Hi Pod! I'm Dad.

How To Offend An Autism Parent

• James Guttman • Season 2 • Episode 266

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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
• RPM’s (Rapid Prompting Method) place, limits, and consent
• the barbecue incident and speaking for someone
• pushing back on “nonverbal understands everything”
• rejecting telepathy myths and miracle promises
• dignity over content and never filming meltdowns
• parents as experts on their own children
• how we’ll handle topics and questions going forward

Check it out, HiBlogImDad.com every Monday, every Wednesday
Every Friday, new HiPodImDad.com


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 Facebook and YouTube. Follow James Guttman on Instagram.

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

James Guttman:

Hi Pod, it's James Guttman, and how are you guys doing? Where you been? I've been waiting for you. I've been like right, like right over there. And I'm like, where is everybody? And if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's because I have not done a new podcast since August the 29th of this year, which is the longest layoff we've had since starting this back in 2019. It has been, God, six years, constant, just uh a barrage of these podcasts. And I love doing them. Here's the thing for anybody wondering why it's been such a long layoff, I will explain it to you why. Um I love doing this. It is fun, it is, I don't want to say easy, but simple to do. It's like when I used to do the wrestling before this in my past life. I would do wrestling audio updates, I called them, because there was no podcast yet. And I loved it because I would just pick up a microphone and just start talking. I'm I'm long-winded, I say stuff, I just go, go, go, go, go. Uh, and then we kind of altered a little bit and it became a video podcast, and there was video for it and things like that. And it's great. And I am recording this on video. I just don't know how much of the video I'm using, and I'll tell you why. Because one of the problems that I ran into was I like doing this, it's easy to do, it's fun to do. But I would then turn around and have to make sure that on the video I was looking at the video and I was talking to the camera, and I looked all right, and then I would see something, and the microphone was taped. I had two microphones. It was a whole shebang, and it became, I don't know, not fun. And sometimes when things don't become fun anymore, we stop doing them. And I don't know if you guys realize this, but highblogomdad.com doesn't have ads on it. There's no ads. Every once in a while, someone will send me something to use for Lucas. In fact, um, I forgot, I forgot the name of the company, so I'm not gonna call him out now. But they had sent me over a blanket sleeper for him to wear. I've been waiting for the winter. He's gonna wear it. If it's great, I'll tell you guys about it. That happens once in a while, but I don't sell ad space. I don't have people write guest columns for money and things like that. I like to keep this thing pure and I like to do it because I enjoy it. I get Lucas's message out and I tell people about how great he is, but by the same token, I don't want it to feel like work. Um, it's not work. It's my life, it's my passion, it's what I love to do. And the podcast, when I started adding and adding to it and adding to it, it felt like work. So we started the cartoon. We were doing hi-toon on dad, and that was fun. Um, I still am probably gonna do more of those. That was one of those things where even if um nobody watched it, I was still gonna do it. And people did watch it. It's we found new life on TikTok. Do me a favor, follow me everywhere: Instagram, Facebook, uh, TikTok threads. Hi, James Guttman. Hi, H I James Guttman, not hi, James, come on, not hi, James Guttman. Um, and I love it. I love getting to do it, I love getting to share our story with people, and that's kind of why I took some time off. And on top of it, you may have heard at the top of the show, we have a brand new uh intro song. Love it. That was the goal for so long. I'm like, I'm gonna do an intro song for HiPod, a new one, because we've been doing the same one pretty much for again five, six years, and it was time to mix it up. So I appreciate your patience. I appreciate you guys coming back and uh finding me and checking it out. It means a lot to me. And some of the video from this show is gonna be online, maybe all of it. I don't know how much I'm gonna do, but I definitely like sharing, I don't know, sharing my life with you guys, sharing what we do and getting to talk about, you know, the blog and the podcast. Um, I am going to, one of the things that I do want to do with the podcast, if we are going to continue it like this, is I want to have real subjects that people ask about, things that people might want to know about. Up until now, towards the end, I was kind of just going over the blog again. I'd write a blog, you know, 10 reasons why my son is great. And then I'd be like, hey guys, let me tell you 10 reasons. It's like you read that already. So I want to mix it up a little bit. Do me a favor, though, check out the blog, hiblogimdad.com. It's all on there. Pick up the book. It's this book, Hi World I'm Dad. It is how fathers can journey from autism, awareness to acceptance to appreciation. That is available freaking