January 23, 2026 • 14 mins
This week’s episode builds on Monday’s blog about talking to my nonverbal son even when I didn’t know it mattered.
I reflect on trust, not just the trust my son has in me, but the trust I’ve learned to have in him. When Lucas was little, I assumed most of what I said wasn’t landing. He had significant delays, no words, and very little visible response. It would have been easy to stop talking.
Instead, I kept going.
I share how bedtime was the first concept Lucas ever truly understood and how something as simple as him running and hiding changed the way I viewed his comprehension entirely. Not because he followed instructions, but because he understood meaning.
This episode isn’t about drills, milestones, or breakthroughs. It’s about repetition, familiarity, tone, and learning to trust that understanding can form quietly over time. It’s about believing that a child is always trying — even when you can’t see the results yet.
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.
Follow Us On TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
Also, be sure to read the blog that started it all - Hi Blog! I'm Dad.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Guttman (00:00):
Hi Pod, it's James Guttman, the host of HiPod
I'm Dad, and the writer behindHiblogIm Dad.com.
Thank you for joining us herewherever you found us.
I appreciate it.
Um, it has been a week oftrust.
Talking about trust, talkingabout how it affects my life,
raising a nonverbal son at 14years old.
(00:20):
And I've for years talked abouthow trust is the most important
thing I ever had to teach thiskid.
Because it goes back to everysingle thing that we do.
It goes back to uh why helistens to me.
It goes back to me kind ofbelieving in him.
And it definitely cuts bothways.
If you guys remember, uh,hopefully, last week I talked
(00:41):
about this and I wrote about it.
I had a really rough morningwith him.
And that morning was reallybuilt on the fact that 90% of
our time together is spent withme marveling at this boy, amazed
at what he's learned and howhe's grown.
And every once in a while,something will happen that will
(01:01):
knock me back down a few pegswhere I go, oh, I forgot.
There are certain things hedoesn't get, or certain things
he will forget or not rememberto do.
And it could be depressing, itcould be worrisome.
And that was what I wentthrough last week.
But there are, on the flipside, many times where I'm
shocked at the things that hecan learn and things that he can
(01:24):
do.
Now it started out early,right?
Everyone who sees me and Lucastoday, and I talk about him and
I post these videos and thesepictures and things like that,
people know the relationship wehave.
But when Lucas was first born,and when he was young and
experiencing signs of kind ofextreme delays, it scared the
hell out of me.
It started when he was tiny.
(01:44):
He didn't do tummy timecorrectly, you know, and I had
just had his sister a little uha little less than three years
before that.
So I knew what tummy time wassupposed to look like.
It was so cute.
She would hold up her handslike a push-up, and her her big
head would kind of flop around,and she would make these sounds,
these baby sounds of struggle,and it was like, I don't know,
it's like a little bodybuilder.
(02:04):
It was really like, ah uh andI'd laugh and we'd video it and
we loved it.
And Lucas, Lucas didn't dothat.
Lucas didn't put his handsdown, Lucas couldn't lift his
head up.
Making it worse is he wouldturn his head and he would end
up with a face full of carpet.
Now I'm concerned he's gonnakill himself.
So every day I'm flipping hisface over and I'm trying to save
him.
And I'd say to him, like,Lucas, I'm saving your life
(02:26):
every day.
And from that point on, it wasdelays, delays, delays.
We got them right off the bat.
He didn't sit up like everyoneelse did, he didn't crawl like
everyone else did, he didn'twalk like everyone else did.
Everything was on a deferredtimeline, which in many ways
kind of threw off my belief ofwhen he would talk.
My thought was all right, he'sa little late in walking, he's a
(02:48):
little late in crawling, he's alittle late in sitting up.
He'll be a little late with hiswords.
He um he never had words.
And we waited so long for it tohappen.
And if you had told me thenthat he would ever understand
things, I wouldn't even knowhow.
Because I genuinely felt,especially when he was little,
that I was never going to beable to build this bridge to
(03:10):
him.
I would love him, I would showhim love, he would be my guy,
he'd be my little bundle ofLucas, but I don't know.
