My Non-Verbal Son Is Secretly the Most Patient Person I Know

When you have a special needs child, the word “patience” pops up a lot. It’s like having Axl Rose playing in the background of your entire life. Said sugar, make it slow, and all that.

For starters, people like to commend my patience. As the father to a non-verbal 13-year-old, many see what our days are like outside the house and notice that I’m calm in the face of a potential meltdown. They see me taking time away to understand what Lucas wants or needs. We take longer to get things done, but I don’t mind. For those watching, I appear to be a patient parent.

This was the part where I was supposed to back away from the compliment, but I won’t. Being a parent in any form requires patience. Handling adversity with kids, whether they are on or off the spectrum, requires a level of calm that many don’t possess. I know and accept that.

I also thank you for noticing. Yes. I am patient… when I can be.

Of course, the theme of patience also comes up with my non-verbal son himself. It seems that he’s always getting a lecture in patience and his inability to simply hold his proverbial horses for five freakin’ minutes.

When he’s hungry, he needs to eat right now. If the food is cooking, he has to physically see it in the oven. He comes back every two minutes to check. It’s that sort of thing that gives him this bad rap.

The phrase, “Lucas…wait” has been uttered more times in this house that my own name. Between this, his propensity for throwing large objects into the hallway when wanting out of his room, adamant requests for YouTube Kids “Flying Fairy School” searches that he needs me to type, and other similar things, his lectures are well earned. This kid can push buttons big time.

With that comes the big mid-way point twist…

Lucas is the most patient person I know.

How is this possible? It sounds like the end of a riddle. Does Lucas do all of those things or not?

Oh, he does. He’s a jerky little fella and, in all those cases mentioned, he’s incredibly impatient. What goes unnoticed, though, is that his entire life is a picture of patience. Everything he does for us is a bigger undertaking than we can even understand.

People will point out how autism has let him create a world of his own, with his own forms of entertainment and focus. The things he loves to do most aren’t traditional. Yet, he’s dragged to traditonal stuff in our world all the time.

How many ceremonies that he didn’t comprehend has this kid had to sit through? How many basketball games he didn’t care about? How many parties spent sleeping on a pile of coats with presents he had no care to open? For a boy who is said to be impatient, what does that say?

Was he at his best at all those things? No. There were rough days and tough tantrums here and there. But even if he was awful at half of them, that’s still pretty impressive. Imagine not understanding what was happening or having the capabilities yet to communicate that? How many of these four-hour confusing dinners would you be able to sit through without incident? I’m pretty sure his record is better than mine would be.

Think of all he dealt with before learning to express his needs and all that he still deals with to this day. He might be able to use his device to ask for food or entertainment, but he’s still unable to communicate deeper things yet. I’m not sure what he deals with emotionally, if he knows himself, or what I can even do to help. That’s a hard reality to digest.

For every frustrating interaction where he’s repeatedly asking for a cup of juice the second I sit down or lays down to avoid going into the car, there are a million where he’s doing as he should. Those times, of course, get overlooked.

I talk often about why I push forth the positive stories of my son’s autism. I want the world to see him at his best. My stance has always been that strangers only take notice of us when he’s causing a scene. So they miss out on all his good moments.

In many ways, this is the same thing. Lucas’s big picture of perfect patience gets swept under the rug by the day-to-day pestering over routine tasks. There’s simply no way for him to have gotten through his life without a certain level of restraint and composure. As is often the case, I stand in awe of this kid.

So, feel free to commend my patience as a parent. I learned from the best.