Speaker 1: 0:14

Hi Pod, I am Dad. He's not just Hi Dad, he's my dad, james Gutman. Folks, it's James Gutman. It's high pod on dad. Welcome back to another edition of the podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:30

It is the end of january, it is 2025. I appreciate you joining me here on high pod on dad. Every streaming service. Thank you if you found me there, if you found me on highpodomdadcom. I appreciate that as well. It has been. It's been a cold week, man, cold, freezing, end of January kind of cold, but keeping everything together, moving forward, a lot of good stuff going on.

Speaker 1: 0:52

I'll tell you this, and I'm you know, as you guys know, I'm doing kind of a slow rollout of information about the book that comes out this year. For those of you guys who don't know, I have written and we're going to be releasing a book through Jessica Kingsley Publishing. It is a traditional publisher. They have a team behind it. They're putting everything together. I just actually got a copy of the cover today. They're kind of going through all these different possibilities. I love it, man. I think you guys will be really excited. I'll give you all the information very soon. It's kind of weird for me. I'll tell you why I've written. Now. This'll be my, my fourth book. My first two were about pro wrestling, number three was about pregnancy and number four is about autism appreciation all through, again, traditional publishers, which is, you know, I don't have a lot of soul decision-making to make. You know, there's a team, there's people who do it. They come to you, they go hey, we have these covers, we have this, what do you think you pick? What do you like? I suggest we work together on that stuff so you work with all different kinds of people. This will be the third publisher that I've worked with and the other ones, and it's weird when you kind of work with them, there's some that are like don't even mention that you're doing a book, don't say a word until it's ready to be released.

Speaker 1: 2:07

I remember this was years and years ago, very early. My first book came out in 2006, which, yikes, amazon was brand new. I remember it was called World Wrestling Insanity. It was a wrestling book. My first love was wrestling. I wrote for the magazines, I worked for the wrestling companies and, um, when it came out the internet and everything was so new that it was, I think it was like number five, 60 overall on on Amazon. It was like pretty crazy and I remember being like, oh my God, nobody back then, no one remembered that, no one kept track of that. It's kind of like, well, but is it in Barnes and Noble? It's like it is in Barnes Noble. I don't know. Yeah, I don't even know if there still is a Barnes Noble anymore. Either way, that's what I did back then.

Speaker 1: 2:48

But one of the things I wanted to do is not give out any information about the book. The idea was that you know, people are going to go to the page. It's not there. They get confused, they forget about it. Just, I don't know. For me, I like to get a little closer to the, to the date. At this point it's looking around June. So yeah, man, it's cool, it's gonna be a big deal. I'm very excited.

Speaker 1: 3:08

I'm very excited to get to share Lucas and share my, my life with you. Guys Tell you stories that you know I've talked about some of them here. Some of them I haven't kind of give you kind of a rundown of of raising this kid. My son is nonverbal, he has autism. I have a daughter who is neurotypical. She is 16. So it is difficult things on parenting, two different levels, but I get to write about Lucas and one of the things about writing about Lucas so much in this autism appreciation writing, is that I get a chance to not only share him with the world, explain who he is, tell you all the wonderful things about him, tell you why I love him so much. And it's not again and this is what's crazy about it it's not a situation where I'm saying these things just to kind of like make myself feel better, you know, or try to convince you of something you know. Be like, no, no, he really, he's cool, I don't forget you. Look at him, he's great, my son's fantastic dude. To the point where at the end of a day, if you're having a rough day, he's the person you most want to see. He smiles, he runs up to you, you get a hug, you get love. And it's funny too, because people will mistake that and hear that and think to themselves oh, he must always be happy. He's nonverbal, he's on the spectrum, he's got, you know, severe autism. However you want to put it, he must always be happy and he's not.

Speaker 1: 4:23

Lucas gets upset about things he doesn't like, or if he's unhappy or if he wants something. But what makes Lucas, what's so amazing in that respect with me is that he goes away. If Lucas is unhappy and you make him happy, suddenly he's happy. And I've known people and we've lived in lives where we're not like that, even ourselves. You know you're unhappy and then somebody's like well, here, have an ice cream. I know you got the ice cream and you're happy, but you don't want to be happy. You want to be mad. I want to be mad. Lucas never just wants to be mad. Lucas is mad for a reason. Lucas is sad for a reason. Lucas is angry, you know, and it's always for a reason.

Speaker 1: 4:59

And that's one of the things about him that I'm like kind of blown away by is that he knows how to kind of just I don't know deal with it, get past it, get through it. He's a wonderful kid man. So at the end of the day, I get a chance to see him and be with him and I just I don't know, it just brightens my world. So I get a chance to explain that to people. A lot of that is because of autism, right, a lot of us are so deep in our own heads and so overthinking everything and trying to figure out everybody else's social motivations. You know, he said that to me today. But you know, did you hear him? He turned to me and he was like are you going to have another one of those English muffins? What the hell does that mean? Am I going to have another English muffin? What the hell Lucas doesn't do that. Lucas just eat your English muffin. He won't sit there and lament about how you offered it to him wrong or how you thought something about him. I don't know, man, lucas, it's on the table. That's who he is and that's what this blog is. It gives me a chance to do that for autism appreciation explain who he is, let people know how wonderful my son is.

Speaker 1: 5:58

But it's funny because I've noticed and especially this week I wrote about how he is my guide to understanding autism, at least how it affects him, and the blog was called Guided Into His World what Lucas Taught Me About Autism, right, and I'm noticing now in these blogs and this one in particular. And I'm noticing now in these blogs and this one in particular, which was about how I always thought that autism meant A, b and C, right, like we watch TV. You watch TV shows and movies about autism and you get an idea of what a child with autism thinking. That's what it was, and my son has not been any of those things.