everywhere. Everywhere. You can get it on uh digital, you can get it on audio, you can get it on um, I don't know, street corners, you can get it. The audio book, too. One of the things that I love about it, it's on Spotify, it's on Audible. So if you have a premium Spotify account, you can listen to High World on Dad. In fact, a lot of the cartoons I've been making are based on the book, too. I love it. Um yeah, it's been a really great year, and it's been a lot of interesting things happening. So when I sat down and I wanted to do the new podcast for you guys, I'm thinking, what can I talk about? And I wanted to tell you guys a story and share some things with you. So the theme here today is things you can say to annoy uh an autism parent. That's it. And there are things you can say. Now, I'm one of these people, I don't really get offended, right? If you come to me from a place where you're trying to understand my son when you're trying to, you know, know more about autism, I want to share that with you. And if you come to me respectfully in a way where I don't feel like it's gawking or bizarre, I'll answer anything. Even if it does come off that way sometimes, I think to myself, look, and look, I'm gonna be frank with you guys, lay it on the table. I'm gonna be dead one day. And you know what? Spoiler alert, you're gonna be dead one day. And when I'm gone, Lucas has to live in this world, hopefully. I mean, every parent, you want to die before your kids. So, Lucas, best case scenario is I leave my son behind on this planet. And uh, and Lucas doesn't speak. So my goal has always been to explain him in a way that people can understand him. ChatGPT actually told me that that was my fear, and that's why I do this. Thank you, ChatGPT, for being in my head. Um yeah, that I'm I live in worry that my son is not gonna be understood. It's one of those things that you ask ChatGPT, tell me something about myself that I don't know. And it lays it out for you, you're gonna die and leave your kid, and you want to make sure people know. And I'm just like, ChatGPT. Um, but yeah, it's true. You know, my son has to be on this planet without me, hopefully, one day. And I want people to know him and understand him. So if you come to me and you ask about him, if you ask how he sees the world, I'm gonna tell you how he sees the world. And I will tell you this a lot of people are so ready to be offended, right? I don't get offended by a lot of stuff. And people will come to me and prepare me for something that I think is gonna be offensive. And they will literally come to me and go, Listen, I don't want to offend you. Okay, I don't want to offend you. I want to can I ask you something about your son? And now I'm ready. I'm like, oh my God, here we go. He's nonverbal, he has autism, they're gonna say something offensive. And they'll be like, I'll be like, yeah, sure. And they'll be like, "D oes he like cookies?" Yeah, yeah, he likes cookies. Okay, thank you. That's it, that's what you're gonna ask me. It's usually such an innocuous, um, non-offensive thing that they ask. And what's funny is that I think sometimes as auntism parents, we're so prepared for it to be an offensive statement that our guard is up right off the bat. Can I ask you about your son? Not right now, please. You know what I mean? Like, but I don't we don't do that. And if you don't do that, I think you'll be surprised. I have rarely, rarely, if ever, come across somebody who has said something offensive about my son. That's almost never happened. So yeah, let people ask you questions. You should, why not? There are ways to offend people, right? And I've had people do that. Oh, you know, and and people who are higher functioning, they know the phrases that they get. People say stuff like, oh, you don't look like you have autism, which is the stupidest thing in the world. I don't, I don't know what that looks like. What is that? I don't know what that looks like. I've met people with autism, and like, I mean, when you talk to them or you get to know them, something like, oh, okay, I get this. But by sight, no, man. I, you know, as you guys know, I went to Jubilee uh two years ago to speak about autism. And there I met Abby uh from Love on the Spectrum, I met Aiden Boyer from um American Idol. And these people, they they there's no look. They're people, and they're wonderful people. In fact, part of the reason I wrote the book and I do this blog is to point out the appreciation that there is for somebody who does have autism. So to say to somebody you don't look like you have autism, that's not even an insult. Like, you'd be lucky to look like you have autism, you'd be lucky to be a person like that, a caring, kind, nice person. So I don't think maybe that's the difference. Maybe I don't get offended at things that I should, maybe a little bit. I don't know. Um, but let me tell you a story. Let me tell you about a time I was offended, and I'll tell you a surefire way to offend an autism parent. And it's something that I hate, and it's come up other times besides this. And it's when somebody who doesn't know Lucas or just met Lucas wants to tell me something about him as if they've discovered something about my boy, right? They'll come over. I remember one time, like Lucas will rub his head, he'll meet somebody, he'll be touching his head. Oh, I think I think he wants to tell you that his his head's