I gave up on it.
He's not gonna know who I am,he's not gonna know these
different things.
And we had issues where peoplewould come into the house.
There was a speech teacher.
I've talked about her adnauseum.
She maybe did like a month ortwo worth of lessons and she was
(03:30):
awful.
But she would point out, she'slike, he doesn't even look up
when you come in the room.
It was like, Lady, are you newat this?
It was like the worst thing tosay to a young parent.
And it concerned me.
I was worried all the timeabout it.
But I discovered something,right?
And this is something that wasimportant to me then, something
that's important to otherparents in that position.
(03:50):
I didn't have to teach himcertain things.
Certain concepts, he just knew.
And when I say concepts, I meanconcepts.
I'm not even talking about, youknow, trigger words or
keywords, which we've had that,right?
Where I go, Luke, do you wantto eat?
You know, and I do that with myhands and the whole thing.
The first, one of the firstthings, and I realized that this
week because I forget, youknow, like I remember a lot.
(04:12):
I have a weird memory where Iretain a lot of past stories and
information in my brain, butthere's certain things I don't
remember.
And I went back and I'm lookingat old videos and old pictures,
and I found this video that Iposted on my personal uh page.
If you guys want to check itout on Instagram, hi James
Gutman.
Every Wednesday I try to post avideo, and I posted a video of
(04:32):
when Lucas understood whatbedtime meant.
And he would run and hide.
It was the cutest thing.
He would hide behind the TV.
If he had nowhere to run to, hewould just put his hand up in
front of his face so he couldn'tsee you.
And he was tiny.
He was at an age where hewasn't understanding anything.
And he understood what bedtimemeant.
And when I say bedtime, I meanyou didn't even have to say
(04:54):
bedtime.
You didn't even have to say,let's go upstairs.
All you had to do was put yourhand out and say, Come on,
Lucas, let's go.
And he knew based on the time,based on what we did that it was
time for bed, and he would runand hide.
And I would laugh so hard.
I thought it was the cutest,funniest thing because here was
this kid that in my brain was ina different world than me.
I didn't know what he wasdoing.
(05:15):
Even after I started going intohis world, and I've written
about that the first time whereI sat down next to him and I
played with his toys the way hewas playing with them, instead
of correcting him, and we kindof bonded over it.
I still felt like he was in hisworld, and it was my job to go
into his world because he wasn'tgoing to figure out how to come
into mine.
And here he was doing it.
Here he was understanding, herehe was interacting, and I was
(05:39):
so proud of him.
And watching that video, I meanit just fills my heart because
I remember, and if you hear melaughing, and I'm laughing in
the video, I'm loving it,because it was adorable.
So that was it.
It wasn't like I didn't have tosay go to sleep.
I didn't have to say it was theconcept, it was the idea of
what bedtime meant.
And what was it?
I don't know.
Was it the repetition?
Was it bringing him up, gettinghim ready, reading him stories?
(06:00):
I've read both of my kids'stories before bed every night,
when he was little, when mydaughter was little, even to
this day.
We don't do it every night, butsome days Lucas will let me sit
next to him and read him one ofthese stories that I've read
him since he was a baby.
And he loves it.
Uh he lets me do it.
And I appreciate that.
And that's one of the fringebenefits, guys.
I know a lot of times people,especially if you have a kid
(06:23):
like mine, non-verbal, 14 yearsold, they like to harp on what
the negatives are.
And look, I'm not here topretend there's no negatives.
In fact, the whole idea behindautism appreciation is
acknowledging the negatives thatcome with raising a child who
is nonverbal or has severeautism.
I don't pretend they don'texist.
The fact that they exist andyou can still see the positivity
(06:46):
in raising a kid like mine iswhat makes it so beautiful.
The idea that the things I dofor Lucas are abundant and
there's a lot.
But the joy he brings into mylife just by being him, just by
letting me view how he sees theworld is beautiful.
And that to me is what autismappreciation is.
The fact that you canappreciate something that most
(07:06):
people only see the hardships ofis what makes it so special.
And that's what I have withLucas.
I see the beauty of it.
