Thanksgiving Week Check-In

James Guttman 0:00

It's the journey made with Pod. Hi Pod I'm Dad. Hi Pod, it's James Gutman. Welcome to another edition of HiPod I'm Dad. It's Friday. It is coming up on Thanksgiving here in the States. It is November. I appreciate you finding me on every streaming service we are available. It means a lot to me. Thank you. For those of you guys who checked out Hiblogom Dad.com this week on Monday, I do new blogs. I've been doing this since 2017. We're coming up on 10 years in February, which is crazy.

The Hardest Part Of Nonverbal Life

James Guttman 0:32

I wrote this week about a topic that has been an issue our whole life with Lucas. One of those things that doesn't really change as he gets older. I know we've talked about, you know, acceptance, how when he was little, I just wanted him to talk, and then I accepted, and that changed. And how when he was little, we did a lot for him, and now he's getting to be older. I wanted to be self-sufficient. So that changed. But one of the things that never changed is that Lucas can't tell me about his day. He can't tell me about what goes on when I'm not around. That includes school, that includes everything he deals with. Um, and my job as his dad is to kind of decipher what his feelings are, how he is, how he acts. If he comes back from somewhere and he's upset, uh I make the assumption that maybe he was frustrated there, maybe there was something going on there. And I will give you guys this, right? So I I wrote about it and it kind of is a pessimistic um headline, I guess you could say, where people say, Well, of course, you can't understand what your nonverbal son did when you're not around. It must be so hard. That's one of those things where people look at you with the, you know, the sad face and they go, That must be really hard. And you're like, hell yeah, it's really hard. Um but I will give you guys this, and this is something it

Learning His Feelings Through A Look

James Guttman 1:50

hasn't changed completely, but it's changed a little bit, in that Lucas now I can tell from his attitude and from his expressions how he's feeling a lot better than I used to, right? So when I first got divorced back in 2020, and I would get my son from school after not seeing him for like half a week, I could never tell if he even knew I was gone. He would just show up and walk up to me, hey. It was like he wouldn't say hey, but like with a face, kind of like I'd be like, all right, we get in the car and I tickle him, blah blah blah. He'd be cool, but it was kind of the same baseline attitude that he had. Lucas was very rarely expressive about a lot of stuff. He just did his own thing. He wanted his iPad. So when he saw me, I'd be like, hey, buddy, and he wouldn't really care, and he wanted his iPad, and he'd go around me. Today he still does that, right? To an extent. I get him on Wednesdays, he comes over to me and it's kind of like, eh. But he's happy when he sees me. And he'll be in the car, and all of a sudden he'll tap me on the arm as I'm driving. I turn around and he's got this upturned grin. And I know what that grin is. And the reason why I know what that grin is, and and why, especially lately, I've been so high on this. When we went to go visit Olivia at college, there was that moment where I could tell he was like, and he's very standoffish, right? And she's, you know, his big sister. She loves him. So she opened the car door as soon as I showed up. She jumped in the backseat and she hugged him. And he kind of like looked at me like, Whoa, what's going on? Uh, and then we went back to her room and he's sitting on the couch and they're sitting together and she's hugging him. But then they got up and we went to the elevator. And as we were going to the elevator, he's walking with her, and I'm walking behind, I'm letting them walk together. And he turns to me and he looks at me and he gives me that smile, the same one that he gives me when he hasn't seen me. And I went, I know what that means. Even now, man, talking about it, and as a parent, it's emotional, right? It's emotional, and I've talked about this before because when he was, you know, two, three years old, I never thought this would be a thing. I never thought it was possible. I thought, like a lot of parents do, in this position, and if you are a parent with a two,

The Questions That Made Me Withdraw

James Guttman 4:00

three, four-year-old who is going through severe autism and might be nonverbal, you have certain times where you tell yourself, My kid's never gonna know who I am. That's something that I have to accept. It's a reality that might happen. I don't know what my son does all day. I don't know what he likes or who his friends are. And people will ask you stuff that will drive you crazy. Does he like his teacher? Does he have friends? Does he know it's his birthday? Does he know about Santa? I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. And all those I don't knows, and I've said this before, is the reason why I didn't socialize a lot when he was little. People wonder about that, the isolation of a parent with a severe, you know, autism child. And the assumption a lot of people make is that we're embarrassed, or um, and I I can't speak for anybody else. All I can tell you is for me. I was never embarrassed, right? I have a child already. Um, before him, I know that the fact that he's nonverbal was not because I didn't talk to him enough or I didn't love him enough or God or whatever the hell people tell themselves. It's just life, and there's a reason why he is who he is, there's a reason why I am who I am, and we have to figure out why that is and make it work and all that stuff. So that's not why I kept us, kind of him and I, away from people. It was because everybody asks those questions. And when you have a child at two, three, four years old going to preschool, going to nursery school, going to a music together class, and people ask questions like that and you can't answer it, it's terrible. It's the worst feeling in the world. Because this is your child. You're supposed to know everything

