Introducing Lucas and Autism Appreciation

James Guttman 0:14

Hi Pod , I am Dad . He's not just Hi Dad , he's my dad . James Gutman , just hi dad , he's my dad . James gutman folks , james gutman , hi pod , I'm dad . Welcome back to another edition of the podcast . Thank you for joining me on hypod , on dadcom , any streaming service , I appreciate it . Hit the bell , hit the subscribe , hit the hit the road jack . Either way , hit something . Thank you so much for for joining me . It's good to be here . I'm in good mood .

James Guttman 0:44

Um , I've I've had a lot of stuff and I got to tell you Lucas is a big part of that . For those of you guys who are new , lucas is my son . He's nonverbal , just turned 14 . He has autism and he is , honest to God , the most unique person I've ever known in my entire life . It's one of the reasons I write about him , one of the reasons I covered this blog . Talk about autism appreciation . Lucas is unlike anyone else and every day I learn something new , whether it's about him and his growth or just me as a person and understanding . He has a way of really showing you things about yourself .

James Guttman 1:19

I've said since he was little that having Lucas taught me that you don't say hello to someone just to get a hello back . You don't do something for someone just to get a pat on the back or appreciation . And I used to say that when he was little , almost kind of like a I don't know , just reinforcing the good to myself . You know , hey , you're doing this for the good of it . He might not say thank you , he might not show appreciation , he might not seem to miss you and you're not around , all these things that I would tell myself . And now , as he's gotten older luckily for a lot of it , it's not true anymore I get to see appreciation . I've gotten to learn who he is and help him with his receptive language , help him to understand the world around him , help him to express gratitude and love . And it's really been amazing and it's been wonderful in that respect , raising a boy like him .

James Guttman 2:09

You know , when your son's nonverbal , you can't really verify a lot of stuff . I can't be like you appreciate this , right ? No , I couldn't do that , so it started out with little things . I would go up to him Lucas , say thank you , say , say thank you . And he would walk up to people . I swear to God , I would say Lucas , say thank you to this person . They would look at me because they know he didn't speak . He would look at me like what

From Baby to Young Man

James Guttman 2:30

am I supposed to do ? And I would just look at him . I go say thank you , say thank you no-transcript of little things in terms of his uh , language and his , you know , use of hands , and that I really haven't done by the book .

James Guttman 3:03

So if you're one of those parents who don't feel bad , I know , as parents , I worried about that I said I don't , this kid doesn't know sign language . You know it's kind of like this I don't know this , this dialect . I come from . You know my family's half Italian . So one of the things when you're Italian that you learn very young is that a lot of the words that you say are not really the Italian words for it , it's from somewhere else or whatever , and they're like oh , it's just our Italian , it's how we do it . Well , it's the same thing with Lucas . He's got these little Italian hands where sometimes , you know , touching his mouth means like give me food . It also means like yes , I don't even know Half the time we're just kind of doing stuff , but we get it . You know , teaching your kid to communicate , it doesn't matter if you do everything by a book or whatever , but Lucas has learned to express thanks and gratitude and love and things like that and I've watched him grow in that respect , physically , right .

James Guttman 3:53

I want to tell you guys right now you talk about Hi World I'm Dad , the book coming out in June , my new book . For those who don't know High World I'm Dad , how Fathers Can Journey from Autism Awareness to Acceptance to Appreciation Pre-order it today . But one of the things about the book that you guys have to know is I only wrote this book over the course of the last year , right , so it's not like an outdated book from 100 years ago . And in the book I talk about how we used to call him or at the time did call him the round mound of sound . That was my little . We'd always say it to Lucas . He would come over and he would just be making noise . He'd be like you're the round mound of sound and I'd tickle him and he'd laugh . It was this cute little term of endearment . And Lucas is not , I repeat , not the round mound of sound anymore . Lucas is a stretched out . Stretched Cunningham kind of . Blows my mind .

James Guttman 4:41

So I found these two pictures . I found one from March 27th . Blows my mind . So I found these two pictures I found , one from March 27th 2021 , and one from March 27th 2025 . And it is a completely different human being , completely different . One is just this little blob of baby and the other one is this little man in my house . And what's crazy is that in my head I still I want to say I still see the little round baby version of Lucas . Right , but I do and I don't Like . I think in my head , I remember it , but it's not until I see it that it feels like it was 100 years ago . I'm like that's my kid and he's grown so much in that respect and with all of those things being true , it only serves that Lucas also grows in his understanding in terms of the things he can do , and that's what we've been working on .

