Hi Pod! I'm Dad.

“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...

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...

In this episode, James Guttman reflects on the quiet shift that followed his decision to adapt communication for his non-verbal son, Lucas. What began as a practical change soon became something far deeper. As Lucas realized that his father truly understood him, everyday moments stopped feeling like emergencies. Instead of panicking, he began checking in. Instead of fighting for attention, he star...

In this episode, James talks about something he hasn’t addressed before: what happens when the communication tools everyone recommends simply don’t work for your child. When James’s nonverbal son, Lucas, couldn’t physically use American Sign Language due to dexterity challenges, it felt like yet another failure in a long list of “solutions” that sounded good on paper but didn’t work in real life....

Hi Pod, it's James Guttman. As the holidays approach, I talk about what respect really looks like when you’re raising a nonverbal child with autism. My son doesn’t care about Christmas traditions, gift-opening, or big holiday moments, so instead of forcing him into them, I’ve learned to build the season around who he actually is. In this episode, I share how trust became the foundation of our...

 What started as a walk to urgent care ended with the words, ‘you’re having a heart attack,’ and a truth I never saw coming. An angiogram gone silent, and five blocked arteries that shouldn’t have let me stand. Then the doctor’s words about my eventual fate - “that was going to be you” - became the line that split my life in two. That surgery didn’t just save me. It became the compass I’ve followe...

Hi Pod...Where Ya Been? James Guttman returns after a long break to reset the show and refocus on honest stories about autism and respect. We dig into myths around RPM, the “you don’t look autistic” trope, and why dignity beats spectacle every time. • why the format shift matters and keeping it ad-free • curiosity vs offense when asking about autism • why “you don’t look autistic” misses the point...

This week’s co-host doesn’t say a word, but his presence says everything.  James sits down with his son Lucas, a non-verbal teenager with autism, for a special episode. With the help of Pirate Booty, duck noises, and an AAC device, Lucas shows listeners what communication looks like when it’s completely authentic. Whether it’s asking for water or no-selling a dad joke, nothing Lucas does is perfor...

In this episode, James Guttman explores how his nonverbal son with autism, Lucas, redefined the very idea of perfection. It’s not about milestones, math scores, or sports trophies. It’s about honesty, love, and authenticity. Lucas doesn’t hide his intentions. He doesn’t play emotional games. And while life with severe autism comes with real challenges, James shares how those challenges are matched...

What if your child couldn’t speak...but still knew exactly how to make you laugh? In this heartfelt episode, James Guttman shares the unexpected ways he built a private language of humor with his nonverbal son, Lucas. From early fears about never sharing a laugh to perfectly timed glances and paused songs, this story is a reminder that connection doesn’t need to be spoken. Sometimes, all it takes...

At 35 years old, James Gutman was given just four hours’ notice before undergoing a quintuple bypass with no prior health issues, no medications, and no warning signs. But that life-saving operation wasn’t the end of his story. It was the beginning of a new one. In this powerful episode of Hi Pod! I’m Dad , James shares how surviving heart surgery changed everything: how he viewed stress, how he a...

Every parent has their share of parenting challenges, but when your child has severe, non-verbal autism, even something as ordinary as a haircut can become a years-long emotional battle. In this week’s episode of Hi Pod! I’m Dad , James Guttman shares the raw and personal story of how a supposedly “autism-friendly” salon failed his son Lucas and how that painful moment led him down a years-long jo...