So I don't pretend that thereare no negative things to it,
but there are positives, right?
My son lets me read himstories.
My son will sit with me and youknow, I'll watch TV and he'll
sit next to me.
He doesn't want to leave myside.
He gives me hugs, he gives mekisses, he sits on my lap.
(07:28):
It's nice, man.
And that's the only son I'veever known, right?
Anyone who sees it and they go,Oh, like I don't have your son,
right?
I don't know.
Like you're thinking a lot ofpeople who don't have a kid like
Lucas see him and they think,oh, this poor dad is missing out
on what I have with my son.
And I'm thinking, you'remissing out on what I have with
my son, right?
(07:49):
So I love this kid and I'mhappy with him and all that
we've done.
But building that bridge in thebeginning, I don't know what
did it.
And that's what's importantabout trust, right?
We always talk about trust,having Lucas trust me and how
important it is.
(08:09):
And I've talked about this andand how he has to trust that I'm
actually cooking his food whenI tell him I will.
The fact that he has to trustthat I understand what he wants
and he does, and it makes it somuch easier.
If he comes into the room andhe wants to eat, there was a
time where I couldn't shoo himaway because he would freak out
thinking he wasn't gonna getwhat he wants, but now he knows
he gets it, you know, turningaround and being like, Lucas,
(08:30):
just go.
I got you, I'll make you food.
And he knows and he leaves, andit makes me happy.
But there's the trust that Ihave in him that he's picking up
concepts, that he's pickingthings up from me, right?
I don't know at what point mydaughter, who is neurotypical,
(08:51):
17 years old, I don't know atwhat point she understood what
the word is meant.
I don't know at what point sheunderstood what certain concepts
meant.
In fact, I'll tell you, I'lltell you a quick story, and this
one cracks me up.
There's a word that I use fromprofessional wrestling called
work.
Everybody that I know knowsthis word.
Work is pretty much like ascam, right?
Like if if a company says we'rehaving a 50% off sale, but they
(09:14):
raise the prices double rightbeforehand, that's a work.
They're working you.
And when Olivia was little, Inever used this phrase really
around her.
She wanted a babysitter.
She was, you should go out, geta babysitter.
You just want to work thebabysitter.
And she looked at me with thislook of like offended disgust.
And she goes, I'm not gonnawork the babysitter.
(09:34):
And I remember laughing outloud, thinking, how does she
know what that means?
I don't know, man.
She picks it up, sheunderstood, she got the context
of it.
And it was the same thing withLucas.
That whole idea of sending himto bed, it's time to go to bed.
He ran around and he hid behindthe tele.
He was the cutest thing, but hewasn't following instructions.
He was reacting to the meaningof what was happening.
(09:57):
It shows that there wasanticipation, it showed his
preference, it showed anunderstanding that I didn't know
he had.
And at the time I wasn't indenial.
I knew that there were certainthings that he couldn't pick up.
In fact, I was assuming thatmost of the things I was saying
weren't even landing.
I was just saying it.
(10:18):
I was just talking out loud,and to this day I still do it.
We'll be in the car and I'lltalk to him.
Hey, Lucas, look at that store,and then the place is closed,
and that's the bank we used togo to.
Does he care?
I don't know.
Is he picking some of it up?
Yeah.
Do I know what?
No.
And that's kind of one of thebeautiful things about my son
and the autism appreciation isthe fact that moments like that
(10:41):
can surprise you.
And I've written, you know, andI wrote on Monday.
Again, this podcast today iskind of it's a part of Monday,
just expanding on Monday's uhpost a little bit.
But that first day where wewere in his room and he was
getting ready for school, and Ikind of just mumbled under my
breath.
I'm like, all right, look,let's go.
Wash your hands, we'll get youready.
(11:01):
I just said it.
I didn't enunciate it.
I didn't turn around.
We're gonna wash hands.
I didn't do like a wholepantomime thing.
Told him we're gonna wash hishands just as an aside.
And he went into the bathroomand he stood there and he waited
for me.
And I was amazed.
I'm like, oh my god.
All right, cool, cool.
Let's do it.