Preschool Milestones And Future Fear

James Guttman 5:40

about them. Does he like school? I don't know. What kind of parent are you? That's what it felt like to me, right? And this kid has been going to school since he was two. We sent him to Little Village out here on Long Island. It was uh an autism-friendly kind of uh preschool for kids, and it was okay. He met people and he did his thing, but even that, and this is why my heart goes out to you if you guys are going through this, it was somewhat terrifying because you would see you know, the other kids would reach milestones that your kid might not. I've told this story, it was in my book. Um, it'll probably be in another book when I re-release this freaking book. Um Lucas at his graduation, right? And this is what I didn't like about his graduation from preschool. Everything else I liked about the school, but the graduation did not go well. And it was because they they lined all the kids up in the order in which they had kind of reached their milestones, I felt like. And I say this because when they handed out the diplomas, each kid would come up and thank the person. So the guy would go, you know, you know, Brady Cooper. I don't even know that's a name. It sounds like a name, right? A millennial uh Brady Cooper comes up, takes the diploma, they go, Congratulations, Brady, and the little kid goes, thank you. And everyone she, oh my god, Brady's a thank you. It was like this whole thing. And they line them up in order of how they can do it. So it started off, thank you, thank you, thank you. And then pretty soon it was like, um, thank you. And you're like, okay, that kid's struggling. And then pretty soon we got to the kids who use the devices where it's like they're pressing the button, thank you, and everyone cheers. Lucas was the last one out of a lot of kids. And I remember just being like, Oh my god, what is our future gonna be like? And one of the things that had become a constant was this lack of knowing what Lucas does away from me, and to this day, it's still there, right? Lucas doesn't understand time. And if he does, I've never known how

Acceptance Means No Fake Narratives

James Guttman 7:40

to like figure out if he does or how to explain it or how to you know ask him point blank, do you understand this? Like, I've said this before. People go, Does he know it's his birthday? I don't know. I don't know if Lucas knows that we set certain days aside for a celebration, or if we just do them. I don't know if Lucas understands that if he goes to sleep and he wakes up in the morning, it's a new day. We call it something else. I don't know. How do you find that out? How do you ask him that? You know, Lucas, what day is it? He hasn't we don't do that. I'm still working on, you know, uh requesting food and things like that, and his emotions and his feelings, but these deep, nuanced ideas, like a lot of things don't really like register with Lucas, even like meeting people, right? Like if if I, you know, have a friend or whatever, if I'm dating someone and they're like, oh, you can meet Lucas. He doesn't get it, he doesn't think of life like that. He's not like, oh, this is my dad's, you know, girlfriend, or you know, people are married, or people are together. He doesn't think like that. He just likes people, says hello, moves on. He sees the world the way he sees it. And as his parent, it's my job to remember that. And I had somebody once, I'll tell you this story, talk about oh my god. Um, really, like sometimes we we meet people in life that when they find out you have a child like mine, they have all these opinions and all these things. Some people think they figured him out right away. I had this one person that's like, oh, he's scratching his head. He must have a little pain in his head. I'm like, he just does that. No, but I think he's I think he's trying to tell us something. He's like, Yeah, all right, thank you. There, you know, Cresskin, you just got here, and I know that it's not what that is. Um, but I told somebody once, I was like, yeah, he, you know, he can meet people, he doesn't really get it when it comes to like, you know, boyfriend, girlfriend, or things like that. And she was like, Oh, look at you, Mr. Autism Community. He doesn't get it. What does that mean? And I was like, hey, I gotta stop you for a second. And I'm only kidding. I don't know, I know you're only kidding, but you have to understand something. The fact that I do say that, and you guys have to know this too, the fact that I do say that is autism appreciation. I don't pretend with my son. I don't narrate him, I don't tell you he understands things that he doesn't, I don't project crushes on him that, you know, I want him to have. I tell you what his actions are, right? Like, for example, I talk all the time about the care manager that we have and how I think he likes her. And the reason why I think he likes her is when he gets up from the table every time he has to kiss her on the cheek, right? But I wouldn't just be like Lucas has a little crush on this, unless he was doing something like that. I watch, I observe, I tell you that. And that to me is the ultimate autism acceptance you can do. I don't have to pretend that Lucas is anything he's not. He's not telepathic, he's not an alien, he's not, you know, magic. Is his intuition better? Probably. Can he and I have, you know, a connection just with a glance or a look? Yeah. I get him. We have the same silly sense of humor where I'll just look at him, make a funny face, tickle him, he laughs, we laugh, he'll come over to me, he'll laugh, we'll laugh together. So I get him.

