Autism Month And Meeting Lucas

James Guttman 0:00

Hipod I'm Dad. Folks, it's James Guttman, the dad behind HiblogomDad.com, the host of HiPodom Dad.com. Thank you for finding me again here in April. It is autism, awareness, acceptance, appreciation, month, however you want to term it. One of those months where people turn their attention to people like my son. My son is nonverbal. He has profound autism, severe autism, however you want to phrase it. And I love the opportunity to tell people about Lucas. It's been one of the things that since he was young, I've kind of gravitated towards. That I know a lot of times people wonder if I'm going to be sensitive talking about Lucas. Because some of the things that he does are hard to cipher for somebody who's not around us all the time, somebody who doesn't know him all the time. They see his mannerisms, they see uh the sounds he makes, the things that he does, and they wonder, you know, what is going on and how do I ask about this without offending this family? And it doesn't offend me. In fact, it's never offended me. When he was really little, I didn't want to talk about it. If somebody asked me, I would get uncomfortable, I wasn't up for it, and it wasn't because I was offended or embarrassed by it, it was because I had no answers for anybody. They go, why does why is he doing that? Why is he clapping like that? And there's nothing more painful than having to say, I don't know. Especially when you have a baby, you have a toddler, you have a preschooler, and everybody else knows their kids. Everybody else has stories like, oh yeah, Billy loves the Pokemon, and we bring out the Pokeman, and he plays Pokemon, whatever the hell Billy plays with. But with me, I didn't know why is my kid clapping to the point of making an echo all the time? Why is my kid making these sounds? Why is my kid moving around the way he is? Why is my kid even playing with toys the way he does? And I couldn't give an answer I didn't know. And that bothered me. And I think as a parent, it would bother any of us, right? And as he got older, as I got to know Lucas and learn about Lucas and watch him and see why he is doing the things that he does, I learned a lot, not only about him, but about me and about just autism in general and how misunderstood it often is for a lot of us, right?

What Stimming Really Is

James Guttman 2:16

So Lucas stims. And if you guys don't know what stimming is, stimming is really just a self-soothing mechanism, whether it's a sound or a movement, or you know, maybe you're sitting around like that, or you're flicking pages of a book. Whatever it happens to be, that's what stimming is. And my son stims, he stims all the time, and he does things that most people wouldn't understand. And for the longest time, I thought this was all just done haphazardly. I thought most of it was just, you know, sounds couldn't help themselves. They would pop out of his head and he would do them, and that would be the end of it. And I learned, again, from observing him, from watching him, that a lot of them were based on reasoning, right? Like so he starts and stops his YouTube videos. I watch this all the time. Sits there with his tablet, doesn't really watch the Sesame Street episode, just start, stop, start, stop, start, stop. And it took a while to figure it out and to watch him and study and why is he doing it? And why is he stopping at this exact moment? Where I started to realize that there were certain parts of the video that he liked, whether it was a transition from one scene to another, whether it was the way one of the characters said something, maybe it was a tone of voice or a note in a song. There were things about it that he liked, and he realized that he could start and stop the video and re-watch that one clip over and over and over again. And once I realized that, it didn't seem so bizarre anymore. Because it did, when he was little, man, I used to freak out. I'd be like, I don't know this kid at all. I don't know why he's doing this. I don't get it. I don't know why. And then once you get it, right? Even if you still don't fully get it, because that was part of what I wrote on Monday. I wrote a blog called My Son Doesn't Hide His Stimming, The Rest of Us Were Taught To. I can't tell you why he likes the transition. I can't tell you why he likes the sound or the note, but I can tell you that the stimming that he's doing is related to that. So I know why, specifically for him that he's doing it. I also know why he likes the self-soothing aspect of it, is because I do too, and so do you, and so does everybody listening to this. Autism and stimming different things is not exclusive to autism. The fact that he doesn't hide it, the fact that he's open about it, the fact that we could be in a crowded restaurant, and uh, you know, the spirit hits his fingers and he has to clap like that, he just does it. I don't do it. Even if I get the spirit in my fingers and I wanna, I don't do it because I have a voice in my head that goes, dude, don't don't make a loud noise in the middle of the restaurant. People are gonna look at you, they're gonna think we're they're gonna be like, what is that guy doing? They're not gonna get it. People will get upset, maybe you'll get into a fight. All these things go through your head as a neurotypical person. But with Lucas, he