And that's why it's soimportant to talk and talk and
(11:25):
talk.
Show them what's needed.
Any kid you have, you know, wedo it with kids who are verbal,
nonverbal kids pick it up too.
You can never assume anything,and I never assumed what he did
or didn't know.
And because of that, I feellike we've grown.
He's grown as a human being.
He understands things more,he's more likely to kind of get
(11:47):
it.
So today we talk, we go overall these things, and it's
always been natural, right?
It's not about drills, it'sabout tone, it's about
repetition, it's aboutfamiliarity, you know.
So yeah, man, kids can trusttheir parents, and that's great.
But I learned to trust him.
I trust that he's alwaystrying.
(12:09):
And that's why when I havethose hard mornings like I had
last week, I wasn't mad at him.
I didn't freak out, I didn'tyell at him.
There was no lectures about bigboys do this and what do you
do?
Nah, man.
I know he's trying his bestbecause he's shown me every step
of the way.
Now, does he slip?
Yeah.
Are those slips sometimesgigantic in nature?
(12:31):
Yeah.
Will they rock me to my core?
Yeah.
But just like he trusts me, Itrust him.
And I trust that what he canunderstand, he will understand.
What he can retain, he willretain.
And it's important for me tokeep doing that and keep working
on it.
I mean, there's no lesson I canoffer you guys other than to
(12:53):
talk to your kids.
I don't know what's going toland today.
I don't know what's going toland tomorrow.
Most of the things I tell himmight never stick, but
intermixed in all of that arethings that he'll get, concepts
he'll understand.
I just don't know what theyare.
So I never stop.
And I'm cool with it.
I'm cool about not knowing whatthe timeline is going to be.
I'm okay with, you know, notfeeling like I'm wasting my
(13:16):
time.
Talking to my son is neverwasting my time.
I'm building a bond with him.
I'm showing him he can trustme.
And I'm putting enough wordsout there that we could see
maybe he could surprise me.
Maybe there's a concept that'sready to be understood that I
haven't even thought about yet.
The only way to find out is toput it out there.
And that's what I do.
And that's why I love him.
(13:39):
That's why we trust each other.
That's why he knows I have hisback, and that's why I know he's
gonna do the best he can.
No matter what that means.
I'm lucky.
I'm really lucky to have thesekids.
Both of them.
I think anyone listening tothis knows that being a parent
is hard.
But I don't know.
(14:00):
I wouldn't trade it foranything.
That does it for me.
See you guys next week.
Be well.
Bye bye.
Hi Pod, it's James Guttman, the host of HiPod
I'm Dad, and the writer behindHiblogIm Dad.com.
Thank you for joining us herewherever you found us.
I appreciate it.
Um, it has been a week oftrust.
Talking about trust, talkingabout how it affects my life,
raising a nonverbal son at 14years old.
(00:20):
And I've for years talked abouthow trust is the most important
thing I ever had to teach thiskid.
Because it goes back to everysingle thing that we do.
It goes back to uh why helistens to me.
It goes back to me kind ofbelieving in him.
And it definitely cuts bothways.
If you guys remember, uh,hopefully, last week I talked
(00:41):
about this and I wrote about it.
I had a really rough morningwith him.
And that morning was reallybuilt on the fact that 90% of
our time together is spent withme marveling at this boy, amazed
at what he's learned and howhe's grown.
And every once in a while,something will happen that will
(01:01):
knock me back down a few pegswhere I go, oh, I forgot.
There are certain things hedoesn't get, or certain things
he will forget or not rememberto do.
And it could be depressing, itcould be worrisome.
And that was what I wentthrough last week.
But there are, on the flipside, many times where I'm
shocked at the things that hecan learn and things that he can
(01:24):
do.
Now it started out early,right?
Everyone who sees me and Lucastoday, and I talk about him and
I post these videos and thesepictures and things like that,
people know the relationship wehave.
But when Lucas was first born,and when he was young and
experiencing signs of kind ofextreme delays, it scared the
hell out of me.
It started when he was tiny.
(01:44):
He didn't do tummy timecorrectly, you know, and I had
just had his sister a little uha little less than three years
before that.
So I knew what tummy time wassupposed to look like.
It was so cute.
She would hold up her handslike a push-up, and her her big
head would kind of flop around,and she would make these sounds,
these baby sounds of struggle,and it was like, I don't know,
it's like a little bodybuilder.
(02:04):
It was really like, ah uh andI'd laugh and we'd video it and
we loved it.
And Lucas, Lucas didn't dothat.
Lucas didn't put his handsdown, Lucas couldn't lift his
head up.
Making it worse is he wouldturn his head and he would end
up with a face full of carpet.
Now I'm concerned he's gonnakill himself.
So every day I'm flipping hisface over and I'm trying to save
him.
And I'd say to him, like,Lucas, I'm saving your life
(02:26):
every day.
And from that point on, it wasdelays, delays, delays.
We got them right off the bat.
He didn't sit up like everyoneelse did, he didn't crawl like
everyone else did, he didn'twalk like everyone else did.
Everything was on a deferredtimeline, which in many ways
kind of threw off my belief ofwhen he would talk.
My thought was all right, he'sa little late in walking, he's a
(02:48):
little late in crawling, he's alittle late in sitting up.
He'll be a little late with hiswords.
He um he never had words.
And we waited so long for it tohappen.
And if you had told me thenthat he would ever understand
things, I wouldn't even knowhow.
Because I genuinely felt,especially when he was little,
that I was never going to beable to build this bridge to
(03:10):
him.
I would love him, I would showhim love, he would be my guy,
he'd be my little bundle ofLucas, but I don't know.
I gave up on it.
He's not gonna know who I am,he's not gonna know these
different things.
And we had issues where peoplewould come into the house.
There was a speech teacher.
I've talked about her adnauseum.
She maybe did like a month ortwo worth of lessons and she was
(03:30):
awful.
But she would point out, she'slike, he doesn't even look up
when you come in the room.
It was like, Lady, are you newat this?
It was like the worst thing tosay to a young parent.
And it concerned me.
I was worried all the timeabout it.
But I discovered something,right?
And this is something that wasimportant to me then, something
that's important to otherparents in that position.
(03:50):
I didn't have to teach himcertain things.
Certain concepts, he just knew.
And when I say concepts, I meanconcepts.
I'm not even talking about, youknow, trigger words or
keywords, which we've had that,right?
Where I go, Luke, do you wantto eat?
You know, and I do that with myhands and the whole thing.
The first, one of the firstthings, and I realized that this
week because I forget, youknow, like I remember a lot.
(04:12):
I have a weird memory where Iretain a lot of past stories and
information in my brain, butthere's certain things I don't
remember.
And I went back and I'm lookingat old videos and old pictures,
and I found this video that Iposted on my personal uh page.
If you guys want to check itout on Instagram, hi James
Gutman.
Every Wednesday I try to post avideo, and I posted a video of
(04:32):
when Lucas understood whatbedtime meant.
And he would run and hide.
It was the cutest thing.
He would hide behind the TV.
If he had nowhere to run to, hewould just put his hand up in
front of his face so he couldn'tsee you.
And he was tiny.
He was at an age where hewasn't understanding anything.
And he understood what bedtimemeant.
And when I say bedtime, I meanyou didn't even have to say
(04:54):
bedtime.
You didn't even have to say,let's go upstairs.
All you had to do was put yourhand out and say, Come on,
Lucas, let's go.
And he knew based on the time,based on what we did that it was
time for bed, and he would runand hide.
And I would laugh so hard.
I thought it was the cutest,funniest thing because here was
this kid that in my brain was ina different world than me.
I didn't know what he wasdoing.
(05:15):
Even after I started going intohis world, and I've written
about that the first time whereI sat down next to him and I
played with his toys the way hewas playing with them, instead
of correcting him, and we kindof bonded over it.
I still felt like he was in hisworld, and it was my job to go
into his world because he wasn'tgoing to figure out how to come
into mine.
And here he was doing it.
Here he was understanding, herehe was interacting, and I was
(05:39):
so proud of him.
And watching that video, I meanit just fills my heart because
I remember, and if you hear melaughing, and I'm laughing in
the video, I'm loving it,because it was adorable.
So that was it.
It wasn't like I didn't have tosay go to sleep.
I didn't have to say it was theconcept, it was the idea of
what bedtime meant.
And what was it?
I don't know.
Was it the repetition?
Was it bringing him up, gettinghim ready, reading him stories?
(06:00):
I've read both of my kids'stories before bed every night,
when he was little, when mydaughter was little, even to
this day.
We don't do it every night, butsome days Lucas will let me sit
next to him and read him one ofthese stories that I've read
him since he was a baby.
And he loves it.
Uh he lets me do it.
And I appreciate that.
And that's one of the fringebenefits, guys.
I know a lot of times people,especially if you have a kid
(06:23):
like mine, non-verbal, 14 yearsold, they like to harp on what
the negatives are.
And look, I'm not here topretend there's no negatives.
In fact, the whole idea behindautism appreciation is
acknowledging the negatives thatcome with raising a child who
is nonverbal or has severeautism.
I don't pretend they don'texist.
The fact that they exist andyou can still see the positivity
(06:46):
in raising a kid like mine iswhat makes it so beautiful.
The idea that the things I dofor Lucas are abundant and
there's a lot.
But the joy he brings into mylife just by being him, just by
letting me view how he sees theworld is beautiful.
And that to me is what autismappreciation is.
The fact that you canappreciate something that most
(07:06):
people only see the hardships ofis what makes it so special.
And that's what I have withLucas.
I see the beauty of it.
So I don't pretend that thereare no negative things to it,
but there are positives, right?
My son lets me read himstories.
My son will sit with me and youknow, I'll watch TV and he'll
sit next to me.
He doesn't want to leave myside.
He gives me hugs, he gives mekisses, he sits on my lap.
(07:28):
It's nice, man.
And that's the only son I'veever known, right?
Anyone who sees it and they go,Oh, like I don't have your son,
right?
I don't know.
Like you're thinking a lot ofpeople who don't have a kid like
Lucas see him and they think,oh, this poor dad is missing out
on what I have with my son.
And I'm thinking, you'remissing out on what I have with
my son, right?
(07:49):
So I love this kid and I'mhappy with him and all that
we've done.
But building that bridge in thebeginning, I don't know what
did it.
And that's what's importantabout trust, right?
We always talk about trust,having Lucas trust me and how
important it is.
(08:09):
And I've talked about this andand how he has to trust that I'm
actually cooking his food whenI tell him I will.
The fact that he has to trustthat I understand what he wants
and he does, and it makes it somuch easier.
If he comes into the room andhe wants to eat, there was a
time where I couldn't shoo himaway because he would freak out
thinking he wasn't gonna getwhat he wants, but now he knows
he gets it, you know, turningaround and being like, Lucas,
(08:30):
just go.
I got you, I'll make you food.
And he knows and he leaves, andit makes me happy.
But there's the trust that Ihave in him that he's picking up
concepts, that he's pickingthings up from me, right?
I don't know at what point mydaughter, who is neurotypical,
(08:51):
17 years old, I don't know atwhat point she understood what
the word is meant.
I don't know at what point sheunderstood what certain concepts
meant.
In fact, I'll tell you, I'lltell you a quick story, and this
one cracks me up.
There's a word that I use fromprofessional wrestling called
work.
Everybody that I know knowsthis word.
Work is pretty much like ascam, right?
Like if if a company says we'rehaving a 50% off sale, but they
(09:14):
raise the prices double rightbeforehand, that's a work.
They're working you.
And when Olivia was little, Inever used this phrase really
around her.
She wanted a babysitter.
She was, you should go out, geta babysitter.
You just want to work thebabysitter.
And she looked at me with thislook of like offended disgust.
And she goes, I'm not gonnawork the babysitter.
(09:34):
And I remember laughing outloud, thinking, how does she
know what that means?
I don't know, man.
She picks it up, sheunderstood, she got the context
of it.
And it was the same thing withLucas.
That whole idea of sending himto bed, it's time to go to bed.
He ran around and he hid behindthe tele.
He was the cutest thing, but hewasn't following instructions.
He was reacting to the meaningof what was happening.
(09:57):
It shows that there wasanticipation, it showed his
preference, it showed anunderstanding that I didn't know
he had.
And at the time I wasn't indenial.
I knew that there were certainthings that he couldn't pick up.
In fact, I was assuming thatmost of the things I was saying
weren't even landing.
I was just saying it.
(10:18):
I was just talking out loud,and to this day I still do it.
We'll be in the car and I'lltalk to him.
Hey, Lucas, look at that store,and then the place is closed,
and that's the bank we used togo to.
Does he care?
I don't know.
Is he picking some of it up?
Yeah.
Do I know what?
No.
And that's kind of one of thebeautiful things about my son
and the autism appreciation isthe fact that moments like that
(10:41):
can surprise you.
And I've written, you know, andI wrote on Monday.
Again, this podcast today iskind of it's a part of Monday,
just expanding on Monday's uhpost a little bit.
But that first day where wewere in his room and he was
getting ready for school, and Ikind of just mumbled under my
breath.
I'm like, all right, look,let's go.
Wash your hands, we'll get youready.
(11:01):
I just said it.
I didn't enunciate it.
I didn't turn around.
We're gonna wash hands.
I didn't do like a wholepantomime thing.
Told him we're gonna wash hishands just as an aside.
And he went into the bathroomand he stood there and he waited
for me.
And I was amazed.
I'm like, oh my god.
All right, cool, cool.
Let's do it.
And that's why it's soimportant to talk and talk and
(11:25):
talk.
Show them what's needed.
Any kid you have, you know, wedo it with kids who are verbal,
nonverbal kids pick it up too.
You can never assume anything,and I never assumed what he did
or didn't know.
And because of that, I feellike we've grown.
He's grown as a human being.
He understands things more,he's more likely to kind of get
(11:47):
it.
So today we talk, we go overall these things, and it's
always been natural, right?
It's not about drills, it'sabout tone, it's about
repetition, it's aboutfamiliarity, you know.
So yeah, man, kids can trusttheir parents, and that's great.
But I learned to trust him.
I trust that he's alwaystrying.
(12:09):
And that's why when I havethose hard mornings like I had
last week, I wasn't mad at him.
I didn't freak out, I didn'tyell at him.
There was no lectures about bigboys do this and what do you
do?
Nah, man.
I know he's trying his bestbecause he's shown me every step
of the way.
Now, does he slip?
Yeah.
Are those slips sometimesgigantic in nature?
(12:31):
Yeah.
Will they rock me to my core?
Yeah.
But just like he trusts me, Itrust him.
And I trust that what he canunderstand, he will understand.
What he can retain, he willretain.
And it's important for me tokeep doing that and keep working
on it.
I mean, there's no lesson I canoffer you guys other than to
(12:53):
talk to your kids.
I don't know what's going toland today.
I don't know what's going toland tomorrow.
Most of the things I tell himmight never stick, but
intermixed in all of that arethings that he'll get, concepts
he'll understand.
I just don't know what theyare.
So I never stop.
And I'm cool with it.
I'm cool about not knowing whatthe timeline is going to be.
I'm okay with, you know, notfeeling like I'm wasting my
(13:16):
time.
Talking to my son is neverwasting my time.
I'm building a bond with him.
I'm showing him he can trustme.
And I'm putting enough wordsout there that we could see
maybe he could surprise me.
Maybe there's a concept that'sready to be understood that I
haven't even thought about yet.
The only way to find out is toput it out there.
And that's what I do.
And that's why I love him.
(13:39):
That's why we trust each other.
That's why he knows I have hisback, and that's why I know he's
gonna do the best he can.
No matter what that means.
I'm lucky.
I'm really lucky to have thesekids.
Both of them.
I think anyone listening tothis knows that being a parent
is hard.
But I don't know.
(14:00):
I wouldn't trade it foranything.
That does it for me.
See you guys next week.
Be well.
Bye bye.
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