What My Nonverbal Son Taught Me About Trust at 4 AM

This week, I’m talking about trust.

Not just the trust we work to earn from our nonverbal kids, but the trust they place in us every day, often without us realizing it.

It starts in the middle of the night, when my 14-year-old son Lucas wakes me up the way he always does. What I walked into wasn’t the part that stayed with me. What stayed with me was how easily he trusted me when I told him what to do, even when he didn’t fully understand why.

In this episode, I reflect on the responsibility that comes with being someone your child trusts unconditionally, and why autism appreciation means acknowledging both the weight and the beauty of that role.

This isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about showing up.

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.

Episode Transcript

James Guttman (00:01):
I'm Dad.
And there's the intro, folks.
It's James Guttman, HiPodImDad.
I am the host of Hi Pod I'mDad.
I am the dad behind HiblogImDad.com.
I am up.
It is early here this week.
My sleep habits have been kindof crazy.
It all ties in.
I've been on a fitness kicksince the start of the year,

(00:23):
kind of some New Year'sresolution.
So three o'clock in themorning, my brain will be like,
wake up, eat some Greek yogurtwith blueberries.
I don't want an amup.
It seems like the only timethat I am asleep is when my son,
uh Lucas, is up in the middleof the night, banging on his
gate, trying to get myattention.
I wrote about it this week, andI'll tell you why.
And I've written in the pastabout Lucas's middle of the

(00:47):
night escapades.
My son, as you guys know, 14years old, he's non-verbal, so
he doesn't have the ability toreally call out to me with any
meaningful information.
There's no, hey, can I havesome water?
And then he said, Oh, you don'tneed water.
It's always a banging on thegate, which means that I have to
see him, physically see him, toknow what he wants, right?

(01:07):
Uh and this will happenwherever you are.
He'll go into his room andclose his own gate.
As I've mentioned before,people hear gate and they go, he
has a gate.
He does, he has a gate.
He's had it since he was ababy, um, right on the door,
like a like a baby door.
But he likes it.
Like he goes into his room, andwhen he closes that gate,
that's his way of saying, Don'tbother me.
I don't think he realizes thathe's the only one that can't

(01:28):
open it.
Uh, he'll make me close it.
If I go to the door and he's inhis room and I'm like, hey
buddy, what are you doing?
He'll make this motion with hishand, like, yo, close my gate.
I'm like, all right.
So when he wants me and he's inthat room with that gate, what
he does is he rubs his handalong the bars like a prison
movie.
It's like this clanging noisethat I swear to God, I'm like a
Pavlov dog with this thing.
I we have in the closets, wekind of have these shelves made

(01:52):
out of the same material as hisgate.
And every once in a while I'llbang into it and it'll make the
noise.
And I immediately, like apuppy, I'm like, like it's
surreal.
Jump up and see what's goingon.
So he gets me out of a sleepwith this noise on the gate.
He always does.
But if I don't, what he'll dois he'll start throwing objects
out of his room.
And this used to be a giganticproblem.

(02:13):
We couldn't have a televisionin there because he would pick
up the television, even when hewas like, you know, eight, nine
years old, throw it out.
I'm like, dude, what are youdoing?
I'd come over, there'd be likebeanbag chairs in the hallway.
So he'll start throwing thingsout.
Sometimes in the night, he willliterally just start throwing
things out.
That'll be his first thing.
And the first thing he throwsis this music box.
There's a lot of backstory.

(02:34):
I wrote about it, you guys kindof read it if you didn't.
When Lucas was a baby, the onething that made him fall asleep
was this uh mobile, like arainforest mobile.
Played music, but it wasgigantic.
And he would throw it over thegate and it would hit the
hardwood floors that we had inthe house at the time.
And you would think we wereunder attack.
You're like, oh, we're allgonna, we're all gonna die.
You wake up in the middle ofthe night, you hear a crash.

(02:56):
It's just him.
He wants water or his iPad.
Uh so I got him this littlemusic box.
It's tiny, it's something youput into a doll, throws it out
usually immediately in themiddle of the night.
So that's all the backstory.
So he wakes me up, I hear it,and I tell him to go back to
bed.
As I always say, buddy, go backto bed.
Looking, no, it's four in themorning, go to bed.

(03:16):
And he bang, bang, bang.
I'm like, go to bed.
And finally, I'm like, oh myGod.
Now I know I have to get up, Ihave to see him.
So he knows that I see him, andI'm like, just go back to bed.
So I get up and I'm likestumbling down the hallway.
And as I am, he's kind of liketurned around to go back into
his bed.
I'm like, all right, I'm like,hey, buddy, go, oh, you're going
back to bed.
Okay.
And he sees me, turns backaround, I see him point into the

(03:37):
hallway, and there's his musicbox.
And I hand it to him.
And I swear to God, man, he waswearing this blue onesie furry
pajama.
And um, pajamas, pajama.
Yeah, it's fine.
And there was a splatter on it,almost like a 1980s graffiti
pattern, you know, like likeearly MTV.

(03:58):
Um, yeah, like just splatteredpaints.
And I'm like, huh.
He must have bought newpajamas.
This is again, four in themorning.
I literally was just asleep.
This is how my brain worked.
I swear to God, I remember thewhole thing.
I was like, oh, he must havegotten new pajamas.
He changed.
I'm like, this is wait, what isthat?
And then I'm like, oh now I'mlooking at it.
And again, you start tellingthe story of people with special

(04:19):
needs kids, they're imaginingall different colors, they're
all terrible.
It's none of those colors.
It was white, bright white, allover him.
And I'm like, oh my god, whatis what is then I'm like, you
know what?
I must have put paint, like acan of paint, a white paint,
under his bed.
And then I was like, why wouldI do that?

