TPP 253: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
41 min
2 speakers
3 chapters
transcribed 5 hours ago
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What early messages about “normal” did Jonathan receive growing up?
And that message that different is deficient, that something's wrong with you if you deviate from the mythical middle of the bell curve, that wounds people deeply. Uh it wounded me deeply. And it was uh a form of trauma that required uh intentional uh acts of healing.
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 Rieber, and after a few weeks off, I am ready to get back into the swing of things. And I could not be more excited than to start this season off with a powerful and gut-punching conversation with Jonathan Mooney. Jonathan is a self-described do-gooder, speaker, and writer who didn't learn to read until he was twelve years old. Growing up with dyslexia, Jonathan faced a number of low expectations. He was told he would be a high school dropout and likely end up in jail. Instead, he earned a degree in English literature, started his first nonprofit in his college dorm, and has gone on to write a number of books, including his
His latest title Normal Sucks. Jonathan has been a champion for neurological and physical diversity for more than two decades, and his award-winning advocacy projects have been featured in major media outlets across the United States. We cover so much ground in this conversation all about the implications and prescriptions of normal, from the painful messages Jonathan received in his early life to some of the disturbing research he came across while writing his book. But we also talk about the kind of powerful things that can happen for our kids when we set aside typical conventions, timelines, and expectations and celebrate their differences. It's not just about flourishing outside the box. It's about shattering the box completely.
Frankly, I'm just grateful there are people like Jonathan in the world doing this critical work, and I was so inspired and motivated by this conversation. I hope you enjoy it. And now here is my conversation with Jonathan. Hey Jonathan, welcome to the podcast.
Hey, I'm um I'm excited to be a part of it. Thanks for having me.
Oh my pleasure. I feel like this conversation is long overdue and I just finished reading your book, Normal Sucks, and there were so many yes, yes moments as I was reading it. It's uh so in alignment with what I as a parent of a differently wired kid have been preaching about and talking about everywhere I could. And so I'm just so grateful to have you on the show today. So could we even start? I'm sure you tell your story all the time, but just, you know, tell us a little bit about who you are in the world. I think so many parents are going to hear your story and feel like, oh my gosh, this is this could be my child speaking as an adult. So I would love to just hear a little bit about how you got to be doing the work that you're doing.
Yeah, well look, first of all, thank you for for the work that you're doing and um uh being a part of of this movement. It's an all hands-on-deck moment to make the world more inclusive uh for folks with uh uh neurodiversities who who learn and live differently. So I so value you and uh your contribution to the field. You know, I've uh been an advocate on behalf of folks with atypical brains for over 20 years. And uh that work stems from my own experience of uh, you know, struggling as a result of my own learning and intentional differences. Uh I was the kid who spent a lot of time chilling out with the janitor in the hallway. Uh I grew up on a first name basis with Shirley, the receptionist in the principal's office.
Um, I spent a lot of the day, you know, hiding in the bathroom to escape reading out loud. Um, I was diagnosed with a continuum of attention and executive functioning challenges uh in elementary school. I was diagnosed with dyslexia, uh dysgraphia, and other running differences around the same time. And I I generally got the short end of the stick, for lack of a better word. You know, I was the square peg that did not fit the round hole of uh American education.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
2 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
TPP 266a: A Conversation with Poet and Advocate LeDerick Horne
TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
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