The Stims We All Do

James Guttman 5:03

doesn't. And I know you're listening to this, you're going, I've never had the desire to clap. That's so silly. No, but you had the desire to maybe sing a line of a song. You ever have a song stuck in your head and you don't know the song? You know, like one line in the song. I'm right now, man. I just found a song on Spotify but listening to Weary Eyes. All I know is that the guy goes, We're and he just says it over and over again within the song. And that's all I know of the song. So I'm just sitting there walking around the supermarket and in my head singing it. And between me and you, if no one is in the aisle with me, in a light, somewhat loud whisper, I'm walking around going, We're how is that any different than Lucas clapping or making a sound or hopping around? There's something in me that says, do it. It'll feel good to say it, it'll feel good to sing it. You have it in your head, get it out, get it out of your head. And we work every day to get things out of our head. The blog that I write, and this is crazy, and I've told people this, and it's the kind of thing that took a few years to realize the blog that I write in many ways is my stim, in the sense that there are stories that lived in my head that I would think about all the time, especially when I first started writing these blogs, right? Like I, for example, the one about, you know, I'm sorry my son drank your coffee. That was one of the most red blogs. And it's about Lucas stealing food and taking it from people. There was a story of Lucas taking a drink during an award ceremony for my daughter's basketball awards. And as everybody stood up, he was like five years old, six years old, he went over and he took a woman's cup as they were standing clapping and he started drinking out of her Starbucks. And it was mortifying and it was this crazy story, and it was always in my head. And then I wrote it down and I shared it with all of you. And what I noticed through the years is that when I do that, the story's still in my head, right? I could still picture it, I still remember it, I still might tell somebody, but it's not on the tip of my brain anymore. It's not waiting to just be, you know, let go, let go, tell everybody, tell everybody. Once I got it out, it felt like it was out. And a lot of our stimming is like that. That's how you get like a like an earworm out of your head. If you have a song in your head, you sing it out loud, you sing it to somebody, you say it in full, you have a movie scene in your head, right? Like if I have a movie scene, I can't stop thinking about some Al Pacino scene, oh, you know, and I'm like, I'm gonna watch, you watch the scene, you go on YouTube and you watch it, and you're done. And it's out of your head. That's what stimming is. And when you put it like that, and when you think like that, and you realize that I'm not making this up, man, I'm not like creating some some false, you know, tie to what my son does. This is a direct link. These things are very much the same. But once you realize that, it doesn't seem as different anymore. It doesn't seem as strange anymore. It seems like something we all

Autism Appreciation And Unfiltered Joy

James Guttman 8:02

do. And what Lucas does, which is part of my autism appreciation for him, which is part of why I write this blog and the things that I try to talk about, there is a sense of of honesty, a pure sense of this is who I am, and my son shows the world. Lucas doesn't care if you think it's strange that he's stimming these things. Lucas doesn't care if you look at him. You can look at him all day long, he'll clap in your face. He doesn't, I care, I'll get annoyed. Who are you looking at? Him? No. Because Lucas is Lucas 100% cards on the table. He does what he wants to do, he is who he wants to be. And I couldn't be prouder of him because of it. And that's why I appreciate autism. And people get confused sometimes. I write about autism appreciation, and I got to deal with people in their comments talking about their specific kid. I don't appreciate autism, it affects my kid that way. Okay, man, I get it. And maybe you don't. I do. And here are my reasons for why I appreciate it. I think um, you know, a boy like mine, there are certain fundamental aspects of life that he's not gonna participate in. He's not gonna do the prom, he's not gonna do football. And it's one of those things too, people sometimes hear them they go, oh, maybe, and like, no, probably not. He doesn't like it. You know, if he wanted to do it, and I was saying this like he's not capable, but he wants to. No, no, he doesn't even care. He doesn't want to do it. Uh so those things you kind of give up and you put away. But when it comes to what he wants to do and who he wants to be, he does all that every day. He doesn't want to be prom king, he wants to clap when he's excited, he doesn't want to catch a football, he wants to hop up and down and scream with excitement when something happy happens in his life. And guess what? That's exactly what he does. And half of us listening to this, if we had the kind of uninhibited, um, untied feeling from social graces that my son has, we'd do it too. We all would. We are.

Where To Follow And Closing

James Guttman 10:07

That does it for me, guys. I'm gonna be back on Monday with a brand new blog. I'll be back. Join me on social media, ma'am. I got stuff that I post all the time, whether it's quote boxes or videos, is a video for this podcast that goes up. I am at Hi James Gutman. That's on Instagram, it's on TikTok. You can find us over on Facebook as well. Uh, just tons of stuff out there. I appreciate all the support. Until next week. This is James Gutman saying, be well. Bye Pod. I'm dead.