James Guttman 5:25

Lucas has been , you know , working on life skills , whether it's using a fork a lot better than he has , or taking bites of things in an appropriate way , things that he always could do . But it was just easier to cut up his piece of pieces . You know , you cut up the little slices into squares . He would pick them up . A little bit of a mess . You wipe off his hands , you move on . I started giving him forks . Now he's been using the fork to do it . I finally just gave him a regular slice . I showed him . I said pick it up , take a bite .

James Guttman 5:54

And these are things that are really hard to explain to somebody because they go . You don't let your kid just pick up a piece of pizza and bite it . No , I don't do that because for the longest time he would , I swear to God , fit

Teaching Life Skills and Independence

James Guttman 6:05

the entire thing into his mouth . It was insane . And when you have a kid who does that , when you have a kid who will take an entire slice of pizza and shove it into his face , you can't even stop them . And when I say can't stop him , I don't mean that I physically couldn't pull it out of his hand or anything . I mean you're in such shock , almost like watching like Ripley's Believe it or Not when they start to do this crazy trick . And you're just glued , I'm just staring at him like is he going to get it ? And then , once it gets in , I'm like I might as well save his life now . So come here and you reach it in , you're grabbing it out , so you worry about that . Then at a certain point you start to realize you know what . This is easy . I'm going to cut up the chicken fingers . But then you see this picture of this boy who is like a little young man and maybe you can do it . And downstairs , even just now , I was giving him pizza and we were doing the thing with the fork , and then I'd pick up the pieces and he was just doing it . So take a bite . They were the smallest bites in the world , but he was doing it . Everything like that , a lot of things that I used to kind of let go Like .

James Guttman 7:04

Lucas has a habit of speed washing his hands and I would always frustratedly come over and just do it for him . What he does is he presses the soap . Sometimes he doesn't even have his hand there to catch it , he just presses it . It lands on the sink . He turns on the water . He karate , chops the water with a slow , underhanded , like hi-yah right through the water and then just walks away . And I go dude , what are you doing ? I go step by step , step by step . So today I had him do all of it , step by , like the real thing . I said no , no , no , put your hand back . And I corrected the things and again you're going to hear this and it sounds like I'm this lackadaisical , don't care kind of dad , but I think a lot of parents in my position you get into a routine , right . There's things that he's doing . There's things that I've taught him to do that he's been doing really well maturing and being patient and knowing how to get your attention in an appropriate way .

James Guttman 7:54

There was a time where Lucas would come over and take you by the chin with one finger and turn your face towards him to get your attention , and it was completely inappropriate . Shouldn't do it . Adorable , I would laugh every time . So we kind of let it go for a while . So you teach him how to do that . I wrote a blog a few weeks ago about driving with him in the car and when he needs me to do something with his iPad , I'm not worried he's going to grab my hand while I'm driving .

James Guttman 8:19

There was a time where I would have so things like that you work on , but because of that you let things go . You know you don't want to wash your hands completely by yourself . I'll come over , I'll help you out . You know you don't know how to do it . I got it . He knows man . It's a giant little man . He knows , and I think that's the thing and I think it's the same for for all kids .

James Guttman 8:38

Dude , like my daughter . I talked about my daughter . My daughter is going to be 17 years old . It's crazy 17 . That was my baby . Baby , that was my best friend , my little kid . And they grow up and they get bigger . There was a time where all of her friends were these little baby girls in school . She came home from school , I remember when she was in kindergarten and told me about them . I have this one friend . She's crazy . We call her Crazy Kimmy . Crazy Kimmy does crazy stuff . Crazy , crazy Kimmy does crazy stuff . Crazy Kimmy is like a lady now .

James Guttman 9:06

I saw the kids the other day . I'm like , oh my God , they're people , they're like grownups and sometimes you're not ready for that transition . And the same thing , I think , with my son . I see it . I see it in Christian , my girlfriend Lauren . Her son , luke , is his best friend . I've watched them grow up together . So you kind of see it a little bit . But it's almost delayed because Lucas is still my baby . Lucas will come over and sit on my lap .

James Guttman 9:29

Lucas weighs more than me . Straight up weighs more than me . Lucas wears , in some cases , clothes that are bigger than my clothes . I can't even give him hand-me-downs of some things because he's bigger than me . As he's gotten a little taller , it stretched out a little bit and we could share a little bit more .

James Guttman 9:45

For a while it was really rough when he was that little round mound of sound . Nothing fit over him . We were like you know getting kayak covers . But yeah , man , they get , they get big . All kids get big and you have to recognize it . You have to know how to proceed with that .

