Welcome And A Rainy Friday

James Guttman 0:00

It's the journey made with Pod. HiPod I'm Dad. Hi Pod, it's James Gutman. Welcome to another edition of HiPod I'm Dad. It is Friday. It is November. It is raining blue everywhere you look in the United States of America. Thank you for finding me on any streaming service on HiPodOm Dad.com. Definitely appreciate you guys being here. I got my boy Lucas is in the background. You'll probably hear him at some point. I hear him. But one of the benefits of having a microphone is that you don't necessarily hear every single thing behind me, but I'm sure he'll make himself known. I want to thank you guys for

Teaching Beyond Speech And Milestones

James Guttman 0:35

checking this out. I wanted to mix things up a little this week, right? So what I do is usually on the podcast, I talk about the blog. So this week I wrote a blog, I wrote about Lucas. It was the thing I almost missed teaching my nonverbal son. And when I wrote it, it was something that I've talked about before, something that means a lot to me. And it was the idea of identifying things that he needs to learn, right? And if you're laser focused on language, my son is nonverbal. So for the first few years of his life, it was all about language. Teach him to talk, teach him to talk. Because in my mind, if I could teach him to talk, I wanted to teach him to talk. And I'm still in that space now. Like, I want him to learn to use words. I want him to have like a hello or a hi or something like that. I've given up on that ever being his main form of communication. And to be honest with you, I'm cool with it. Uh Lucas has a device, he has gestures, he has different ways that he can make himself known to me, to others. Um, I know what he wants. I know my kid. I get him. So while I'd love for him to learn words, I'd love for him to do everything. I'll learn, love him to learn how to, you know, drive a car and fly a plane. What's up, buddy? Come here. Take a seat, take a seat, we're doing the podcast. Uh all these things I'd love to have happen. But it is not something that's needed. It's just a part of what he could learn, the things we could do with him. And one of the benefits of getting to that point where you're like, all right, look, this might not happen. This is something that could happen, something that I want, I don't need. Uh, he will survive without verbal language. Once you're able to do that, you're able to look at the big picture. What else does my kid need to learn? And what I talked about in the blog as well was that after that, we moved on to life skills. And I've written about life skills over and over again. The kid is 15, he's gigantic, he's got stubble. I would like for him to learn how to do a lot of basic life skills. Now, that said, there are more than just major life skills. There are smaller things to learn. And I talked about identifying some of those pockets. Like he doesn't ever put his hand in his pockets or put things in his pockets. I'm teaching him how to do that. So it's about opening up your kind of your horizons, I guess. Is that the right word to use? Uh horizons on what you can and cannot teach your kid and what you should be teaching your kid. And the answer to that is everything. Teach them everything you possibly can. Some things will stick, some things will not. But if you spend your whole life trying to teach him language or trying to teach him how to tie his shoes and he's unable to learn that, granted, you want to keep working on it, working on it, but you don't want to make it the only thing you work on because then he learns nothing. Right. So that was the point of the blog.

When Your Nonverbal Kid Trusts You

James Guttman 3:09

Now, for the podcast this week, I want to talk about something different. I don't know if I'll write about it on Monday or not, but I don't know, man. It just kind of hit me when I was with this kid that one of the things I love the most about Lucas, and I've talked about this autism appreciation, it's a big part of the podcast, big part of the blog. Why I appreciate my son so much. And I do, man. I appreciate this kid to the moon and back. He's real, he's legit. His emotions are real, his feelings are real. No one can ever tell me, you know, Lucas doesn't really like you. Like, no, Lucas loves me. I know this, I see this, I feel this. Because all of his communication is nonverbal, so it's like visceral, right? I know he loves me. Uh, I see how, you know, he he runs to me. I see how I'm able to tell him something and he will listen to me, even if he doesn't fully understand. I know he he is different with me than he is with anybody else. And that means a lot to me. And one of the benefits of that is that I know Lucas believes in me, right? If I tell him I'm gonna feed him, just now he came into the room, he wanted food. I told him to go away because he's gonna eat after I'm done doing this. It's not time for dinner yet. And he does a little protest and he leaves the room, as opposed to a different situation where he might melt down, he might freak out. It's because he's learned to trust me. Lucas believes in me. Lucas knows that I'll take care of him. Lucas knows that if he wants, you know, a drink, I have the capability to get him a drink. Lucas knows that if he wants to, you know, go home or whatever, he knows that he can trust me to put his needs first. And that that has made me so confident, like across the board. And I'll tell you why. When he was little, I didn't think any of these things were possible. And I know a lot of people when they hear that you have a child who's nonverbal, the first thing they say to you is, Oh, I'm sorry. That must be hard. And the answer is, I mean, yeah. I mean, ball parenting is hard. I can go on and on about that. Lucas has severe autism. There are things that I have to take care of with him that you wouldn't even imagine. And I do those things, but for me, the hardest part was when he was little. The hardest part was when he was at that stage where I didn't know if he was ever gonna understand anything, where he was at that stage where I didn't know if he would even know who I was. Those were the years that we had to really sit down and figure out and understand. And I didn't think it was possible. How do you raise a kid who doesn't have language? How does that happen? I talk all the time. My career is based on writing. I was writing before Lucas was born. I mean, highblogomdad.com turns 10 years old in February, right? But I was writing for like 15 years before that about pro wrestling, about you know, pregnancy, about all these different things that I've written about through the years, the stock market and streaming television and Las Vegas, and it's insane. So I use my words all the time. And here's a kid, one of the two most important people in my entire life, and he doesn't have any words. How the hell am I gonna do this? And I didn't think it was possible, but it was. And that fact, the fact that he is now 15 years old, the fact that he sees me as one of the most important people in his life, and I'm I'll put it out there, I'm the most important person in his life, it means so much to me because it tells me that I did it. That I was able to b bridge that gap with his help, right? I was able to figure out as his dad, how do I do this? How do I reach this kid? How do I create a bond, a relationship with him so that he knows he can count on me? And I did that. So it's almost like this twofold thing where on one hand, I'm proud of myself and I have confidence because he believes in me now, but I also have confidence and I believe in myself because I did this thing that I thought was impossible for one of the most important people in my life. And it's like I and it drives me nuts because I I I have a very positive outlook on Lucas and about everything, right?