(04:40):
That's stupid.
That didn't happen.
It's like in real time, mybrain is processing it, trying
to figure out where white comesfrom.
Uh then I'm like, oh, you knowwhat?
He probably had a cup of milkthat fell under the bed and it
exploded.
And then I'm like, all right,he doesn't drink milk.
Uh if he does, it would bealmond milk.
He drinks that.
But on top of it, milk doesn'texplode.
That doesn't happen.
So I don't know.

(05:00):
There's no, you know, crazymilk bandit throwing milk
grenades into children's rooms.
Then finally, the final thoughtwas a smart one.
I was like, oh, maybe it'smoisturizer.
He found like a can ofmoisturizer, he f opened it.
I don't know.
But then I know there's nomoisturizer in this kid's room.
I don't keep it there.
In the past, I've had it there.
He's thrown it out of the room,it's gotten squashed, there's

(05:21):
none in there.
And that's when I saw it.
It was a gigantic, and it'sfunny that I talk about this
because I thought this was therarest thing ever.
I won it in a crane game.
I am really good at the cranegame.
It is a little known fact aboutme that just people around me
know about.
And I won the kids thisgigantic squishy banana right
before Christmas.
And it was big, it was like thesize of like my forearm.

(05:44):
It was cool.
Lucas seemed to like it.
He doesn't usually like squishytoys.
It's not really his thing.
So he had it and I showed himand he squeezed it.
And I had noticed, I hadn'tseen him play with it, but I had
noticed it in his bed.
I had noticed it near him.
And I'm like, oh, he likes it.
That's good.
At some point in the night, heeither squeezed it.
My guess is he rolled on top ofit and it exploded.

(06:06):
All over the bed, all over thebackboard or whatever that's
called, a headboard, all overthe blinds behind it.
And it was, I don't know whatthe material was.
It was, you guys know Ublok,that Ublak, that thing that you
make for kids where it's likeit's a solid when you hit it,
but then it's like liquid if youtouch it lightly.
That's what this thing was.
It was almost like, again,moisturizer, but it hardened

(06:30):
when it hit things, likespackle.
And there it was.
It was everywhere.
And it was all over him.
It was not only on his pajamas,it was on his face, it was in
his eyelashes, it was like allover.
And I'm just, I'm like, whatthe hell?
Now, here, now here's thething, and this is why I get I
don't say annoyed, I'm a littleannoyed when I see somebody's
things on Facebook.

(06:51):
For many special needs parents,this would be where the story
ends, right?
This would be the part wherethey tell you, and this is, and
I'm up crying and cleaning it,and why did God do this to me?
And there would be a wholelitany of things.
And look, I got it, and trustme, I've had nights like that,
I've had feelings like thatsometimes.
But it didn't end like that forme because I realized that when

(07:14):
I told him to go back to bedwith all this stuff all over
him, all this crap in his eyesand on his hair, after like the
third time, he was going back tobed.
I mean, that hits me in a waythat I don't even know if I can
adequately explain.
Like, it hits me that he trustsme so much that he would do

(07:37):
that.
And it's funny, the irony isthat when Lucas wants something
food, a snack, his iPad, he willbe persistent, he will not
stop, he will not listen.
And people are used to that,they think about that.
But when it comes to somethinglike this, and it's a big deal,
right?
He thinks to himself, oh, Iguess it's not important.

(08:00):
Yeah, my dad says to go back tobed.
And that's because I'm hisguide for this world.
We talk so much about notunderstanding what they do,
children like my son.
Not knowing why does he dothat?
Why is he playing with it likethat?
But they don't know our worldin many ways.

(08:21):
And I don't take thatresponsibility lightly that I'm
here to show him what thingsare, how things work.
And even in the absence of likeany sort of knowledge as to
what it is, even in the absenceof an explanation, he will
listen to me in many casesblindly.

(08:44):
This is the ultimate, theultimate um responsibility.
And it is frightening and it isbeautiful at the same time.
You know, and I think thatthere's a there's an importance
in noting that balance.
We talk about the future ofkids like mine, which the older

(09:06):
he gets, the more realistic theoptions become.
Um and the harder it hitssometimes.
But those decisions that I haveto make for him in many ways is
like this kid is trusting mewith his life, with his future,
with his decisions, with theplaces he ends up, with what he

(09:26):
learns, with what he does.
And I think sometimes we get sobogged down in the
responsibility of it.
I don't know, we don't see howspecial that is.
I know it was it wassurprising.
I will say that.
Like the last thing I expectedwas to show up and he's walking

(09:49):
back into this bed that'sslathered in whatever the hell
it was, man.
You know, just because I saidto.
That was a big deal.
It made me feel good as aparent and as somebody who's
there for him.
So yeah, so try to rememberthat.
If you have a kid like mine inyour life, if you know a kid
like that, earning their trustis so important.

(10:09):
Um, not just so they do goodthings for you, but it says a
lot about you.
That they believe in you andthat they'll listen to you
unconditionally.
I mean, that's the biggestresponsibility there is.
Um, I don't take it lightly.
Thank you guys for checking usout.
Um, back next Friday.
Follow, like, subscribe, allthat stuff.

(10:30):
Until next time, James Gutman.
Be well.
Byepod.