Hi Pod! I'm Dad.

This week, I'm talking about something that's been on my mind for a long time. People often debate labels like "high functioning," "low functioning," and "profound autism," but I think they're missing the bigger point. My son Lucas doesn't measure his life by jobs, marriage, or fitting into society's expectations. So why do so many other peopl...

My son Lucas accidentally dumped an entire cup of water over my head. The surprising part wasn't the mess. It was what happened next. In this episode, I explain why raising a child with autism has completely changed the way I think about patience, discipline, and emotional regulation. Some parenting lessons happen in the moment. Others have to wait until the moment has passed. Understanding t...

My daughter Olivia turned 18, and somewhere between scholarship nights, senior prom, and graduation, it finally hit me: my baby isn't a little girl anymore. In this episode, I look back at the journey that started long before graduation. I talk about the early days of HiBlogI'mDad, when Olivia colored the original blog logo, why surviving my quintuple bypass changed the way I looked at f...

A quick tap on your kid's leg used to feel like nothing. Then one day it doesn't. This week, James shares a simple summer pool trip with his nonverbal son Lucas that turned into something much bigger. As his daughter prepares to graduate high school, he's already feeling the weight of time moving faster than ever. That reality hits again when he realizes the little boy he's spe...

When my son Lucas was little, one of my biggest fears had nothing to do with autism itself. It was language. As a writer, words have always been how I connect with people. They're how I explain myself, build relationships, and make sense of the world around me. So when it became clear that Lucas wasn't developing verbal language, I assumed there would always be a wall between us. I could...

When my son Lucas was first diagnosed with autism, I thought speech was everything. How would he tell me what he needed? How would he make friends? How would he navigate the world? Like many parents, I became fixated on words because I believed they were the key to everything else. I was wrong. In this episode, I talk about what happened when I stopped focusing on speech and started focusing on co...

My daughter turned 18 this week, and suddenly I found myself thinking about how fast childhood disappears. One minute your kids are toddlers running through the living room with The Wiggles on in the background, and the next they’re adults making plans for the future. That realization hits differently when you’re raising a nonverbal autistic teenager. This week, I talk about the fear that comes wi...

People tell me, “We wish all dads were like you,” and I know they mean it as a compliment. But after hearing it enough times at parent-teacher conferences, CSE meetings, and school events, I started wondering what it really says about the expectations we place on fathers. This week I talk about raising Lucas, why involved dads still get treated like exceptions, the strange culture of applauding fa...

People think raising a child with autism is about behavior management, routines, or finding the perfect strategy. For me, the biggest breakthrough came when my son Lucas finally trusted that I understood him. This week, I talk about how everything changed once that trust clicked into place. From meltdowns in parking lots to waiting for food at restaurants, I share the small moments that taught Luc...

People hear that my son Lucas is nonverbal with autism and usually ask the same question: “How do you understand each other?” The truth is, I understand him better than I understand almost anyone else. This week, I talk about the strange honesty that comes with raising a child who doesn’t hide what he wants, doesn’t play social games, and communicates in ways that are often clearer than words. Fro...

This week’s episode comes from a thought I’ve had for years but finally put into words. When my son was first showing signs of autism, I was terrified of what the future would look like. The things that kept me up at night. The delays, the struggles, the uncertainty...they all felt like deal breakers. The truth is, a lot of those fears came true. My son is nonverbal. He needs help with things most...

“Kids with autism don’t like to wait.” I heard that in a waiting room while my nonverbal son Lucas was sitting quietly a few feet away. I was ready to be offended...and then realized they weren't talking about us. What started as a simple oil change turned into something bigger. A busy drop-off counter, a quiet moment with his iPad, then a long walk through construction to a strip mall that u...

Ten years ago, I started writing about my son Lucas. What I didn’t realize back then was how much I would change along the way. When your child is nonverbal, it’s easy to get stuck waiting. Waiting for words. Waiting for progress. Waiting for a moment that may never come. But what I’ve learned is this: communication was always there. It just didn’t look the way I expected. In this episode, I talk...

I used to feel like I was waiting for something that would finally make everything make sense - my son’s verbal language. When you’re raising a young child with nonverbal autism, the hardest part isn’t always the day-to-day. It’s the uncertainty, the questions, and not having answers for any of it. In this episode, I talk about those early years, the pressure from other people, and the reactions t...

I didn’t have answers when people asked why my nonverbal son was clapping, making sounds, or doing things they didn’t understand. And that wasn’t because I was embarrassed. It was because I genuinely didn’t know. Over time, that changed. Not because someone explained it to me, but because I started paying attention. What looked random wasn’t random. What looked confusing actually had a purpose. An...

I used to think the hardest part of raising a nonverbal child was what he couldn’t say. I was wrong. This week, I talk about something I didn’t understand for years and honestly, didn’t even believe in at first: receptive language. There’s never a moment when my son tells me what he’s learned. No updates. No explanations. One day he just knows what something means, and I’m left wondering when it h...

My son Lucas just turned 15, and I’m still catching my breath. He’s nonverbal, he has profound autism, and in my head he’s always been my “baby” — the kid with the same songs, the same books, and the same comfort routines. Then I look up and realize he has a mustache, he’s tall, and I’m standing there saying “go potty” like time hasn’t moved at all. This week, I talk about what that moment brought...

This week on Hi Pod! I’m Dad , I talk about something I’ve come to admire about my son Lucas as he’s gotten older: he never pretends. Lucas is a nonverbal teenager with profound autism, and one of the things that stands out to me more and more is how real he is. He can’t fake a smile. He can’t hug someone just to be polite. If he’s happy, you see it. If he’s excited to see you, you know it. Everyt...

Last week was the first time in a long time that I missed an episode of Hi Pod! I’m Dad . The reason was simple: I lost my voice. At first I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. My son Lucas is nonverbal, and I’ve always believed we don’t need words to communicate with each other. But once my voice was gone, I realized pretty quickly that we actually rely on those words more than I thought. That exp...

This week, I talk about a word that comes up far too often when you’re raising a child like my son Lucas: “fix.” For many people, it sounds logical. If a child is nonverbal or has autism, they must need to be corrected, changed, or fixed. But as Lucas has grown, I’ve learned something very different. My son isn’t broken. He never was. In this episode, I share how my perspective changed over time,...

When Lucas was little, some of the things we worked on felt almost ridiculous. They didn’t seem urgent. They didn’t feel important. And at the time, everything else felt like it was on fire. If it wasn't language, it wasn't a priority in my mind. Yet, we worked on them anyway. Now he’s almost 15. He’s bigger than me. He’s growing into himself. And some of those early moments, the ones th...

This week, I talk about a moment that made something click for me as a dad. For years, I thought understanding why my nonverbal son does things was the key to helping him. But raising Lucas has taught me something different. I don’t always need answers. I need awareness. I need trust. In this episode, I share how learning to respect what my son does, even when I don’t fully understand it, has resh...

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 t...

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. Inst...

Some mornings don’t announce themselves. You wake up tired, have a cup of coffee, do the same things you always do, and then suddenly you realize that the years you spent believing you could teach your son everything might not be enough. In this episode, I talk honestly about what it feels like to raise a 14-year-old boy with autism while carrying a deep love for who he is and a growing fear about...