The Tap Test For Schoolwork

James Guttman 10:50

And because of that, and because of the observations, because of accepting what he's capable of and what he's not, it has allowed me to this day that while I can't know for sure what happens when I'm not around him, I am able to assess it a lot better. I talked about, and I want you guys to do this too, because this works for him, and I I love it. It's one of my favorite things. Maybe it'll work for you. Uh, they sent home art from school. Aid art, they call it, which means that the aide made it made this art, right? So you would get like a like a colored picture, and I'm like, my kid did not color this picture. And it's like some aide did it. And I'm like, I'm not gonna hang up art that someone else made. I appreciate them doing it, and thank you, but come on. But we didn't know it forever. Like, how do we know what he made? And you can guess, you can be like, oh, this is intricate. This is like a 3D printed tower, you know, versus whatever. But what I do is I show it to him. I go, Lucas, you make this. I hold it up. And if he made it, he'll tap it twice. If he didn't make it, he'll just stare at me. Like, oh I'm like, all right, buddy, in the trash. And that's how we know what he did. So things like that. You start to figure out. Um, but again, the fact that I don't assume that he makes everything. How could you say he didn't make it? He has his heart and everything. That's not autism friendly. It is autism-friendly because it means that I'm not pretending. I don't pretend anything with my kids, either one of them. I don't pretend. I love them for who they are. I accept, you know, his victories, I accept his, you know, downfalls. I have the same thing. I'm not perfect. You're not perfect. None of us are perfect. So why do we have to pretend that our kids are either all doom and gloom or all like, you know, these magical beings? Lucas is my son, he's my kid, he's my boy. He does mischievous things, he does sweet things, but he does everything. That's who he is. The only thing that separates him is he doesn't have words, and there are certain aspects of you know, the world that he doesn't fully get. And it's my job to understand that, and it's my job to bridge those gaps. And that's what the blog was

What Happened Before The Meltdown

James Guttman 12:45

about this week. How I do that, what we do. Uh and the most important thing that I did write in the blog is that when I send him off somewhere, whether it's school or a babysitter or a family member, and they come back to me with the story of a meltdown, which I rarely see here. I always ask, What happened before that? Oh, and you'll be surprised, man, because sometimes people will tell you about a quote unquote meltdown. And then once you start digging into what it is, you're like, oh, that doesn't sound like a meltdown. And then usually it happens at school all the time. They'll be like, Oh, we had a rough day. And I'll be like, what happened? And I'm like, freaking they're like, oh, no, it's all right, it's not a big deal. He was, I'm like, oh, okay. Because as a dad, I want to be on top of that. And I know that there's a lot of parents that they immediately get defensive. I don't get defensive. I don't, I don't make excuses for either one of my kids, right? If my daughter does something crappy, she did something crappy. You know, she gets in trouble at work or gets in trouble at school and she comes back to me with this happening. I go, What'd you do? And if it sounds like a terrible thing, I go, why would you do that? And I'll explain to her, you have to figure this out. This is your repercussions from it. Here's what you would I would do if I was you. But I don't call people up on the phone and be like, How dare you? I want to, but I can't do that, man. Otherwise, my kid's gonna be, you know, a little menace to society, both of them. So I do. I allow them to live and to learn and to understand. And my goal is just to know what happened to make things happen that way. Um, and it's important, man. I got this kid's back um and I want him to be the best person he can be. And that's what I did.

Gratitude And Where To Find Me

James Guttman 14:12

That's what I wrote about, and I appreciate you guys reading it. Hopefully, all these stories give you, you know, something to work with. Uh, whether you can relate to them, whether you can take a piece of them, whether it reminds you of something, or whether you just like the story. Either way, I love getting to tell you guys about our lives. I get I love getting to tell you guys about, you know, my kids, and I don't know. That's how happy we are. And I thank you for being here. I thank you for listening, I thank you for reading. And that does it for me. Do me a favor, hiblogomdad.com every Monday, hipodomdad.com every Friday. Uh, social media, hi James Gutman, H I James Gutman. I'm there everywhere. TikTok, Instagram, you name it. Thank you so much for following. Until next week. This is James Gutman saying, be well. Bye, Pod. I'm dad.