I Thought I Was Helping. I Wasn’t Listening.

I used to think being helpful meant being loud. That if I could just explain things clearly enough, I could turn frustration into understanding. But I wasn’t helping. I was trying to rescue myself from the discomfort of not being understood.

In this episode, I talk about how that instinct followed me into parenting, how it nearly cost me the connection I was trying to protect, and how my son Lucas taught me that trust doesn’t come from clarity. It comes from staying.

This isn’t about techniques or fixes. It’s about presence. It’s about learning when to put things down, stop performing understanding, and actually listen.

It's Here! Get the book – “Hi World, I’m Dad: How Fathers Can Journey to Autism Awareness, Acceptance, and Appreciation” on audio, digital, or print.

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Also, be sure to read the blog that started it all - Hi Blog! I'm Dad.

Episode Transcript

James Guttman (00:00):
I used to think that being helpful meant being
loud.
Like if I could just explainthings clearly enough, then
maybe I could turn thisfrustration into understanding.
I could help everybody, changethe world.
But I wasn't helping.
What I was really doing was Iwas trying to rescue myself from
the discomfort of not beingmisunderstood.

(00:21):
That was my big issue forever.
I feared not being understood.
It plays a part in everything Ido.
It plays a part in my writing.
It plays a part in myinteractions with people.
And it played a part in myparenting.
It was something that I hadalways put on myself because in
my head, like all of us, Ibelieve that my ideas and my

(00:46):
intent is pure and real andgood.
And I can help others see theright way to do things.
Who wouldn't want to do thingsin a better way?
Who wouldn't want to be abetter person?
Who wouldn't want to learn andchange and evolve and find the
light at the end of the tunneland the rainbow or whatnot,

(01:07):
whatever you want to attributeyour uh your little slogans to?
I had the answers.
It made sense to me.
But what I didn't realize wasthat I was trying to solve my
way out of my own discomfort.
I didn't feel right with whatwas happening, and my idea was

(01:28):
to change others to make thatbetter.
Even if I felt it was apositive, it was about me.
It had always been about me.
Fixing was about me.
It wasn't about them.
It was about how I felt in thatroom.
I couldn't get it.

(01:48):
I couldn't understand it.
So many people, and I've I'vetalked about, you know, whether
it's past relationships orfriendships or family or people
close to me.
I was coming from a good place.
And I knew how to make itbetter.
And then I met Lucas.
Lucas is my son.

(02:09):
Today he is 14 years old.
He has never said his firstword.
He has what many call severeautism, profound autism,
whatever label you want to puton it.
He is one of my favorite peoplein the entire world.
But when he was little, when hewas a toddler, a preschooler, I

(02:32):
was terrified.
Truth be told, hands of God,cards on the table, again, any
slogan you want to grab.
I needed to fix what Iperceived to be wrong with my
son.
Every minute that I wasn'tfixing him was a minute that I
was wasting.
Every moment that he playedwith a toy wrong, every stimming

(02:55):
noise that he made, every wordhe didn't say was a strike
against me.
It was something that I blamemyself for, something I beat
myself up over, things that keptme up at night, and things that
tormented me during the day.
I couldn't grasp the idea ofallowing my son to live a life

(03:18):
where he wasn't the best, in myopinion, that he could be.
I learned over time that he wasbeing the best he could be.
But at that time, I had noidea.
I didn't know who he was.
Think back, when we havetoddlers, when we have young
children, we don't know who thatperson is.

(03:39):
We just know what we think isthe best for them.
This is how we learn, this iswhat we do.
I've talked so much about thatfirst time that I sat with him
and I went into his world and Iplayed with the toys the way he
was playing with them.
But there were so many timeswhere I didn't.
A lot of times I would sit downand try to correct what he was

(04:03):
doing.
I posted a video recently on mypersonal social media.
Publicly available.
You can see it.
It wasn't mean, it wasn't, Iwasn't yelling at him, I wasn't
mad at him, but I was trying toredirect him constantly.
Say dad da, say dad, dad,that's not what you say.
Say dad da.
And he was making the samestimming noises then that he

(04:24):
makes now that we laugh aboutand I tickle him over.
But at the time I didn't getit.
And I would try to correct him,right?
So for this story, thisbeautiful story about sitting
down next to him and playingwith this toy telephone car the
way he was and seeing the lookon his face when he realized
that I was, you know, bondingwith him.
There are so many storiesbefore that where I didn't do

(04:46):
that.
Times where I went over to himand I went to correct him with
that very same toy, Lucas.
What are you doing?
That's not how we play.
Hello, ring ring.
That's how you use your phone.
What are you doing?
And I realized that I wasn'tresponding to him.
He wasn't listening.
He wasn't watching.