hurting. I'm like, no, man, he's just that's what he does. Like, I live with him. He doesn't know, no, I think his head hurts. No, it doesn't hurt. I know what it is, I know what he's doing. I know I spend more time with this kid than anybody. I know I've figured it out, and it's great. So sometimes I think there is an arrogance of somebody new showing up, and all of a sudden they think they've cracked the code and they're gonna tell me all these things about my son I didn't know. Um, does it come from a good place? I don't know. Some people maybe. Some people are just like, that's how they are. Well, let me tell you an offensive story. Okay. So I knew somebody who did something called RPM. Do you guys know what RPM is? Um, RPM is a uh a system that they do for kids who are on the autism spectrum, right? And the idea behind RPM, I'm looking it up so I can tell you exactly what it stands for, because I think that's important. Um, one of the things about RPM, which is uh rapid prompting method, right? Now anybody who has kids with autism knows what prompting is. And Lucas does pecs, and uh you're able to prompt him to do certain things, he can respond to certain things. What RPM is, is somebody sits next to somebody with autism and they hold up a sheet that has letters on it. And the person who's either nonverbal, minimally verbal, they will point to each letter on the sheet and spell something. I think, now keep in mind, I'm gonna explain this to you. I think this is a great system for a person with autism who is minimally verbal or nonverbal, who can spell or who knows words, or understands things like that. It only makes sense, right? Like Lucas has a device, Lucas has used PECs, which is when he picks up pictures and things. So if he can identify pictures and point to them when he wants something, if he knew how to spell, he'd be able to point to the letters and do that too. I get it. I think it's a skill, I think it's important, I think it's helpful. Uh, it comes under fire sometimes because the people who uh, you know, uh have these classes, the teacher is involved, I'm losing words here. The people who hold up the, you know, the sheets of paper for the people with autism to touch, they hold it exclusively. So the idea has always been, oh, they move it around a little bit, they make them pick it. I don't know. All I know is this my son doesn't know letters. I know this for a fact. I know Lucas better than anybody. Lucas struggles with that. At one point, I know they were trying to teach him the letter L for his name. He might identify it. I've never seen it happen. Uh, there's definitely things that he doesn't know to identify. Lucas can't spell. Lucas can't identify letters yet. Something we'll work on. And I know this because I work with his education team. You know, it's not the kind of thing where, you know, Lucas can spell, and then they ask him to do it at school, and in his head, he's like, I'm not gonna show these people I spell. No, he can't spell. So I was invited to a um barbecue by somebody for RPM. And we get there, and Lucas is sitting at a table and he's eating food. Now keep in mind, the person who brought me, their son was minimally verbal. Their son could spell. And I would say, this is great for him. Like he can do this. The things that you're telling me he's doing, it's amazing and it's great, and he could spell hello and all these wonderful things. My son doesn't spell. Doesn't know. Maybe if he was in an RPM class for a year, two years, they taught him that. I get it. There's a place for it. But it's not the kind of thing that you do the very first day. So we're at the barbecue, my son is sitting at the table and he's eating. And this woman walks in with a sheet and she looks at me and she goes, Is he a speller? Is he a speller? And I'm like, well, he doesn't know how to spell. She's like, But does he do like I'm like, no. And as he's eating, she takes the sheet, she puts it in his face. And my son, who I know so well, wants it out of his face. So he goes to like push it and she's moving it around in his hand as he's trying to push it out of the way. And she's maneuvering him. She's like, H-E-L-L-O. Hello, Lucas. And then she looks at me and she goes. That's a smirk if you guys are on audio. And she walks away. And I remember being very turned off by this. I don't like Lucas being a prop. I don't like Lucas. I don't like people speaking for him. I don't like them pretending. Um, no offense if you are listening to this and you write a blog and your child is nonverbal and you narrate them in their voice, don't do that. I don't like to do that either. That kind of turns me off. He's a person, he's a human being. He's not, you know, a pet, he's not a prop, he's not, he deserves respect. And uh pretending that he's doing something he's not is not respectful. You wouldn't do that to anybody if you have a and I sometimes have to explain this to people because they don't have somebody with autism in their lives, but they have family in their lives. If your grandmother, somebody in your family gets sick and they're in the hospital and they can't respond, do you want somebody going out there and like animating them and like like, oh, oh, she's thinking this? No, you don't, because they're not. Like, you don't want somebody claiming to know what they're thinking. My son is a person, my son is um conscious, my son is aware of his surroundings. He doesn't need you to talk for him. Doesn't need you to talk for him. If that was the end of it, it would be sufficient. That was not the end of it. And here's the thing that offended me because I still wasn't even offended. I got it. You're trying to sell your classes, lady. I understand. Her partner, the other person who runs the RPM, is talking to me at the end of the barbecue. And she says to me, she goes, you know, he should be a speller. I go, well, he doesn't, you know, I don't I don't know if that would be something that he would do, you know, if he would understand. And she goes, nonverbal people understand everything, every single thing you say. And I went, I don't agree with that. I said, because my son is 14, and verbal 14-year-olds don't understand everything I say. Like they understand things that a 14-year-old understands. I was 14. There were jokes I didn't get at 14 that I had to wait till I grew up. There's words I didn't understand, concepts, ideas. It's this catch-all. Like it's not one or the other, where it's, you know, obviously I don't want people to think, oh, he doesn't know anything, because he does know things. But don't tell me he knows everything. He's a human being. He's not an alien, he's not some sort of, you know, distinct thing. He's a person, he's a 14-year-old boy. So I go, he, you know, I don't understand how that could be. You know, a 14-year-old who is verbal, doesn't understand every single thing. And, you know, we're going back and forth on it, and she's talking about it. And I go, well, look, at the end of the day, now I'm trying to be diplomatic, right? I don't want to be like, listen, your thing is nonsense. Because it's not nonsense. I thought that there was definitely a place for this or whatever. And I was like, look, I don't he doesn't know how to spell. Um like, and I think that's the problem. If he knew how to spell, I would get it. And this woman looks at me and says, Oh, he understands much more than you realize. Do you know how long this woman knew my son? Zero minutes. She hadn't met him yet. She didn't know who I was. I could be a doctor, I could be, um, you know, I mean, I'm not gonna be, I'm an autism blogger, or whatever it is. Like, I could be somebody with knowledge in this. Like, who are you to tell me that? And I think the thing that bothers me, and this is the thing, and it plays into, you know, products that they sell parents like me. There is this understanding that someone in my position would be desperate for my son to talk. Luckily, I'm hippy-dippy. I had heart surgery, I am Mr. Lai, hey, you know, um, so I'm not like crying and trying to get him to say words. But there are parents who are. And there was a time where I was, when Lucas was little. Again, I wrote about it on the blog this week about, you know, suspecting that he was saying words when he wasn't, because I was so desperate. For my son not to talk was a failure on my part. And then to have this woman who's selling a program come to me and tell me, oh, he can do this. He'll talk to you tomorrow. And if you don't believe it, it's because you don't realize all he can do. I do. I've never met him, but I know everybody and I know that he can do it. Oh my god, it turned me off. Made me angry. And um, I don't know, it bothered me. And there's things even surrounding this that kind of bother me. And I'm gonna say one more time, and if you do RPM, look, I again, I'm not ripping on what you do. I think as a skill and as a concept, it is fantastic. If my son was leafing through books, if school said, Oh, he can point to letters, I would do this in a second. It makes sense. Why wouldn't you do this? But here's the other thing I don't like, and it's something else that people have told me, and I've been told by other people outside of even the RPM community. Sometimes they talk about things they don't know, right? Like, and I've heard that when I was there. Like a kid will be will be pointing and spelling things that they're not aware of, that they're not involved in. And you go, how does he know about like his dead grandparents? And they go, he's telepathic. I kid you not, man. If you are not an autism parent, you don't know about this. If you are an autism parent, you have heard about this. You might believe in it. Again, I am diplomatic. So I will say to you, my kid's not telepathic. Maybe your kid is. I don't know. I don't know your kid. Your kid might be, you know, crest skin for all I know. I have no idea. Lucas is not telepathic, and I will tell you why. We have had plenty of times where I've asked him to hand me something in his room and it takes 15 minutes. And that allows me to know that he doesn't understand the thing that I'm asking him to get. But he also can't read my mind and get it. Lucas doesn't read my mind. If he read my mind, half the crap that leads me to be like, oh my God, Lucas, what did you do? It wouldn't happen, right? But the other part of that that I really don't like is that Lucas doesn't need to be telepathic to be special. Lucas doesn't need to be a superhero. Lucas doesn't need to do anything other than be Lucas. He doesn't have to catch a touchdown, Lucas doesn't have to be prom king because you guys want a virtue signal and elect him prom king. People with autism just have to be themselves. Somebody like Lucas just has to be an example for the world to see what it's like, to step out and just be. My son is himself more than anybody else I've ever met. If he likes something, he loves it. If he loves it, he shows you. If he's upset, he cries. If he's happy, he cheers. If he's tired, he lays down and just goes to sleep. I've talked about this before too. When he was little and we didn't think he understood most things, we would have people over for parties and stuff, and he'd be gone. Like, where's Lucas? And he would be in his room. He would tuck himself in with his head on the pillow and go to sleep. This is at a time where we didn't think he understood anything around him, and he would do stuff like that. Lucas is just himself. Um, and he doesn't need to spell, he doesn't need to be telepathic. And if you want a surefire way to annoy an autism parent, tell them that they don't know their kid the way someone else does. Tell them, no, you don't get it. You don't get it. Trust me, there's gonna be some people who are gonna break down and grow, what can I do? I get that. And those are new parents, I understand. But at a certain point, man, I've been with Lucas since he was a baby, man. He was born. He's 14, 14 years. I've been with this kid. I know who he is. And I don't want a stranger coming up to me telling me who he is. I know who he is. And that's it. So if you want to offend me, don't ask about cookies. That's cool. Don't ask me questions, that's cool too. It's not about asking questions, it's about telling me things. Don't tell me things about my son in a way that implies that you know him better than I do. Because trust me, you absolutely don't. Even if you're an autism expert, you're not an expert on my kid with autism. I am. I'm not an autism expert. That's why none of my blogs are advice checklists for you. I'll never turn around and be like, this is what you need to do. If you want your kid to put his shoes on, you have to do this and this. I'll tell you what we did. You read it, you know your kid. If you think to yourself, oh, you know, Bobby could do what Lucas does, if he does it this way, then do it. But if you read it and you go, this isn't gonna work for my kid, then don't take the advice. Just read the story, get something from it, feel good about it. But yeah, I don't know your kid better than you do. You don't know my kid better than I do. Um and I don't know, man. Sometimes that stuff has to be said. And this is my superpower, right? I'll tell you guys my superpower before we go here today. And I've talked about this with people too. Um, I said before, don't narrate your kid and don't act a certain way. Because I get upset about some of these. And we'll talk about it in upcoming weeks, like the people who like to frustrate their child on purpose, their nonverbal children, and then record them reacting in an angry way. I saw this one video. I mean, we'll go into it, man. This woman, her kid wanted to go to Applebee's, and she just stood there and he's like, and this poor kid, he's like, Applebee's? And she's like, No Applebee's. And then I watch, he's like, and she tenses up and he grabs her head and it's being recorded. And it's like, lady, what did you expect if he was verbal, like 15-year-old, and he wanted to go somewhere, and you're like, no. And then you stare, what's he gonna do? He's gonna get mad. So what does your kid do when he gets mad? He reacts because he doesn't have the words or the ability or the frustration levels to be able to handle it. So you antagonize him and you record it and you put it online. Hate it. Hate it. But you know what? I have a nonverbal child with severe autism. So my superpower is that I get to call that out. I get to be one of the people who gets to say it. Whereas most people who don't have that in their lives, they go, Oh, that doesn't feel right, but like, I don't know, it's just, you know, poor lady. I don't say poor lady. I say, what are you doing? Poor kid. Listen to him. Help him. Don't make him a spectacle. You have never seen a video of my son melting down. Never. Not just because I haven't posted it online, because I don't have any. I don't record it when he does. And as time has gone on, there are less chances to do so because he doesn't melt down. And I think part of the reason why is because I don't make him the show. If Lucas is upset, I console him. The camera gets put down, I sit with him and he feels better. I would never set up a camera, purposely deny him something so I could show you how tough my life is. Doesn't make any sense. Um, yeah. And that's also it for me, guys. This has been a great return. I am really happy to be back here on high pod. We're gonna do more of these. I got video going for this, so hopefully, I don't know, maybe I'll put the video up. We'll figure it out. Um, but I appreciate it, and I've missed you very, very much. So thank you so much for taking the time to listen. Check it out, hiblogimdad.com every Monday, every Wednesday. I am there doing brand new blogs. Every Friday, new HiPodimdad.com. We'll have uh all the audios up there. If you go there, you can check out all of our archives back to 2019, Spotify, Audible, wherever you get podcasts, you can find this podcast. Same place you can find the book, same place you could find, I don't know, wonderful things. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen. I appreciate it. I will be back next week. Until next time, this is James Guttman saying, Bye pod. I'm Dad.