Speaker 1: 6:41

But one of the things specifically that I learned about autism from TV and from movies is that people with autism they're just so hard to reach Can't reach them. You know they're gone. They're locked behind doors, they're gone. They're puzzle pieces. How do you put them together? I don't know Like it's all these different things that make it sound so scary. And if you are a parent and you have a new child and your child is diagnosed, it will scare the hell out of you because you, like me at the time, would think that you would never have a relationship with your child. How am I going to reach this kid? And one of the things that I learned is that you can. You just have to know to do it. You have to know to enter their world. You have to know to play with the toys inappropriately rather than correcting them. You have to know to come over and watch what they're doing.

Speaker 1: 7:24

Why are you pausing that video at that specific point on YouTube? What is it about it that you, like I, did that? I sat down with Lucas. He was pausing and unpausing a YouTube video. I just watch him, I go. What are you looking for, buddy? What are you trying to do? And I'm seeing it's either a transition in the scene, a character says something, someone pops up in a way that he thought was funny A lot of Muppets man, he loves Sesame Street. So you'll have like Elmo will pop up and be like you know, hello, and he'll laugh. He'll pop my kid, that's a wrestling term pop. He'll get excited, he'll cheer and I'm like, oh, that's what it is, and it's not so mysterious when you start doing that, when you start really watching Not the fact that like, oh, he's not watching his videos, right, he's just pausing them. No, no, no. Why is he doing it? Because you know what I got news for you he is doing it right, he's doing it right for him and if you pay attention you get it. Same thing with playing with his toys you know he's playing with.

Speaker 1: 8:21

The first time I ever sat down with him and let him know that I was there and that I understood him was when I watched him. He was taking this little toy telephone on wheels that you're supposed to pick up and be like hello, hello, and for years. Not for years, but you're supposed to pick up and be like hello, hello. And for years not for years, but for months he was little. I would see him playing with this thing wrong. I don't know, lucas, this is not how you do it. Look, and I pick up the receiver. Look, hello, hello, who's? This? Is this for Lucas? Lucas, it's for you. Hey, here you go.

Speaker 1: 8:51

And he would take it, hang it up. He would take this on the string and he would slowly roll it under the chair, roll it out and watch it in the mirror. And I'm like what are you doing, bro? And I sat down next to him. I go, can I try? I do, like the whole double tap on my chest and I did it and I watched it, and he watched me watch it and he gave me a hug.

Speaker 1: 9:10

And that was the moment. That was the moment where I was like this is how you do it. I can't make him do the things that I want him to do. I have to understand why he does the things that he does and I got news for you through the years right, lucas still does his own thing. But because I give him that respect and I give him that attention to come over and not correct him, but ask him why are you doing this? Or seeing why he's doing the things that he does, that when it's time for him to do stuff for me, he does it. If we have to go somewhere, if we have to go somewhere boring, watch his sister perform in some performance or something, he does it, and he does it and he's cool about it, and that's something that I don't know. I never thought would happen.

Speaker 1: 9:53

So that blog that I wrote this week about being guided into his world was done for a reason. And it's done because I'm starting to realize now here we are, at 13 years old. I started this blog when he was like seven, six, seven years old. I've watched him grow into all those things that in the beginning, when I first wrote this blog and I used to worry, I would write about him in a way that it wasn't about looking back on how much we've grown Back then we were growing right. So those early blogs were concern and worry and kind of putting it out there. I'm thinking this and I'm worried about this and this is what I noticed. And now, years later, I'm able to look back and be like we kind of made it. We are at a place where, you know, I used to fear this age and now I am happiest now with him at this age than I ever was before.

Speaker 1: 10:44

So this blog, in many ways, and this podcast and the work that I've done and the upcoming book that comes out, they're all done to not only share him with the world but also make people worry a little bit less. It's not a blog of doom and gloom. It's not a book of you know how my life has been so awful ever since I've had to handle this and, trust me, man, I have heard parents of kids like Lucas talk about their kids in some of the hardest ways, man. I've seen TikTok videos and stuff like that of people just making their kids out to be the worst experience. And you know what, dude, I don't know. I don't know your kid Maybe, maybe it is. You win right, my kid's great.

Speaker 1: 11:33

And I know there's other people out there who are just about to embark on this journey, who have a child who's two or three years old who's getting diagnosed with autism, four or five, however, old, who's getting diagnosed with autism and that word is scary and they are worried about the same things I worried about when Lucas was little and years later, all of these so-called worst case scenarios. He's never spoken. There's definite life skills that people would be like, oh he doesn't do that. No, he doesn't do that. There's things that I have to work with him on. There's things that we still do as if he was, you know, a baby Books, he reads things, he's into all these things that if I could go back in time 10 years and tell myself I would be like, oh my God, that's terrible. And guess what? It's not terrible, it's great.

Speaker 1: 12:16

And if you're a parent and you are right now being told that your child might not speak or that your child has autism and you were worrying about the things that I worried about, I want you to read my blog, I want you to read the book, I want you to listen to this podcast and I want you to feel a little bit better and know that, look, 100% it might not happen to you. You might not get you know the awesome kid I got, but you might right. So I'll tell you all about it. It's a good thing.

Speaker 1: 12:42

Thank you guys for listening here today, thank you for listening to me every week, thank you for joining the blogs on highblogondadcom. Honestly, god, thank you, just thank you. This is really one of the highlight points of my life. Just thank you. This is really one of the highlight points of my life and I've been very happy to be able to share it with you guys, and I've been very happy with all the work we've done here. That does it for me Until next week. This is James Gutman saying be well, bye, pod, I'm dead. We'll see you next time.