(05:08):
I was rescuing myself from thatworry, from that concern, from
that belief that as a dad, I hadto fix everything.
And what I learned was that hedidn't need better instructions.
He needed me to notice when hehad already left the moment.
He wasn't listening, he wasn'ttaking it in, he wasn't

(05:30):
learning, he wasn't he wasn't apart of this lesson anymore.
So here I was preaching to noone about something that didn't
affect anyone but me.
I thought I was teaching himhow to play, but I was really
teaching was that I wasn't evenlistening.
I didn't listen to him, Ididn't pay attention to him, I

(05:54):
didn't understand him.
And I was trying to make him dothe same for me.
How fair is that?
How does that make sense?
In the end, trust didn't comefrom clarity with Lucas.
It came from staying.
It came from watching.
It came from observing him andunderstanding him and making the

(06:17):
attempt instead of showing himthe right way to do things, for
me to learn the Lucas way ofdoing things.
I said earlier I wanted him tobe the best he could be.
But there was no way for me toknow what the best he could be
was if I didn't know who he was.
And if every single time he didsomething differently than I
believed he should, and I wentover and I tried to show him,

(06:38):
this is what we do, buddy.
What are you doing?
Look at me, what are you doing?
I was losing that bond.
I was losing that grip.
I was losing his attention andI was losing his trust.
In the end, the wholebreakthrough wasn't words and it
wasn't communication.

(06:59):
It was connection.
It was that story that I toldyou the first time I sat down
with him and I played toys theway he wanted to play them, and
he appreciated it.
That was the day that he and Ikind of became a team.
He believed in me and he knewthat I believed in him, or at
the very least, that Iunderstood him.
And I was the one person whowasn't going to try to make him

(07:21):
change and make him bedifferent.
The second I stopped trying tobe right, he started feeling
safe with me.
I recognized that.
And at a time when we had nobond, we had no true, like full
understanding of one another,that was a moment that connected

(07:42):
us and has kept us connectedsince.
We've built on it and built onit.
I've seen that same look inadults, right?
The one that I saw in Lucas.
I said before, this issomething I've been through a
million times.
It's a mistake that I've made amillion times.
And as I sit heresanctimoniously telling you the

(08:02):
stories and what I did withLucas, I got it, but trust me,
we make these mistakes everyday.
I've made them recently, you'vemade them recently.
We all make them.
Not seeing fully who we'retalking to, not understanding
what they're thinking.
And the same look that Lucashad is the same look I've seen
on others, and it's the look ofsomeone who realizes you're

(08:23):
talking, but you're not talkingwith them.
You're just talking out loud.
You're trying to fix asituation you don't feel good
about simply because you don'tfeel good about it.
And once you recognize thatmoment, you can't unsee it.
It changes everything.
It makes you realize thatyou're not only wasting time,

(08:46):
wasting breath, wasting energy,but you're wasting opportunity.
Opportunity to either knowsomebody or move on from
something or reward yourself.
Sometimes the best thing thatyou can do is let it go.
You'll spend your whole lifetrying to make someone else

(09:06):
perfect when their definition ofperfection isn't even yours.
The best version of my son thathe can be is the version that
he is today.
And the version that he istoday looks nothing like what I
expected it to look like when hewas two years old.
If I could go back in time andtalk to myself back in 2013 or

(09:29):
14 and say, hey, I'm you fromthe future, everything's great.
I'd say, oh, does Lucas talk?
No.
Does he do this?
Does he do that?
No, no.
I would be so sad.
And the reason why is because Ididn't know who he was then.
And my idea of who he should beand how I could fix him was

(09:50):
very different than what Ireally needed to do.
Today is perfect because I havea bond with my son, unlike any
relationship I have with anyone.
I love this kid to the moon andback, just like his sister.
He doesn't have to talk, hedoesn't have to make me cards in
school, he doesn't have to winthe little league, he doesn't

(10:11):
have to do anything but behimself.
I know that now, and honest toGod, I knew it deep down then.
All I had to do was put thingsdown, let it go, and remember
who I was talking to.
This was my boy.
He was being himself, he washappy, he was content.

(10:35):
I was the one who needed to sitback and allow him to be.
Staying is harder than fixing,but it's the only place that
trust ever forms.
I'm James Guttman.
I write at HiBlogImDad.com andI host HiPod I'm Dad.
And this was just something Ineeded to learn out loud.