James Guttman 10:01

You know , if I never taught my daughter how to drive , if I was just like no , you're a baby , you don't drive , s course I can't do that because she would be like , no , I'm driving , I'm gonna be this age . Lucas can't do that . If I wanted to , I could keep him a baby forever and you can't do nothing . We just . We just lock the doors , seal the windows , I will feed him pirate booty and mac and cheese

Preparing for a Future Without Me

James Guttman 10:22

, you know , and that's it . We'll just be happy , I'll wash his hands forever , but I can't do it , man . I can't do it because I'm not going to be around forever . That's the truth . We're all going to go . I'm going to go . I almost went in 2012 .

James Guttman 10:37

Had a heart attack , had a quintuple bypass , thought I was going to die , and because of that I think about that . Not constantly , but I think about it . I'm aware of it . I'm aware that there's someone on this earth who needs me in every way . I mean , people need me and we need each other . But , honestly , like Lucas is somebody who needs me , and if I can't be there for him one day , I have to show him how to do as many things on his own as I can .

James Guttman 11:04

And as he gets older , I have to remember he's getting older , I have to remember that he's a man . Things he doesn't do he has to learn how to do . He has to wash his hands . He has to be able to you know use utensils . He has to clear the table . He has to do real grown-up stuff wash dishes , do laundry all the things he has to eventually do .

James Guttman 11:20

There's things he can't do as well . He can't lash out at somebody he can't like . You know , when he was five , if he swatted somebody , they go oh , it's okay , don't worry If he swats at somebody . Now , dude , this is the age that they worry you . When you're young they say watch it , one day he's going to be too big , he can't grab people's food , he can't hit people , I know , and that's where we're at now and that's something as a parent I have to work on , because I'm not always going to be there , and never in my life has that ever been more of a real statement than as it applies to Lucas . One day I won't be there , will he know what to do ? I'm going to do everything I can now to hopefully make sure he's as prepared as possible for the day that I'm not here anymore , and I owe him that .

James Guttman 12:06

Is it easy ? No , it's not easy at all . I spent a lot of the blog and stuff talking about . Is it easy ? No , it's not easy at all . I spent a lot of the blog and stuff talking about , like autism appreciation . Oh , it's so much . You know it's great and it is , and all the things that are great about it are great .

James Guttman 12:15

But when it comes to really the concern about , like , what's going to happen to my kid one day , or what do I have to build now to make sure he doesn't suffer , then that's major and that's unique to a situation like this . So it's my job , it's my responsibility and I'll do everything I can to make sure he grows up , and I'll tell you this , though he's done a great job so far , and that's the thing that gives me solace . Again , I wrote about that in a blog a few weeks ago too . I'm concerned and I worry and I think about the future . What's he going to have ? What can he do ? What's it going to look like when he's 30 ? How's that going to work ? But then I remember what I worried about him being like at 14 , when he was three or four years old , and I see the progress that he's made in areas that we worked on , in areas on his own , his understanding , all that stuff , and it makes me feel better . So , yeah , we're in good shape . Hopefully you are too .

James Guttman 13:08

If this is a pep talk , I don't know . Maybe you're going through it , maybe you're thinking too . All I can say is what I said before it's been a good week . He's been doing fantastic , he's on an upswing at school , everything's been really happy and it's been an honor man sharing it with you guys talking about it . Parts , too , is that the book is coming out now , during one of his real growth spurts , his rebirth , his physically changing emotion . Everything about him is just becoming a little man , and we're on a good spike .

James Guttman 13:43

You go through these ebbs and flows

Book Promotion and Closing Thoughts

James Guttman 13:45

, but there were times when we weren't . There were times I worried about him . We transitioned to his new school . He was going through transition issues for a while and during those days I remember not being like this , not being like yeah , it's great , but being able to come onto the blog and write about what we were going through . I wrote about him , you know , having meltdowns at pickup and not wanting to go home , things like that . I wrote about the tough stuff and because of that , you guys , the blog , this podcast , they all got me through it and that's why I'm so happy and lucky to be able to share our story now , during a time where I'm just so , I'm over the moon and I appreciate you guys being there to help me out through this .

James Guttman 14:22

So , thank you . Please . Do me a favor , go pre-order the book man . Do me a favor , go pre-order the book man . It's on Amazon , it's on Barnes Noble , it's on I think it's on most places High World on Dad . It comes out . It's going to be in stores , online , everywhere , june 19th 619 . I think at Rey Mysterio . Can't get away from it . Can't get away from wrestling . That's how that goes . Do me a favor . Every week I just said it I'll go to the high pot on dadcom every Friday . I'm back here with the podcast . And follow me on social media H I , james Gutman . Hi , james Gutman . I'm on Facebook . I'm on Instagram . Hi , blog I'm . Dad is on Facebook as well . We're everywhere , so please follow . Thank you Like . Subscribe , pre-order the book . Do all the good stuff and join me back here again next Friday . Until then , james Gubbins saying be well , bye pot , I'm done , I'll see you next time .