really excited. I was, you know, I get a lot of emails about people sharing what they're doing about the podcast. But I got yours and I took one look at your book and I was like, I have to have you on the show.
Oh,
thank you. That's so sweet. Yeah, we're pretty excited. It turned out to be such a fun project for both of us. I think Ryland's like, why are we still talking about this book? Because it was like a year ago that I did this.
What is the premise of the new picture book “If I Squeeze Your Head, I’m Sorry”?
But, you know, that's
just
an issue of not understanding timing of publishing.
Yes. Oh, goodness. Publishing. It's years and years sometimes. Years and years. It is. So
much hard work.
It is. But at the end, you have a book. An
amazing book. We're getting started on writing his next book just in preparation to keep this going because all of his words are, you know, two years old now.
What I want to do for my, like, next book is, like, the dragon. I want to make a dragon series where me and a Minecraft person named Steve go on this, like, awesome
adventure. So,
yeah.
I
like it. He's
already written quite a bit of it.
That's very exciting. I have to tell you, Rylan, that I have a son who's just turned 15 years old. And how old are you, Rylan? 12. You're 12. Okay. I think when Asher was about your age, 11 or 12, he wrote a couple of Minecraft themed little novels. Not about dragons, but in the Minecraft world. And it was such a fun project for him to work on. Yeah.
Yeah, we are big Minecraft fans. He's sitting here with a Minecraft book, you know, just in case he gets so bored. Yes. Always have to have a plan B.
And a plan C and a plan D. And a plan B. Well, do you guys want to take a minute and you can both share however you want to do this. I would love if you could tell the listeners about the book that you wrote together. If I squeeze your head, I'm sorry.
Yeah. So I'm Gwen and I am the mom. And this book is a picture book. It's drawings that Rylan did. I stole mom's hat. About what it feels like to live in his brain. And do you want to tell everybody who you are?
My name is Rylan.
And what do you have to do with this
book? I'm the author. Okay. I, well, this is like based, sorry, based on my perception of the world.
Yeah. And so what do you live with? What are your, what we would call special needs? That's gender and autism. Yeah. So Ryland did a bunch of drawings about what it felt like to live in his brain and then started talking about them. And I just decided, well, this is better than any therapy we've ever done as far as learning what it feels like to be him.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:26
2
What is the premise of the new picture book “If I Squeeze Your Head, I’m Sorry”?
2:26–7:09
3
How did Rylan’s drawings help Gwen understand his brain and school challenges?
7:09–8:12
4
What was the process and timeline for publishing the book?
8:12–23:28
5
Why does Rylan describe his brain as a tornado and a race‑car?
23:28–35:59
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
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TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids