I know. I know. I don’t look old enough to have a teenage daughter. Thank you. You’re making me blush. Still, though, I do. No joke.

Often, a bit of trivia about her likes will come up and I will profess to know her feelings about it from past knowledge. Things like, “You love chicken from Popeyes” will roll from my tongue with all the confidence of Chat GPT, only to see her return a confused expression.

That’s when I realize that I’m accessing memories from ten years ago. She liked Popeyes in kindergarten…maybe. My memory is sometimes hazy because I’m old enough to have a teenage daughter. Although I don’t look it. Remember? You said it earlier.

The point is that people grow. Kids change. Relationships evolve. The person my little girl was in elementary school is not who she is today. Hell, the person she was last week is not the person she is today. I’m not either.

What makes this lesson easy to learn with my daughter is that she has changed in so many other ways too. Her TV shows, social life, and wardrobe have all been updated over the years. We don’t really read bedtime stories anymore or do the things that she did at that age. So, although I might confuse the year in my brain, I can see the other differences between now and then.

Lucas can be a different story.

My little man is twelve years old. Most parents of a boy his age would be marveling over how much their son might have grown. Whether Little League, instrument recitals, or blossoming circle of friends, kids are usually quite different between the start and end of elementary school.

Those kids probably aren’t non-verbal with autism. Lucas is. All those changes that were so easy to spot for my daughter get rather muddied in his case. In many cases, for my boy, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

We still read bedtime stories. The toys he enjoys now are toys I bought him years ago. They’ve stayed so steady that many of his holiday and birthday gifts are simply rebuying old favorites that were worn out. The YouTube Playlist I made for him to fall asleep to consists of videos that have been on there for ten years. Some of them have hundreds of views just from him.

All that being said, those steady moments of Lucas’s life can create a false narrative in my brain. Seeing the places he’s standing still can make you forget that he’s growing in other ways. It’s easy to assume that he still sees the world the same now as he did at five because so much of his life still seems to be from that world.

But it’s not.

When Lucas was little, he would only come to me for things he needed. Snacks, drinks, and meals were always his main objective. Whenever he would march up to me, I was sure he wanted to eat. If I declined to bring him food, he’d take me by the hand and lead me to it. Laughing as he walked me to where the Pirate Booty lived was the earliest form of interaction he ever initiated.

So the first time he came up to me, took my hand, and sat me down next to him as he played on his iPad, I couldn’t believe it. How was this happening? This didn’t fit the mold of how I thought he saw me.

This was a kid who used to ignore you as you came into the room. All of my interactions with him felt like I was annoying him. I even told myself, “I don’t care if he’s annoyed. He’s my kid and I love him. He’ll have to either deal with it or learn to talk and tell me to stop.” It was persistent and aggressive affection with the hope of annoying some words from him.

I can say that somewhat comedically now, but it was heart-wrenching to think about at the time. I essentially was forcing my presence on this kid who I just wanted a relationship with. I feared that we would never grow close and that I’d be angling for a place in his life forever.

Today, when he takes my hand to join him as he hops around on his iPad, I feel so lucky. I also wonder how many of these opportunities I may have missed by dismissing his hand holding out of the miscommunicated sense that he just wanted food. It kind of breaks my heart. I made the mistake of treating him like he was the same boy now that he was at five.

He’s not five. He’s twelve. Some things change and others stay the same. As his dad, I need to understand which is which and never make any assumptions. A boy with autism is still a boy and boys grow up. He might not follow the same charts or mature in all areas at the same rate, but he will definitely grow into the man he will be. It may seem close, but he’s not going to be a baby forever. In fact, he’s not one now.

And I couldn’t be prouder of the little man he’s growing into.