Choosing Pride Over Doom And Gloom

James Guttman 7:06

I try to be positive, I try to find the good in things. And I know there are other parents in my situation who do not put out that positivity, right? And you see it, you see it on Facebook, you see it on social media, like angry and just kind of confrontational and all these different things, but all of them, when I talk to them, even a little bit, have found ways to bridge that gap too. And it is such a thing to be proud of. And so many of us as parents, because we're dealing with these, you know, disabilities, I guess you could say, deficit, whatever you want to put it, that we fail to look at what we have accomplished. We look at all the things we didn't accomplish. And if I did that, I'd be miserable. Oh, he doesn't, he doesn't tie his shoes, he doesn't speak, he doesn't properly use a knife and fork, he doesn't, you know, all the things that he doesn't do, I could sit here for a month and tell you what they are. School used to send home like these little checklist things. And I would sit there and keep hitting no, no, no, no, no, down the line. And I would always send them a note after, like, why do you send me this crap? And they would always write back to Mr. Gutman, we're so sorry, we have to do this, don't worry, all that stuff. And that will that would kill you. So it would be easy for me to sit here and be like, you guys don't understand. You were not, you know, I I have this and I have that. But I don't do that. And the reason why is because I looked back at what I thought I was going to accomplish versus what I have, and it blows me away. And I would say that most parents in my situation, in the early years, you envision doom and gloom. And even as they grow up, even if they don't hit these milestones, it never looks as bad as you imagine. When he was one, two years old. I imagined the worst case scenario. And guess what? The scenario I'm in now, there's a lot of people who would consider that a terrible case scenario. Lucas is going to need help for the rest of his life. He might end up somewhere one day, living somewhere away from me. Horrible, heart-wrenching things that haven't happened yet, but might still happen. But still, the bond and the relationship I built with this kid is one of the things that I was convinced would never happen. And it did. And for that, I am proud of myself. For that, I know he's proud of me. I'm proud of him. It's pride everywhere across the board. Everyone's happy, man. And I think that that's that's important. I I I always talk about starting the blog because when when he was first being diagnosed, I wanted to find something that would give me some sort of light at the end of the tunnel, and I couldn't find it. I found some pretty miserable blogs. I mean, this is back in like 2013, um, pretty miserable stories of just sad parents and how terrible it is. And I thought, oh my God, I'm about to embark on the worst journey of my life. And I didn't. I embarked on the hardest journey of my life, yeah. But not the worst, by far, not the worst. I am so lucky for both of my kids. And Lucas is right up there with his sister, and um, yeah, he makes me proud of me. He lets me know that I can do anything that I have to do, and he lets me know that I accomplished a goal that I had no, no expectations of ever accomplishing, building this bond

A Fresh Look At What You’ve Done

James Guttman 10:17

with him. And if you're in my position and you have a kid like Lucas and you're listening to this podcast, and you're one of those people who uh fails to see the beauty and some of the things that you've done, look really from a fresh set of eyes. Try to look at it from the eyes of the person you were when your kid was one, two years old and say, What did I think was gonna happen? You might not have hit every milestone I didn't. You might not have hit every achievement. I did not do that myself either. But I did far more than I ever dreamed possible, and I'm lucky, and I did it with his help. And that's what makes it so much sweeter. So

Where To Follow And Closing

James Guttman 10:48

thank you guys for listening. Do me a favor, next Friday, hipodomdad.com. I'll be back. Hiblogomdad.com every single Monday. Hi, James Gubman, H I James Gutman, two Ts on social media, TikTok, Instagram, we're everywhere. That does it for me. Until then, James Gutman saying, be well.