I Was Fixing a Problem My Son Wasn’t Having

I’m a fixer. That’s what I considered my lot in life since I was young. Past experiences, casual friendships, and doomed relationships all had one thing in common. I could fix any issue.

Maybe I was born that way or maybe it was a learned behavior. Either way, I felt responsible to make everything perfect, always. If something seemed off, I could take care of it. Leave it to me.

To me, the instructions felt simple. A slight correction could turn despair into triumph. Watch me, learn from me, and see what I can do.

It made sense on paper. If you spot an issue and offer a solution, who wouldn’t be open to it? Who doesn’t want to grow and evolve? Who wouldn’t follow the path to enlightenment I was so clearly building? This was primo stuff here, people.

A funny thing happened through all those years, though. It often didn’t work.

Moments I felt would be welcomed with open arms were instead met with pushback. Changes in others weren’t as easy to make happen as changes I made to myself. These inspirational moments of mine were, for some reason, confined to me.

Frustration was a regular occurrence and, as people vanished into my cornfield, I was left wondering what was wrong with the world. Why couldn’t I seem to solve every dilemma in every place at every time?

Then came Lucas.

My baby boy was still a baby. It was before “autism” had become a dominant word in my home. Before “nonverbal” felt permanent. People were still urging us to hold on to hope. Anything could still happen.

There he was, sitting on the floor of our living room, playing with his toys in ways that he shouldn’t. It looked nothing like the commercials. The kids on the box didn’t play it like that.

Books weren’t read. They were flicked with the corner of his thumb. Toy cars didn’t go vroom, vroom. They were pushed under couches and stared at in mirrors. My son was marching to the beat of a drummer I had never met.

His fixer of a dad would swoop in to show him how things were really done. When I did, Lucas wouldn’t look at the toy. He’d look at me. So I tried again. And again.

After all, that’s what parents do when things don’t work. We explain louder.

Everything I was explaining made perfect sense to me. I was calm. Clear. Patient. I was doing everything I had always believed, deep down, was the right thing to do.

And halfway through this elaborate demonstration of how a boy should enjoy his personal time, I realized something was off.

Not because Lucas pushed back, but because he stopped being present.

His eyes didn’t follow my words. His body didn’t move toward understanding.

He was still in the room, but the moment was already gone. I was left holding a child’s toy while the child next to me searched for something else to do.

It was a look I’d seen many times before in other people. I just hadn’t recognized it when it was directed at me.

So, I redirected him. I kept explaining instead of reading the room.

Because that’s what I felt you’re supposed to do when you sense the connection slipping. You double down on the explanation.

And that’s when I realized my approach was broken.

I wasn’t responding to him anymore. I was trying to rescue myself from the discomfort of not being understood. This wasn’t about lost loves, forgotten family, or nonverbal children.

The problem was mine.

Sitting there, in yet another long-winded explanation, I knew he wasn’t struggling with the toy.

He was struggling with me not noticing that he had already moved on.

And I was struggling with how he saw the world.

The issue wasn’t about the other person. It was about what I felt they should be.

This was the clearest example of why my previous attempts to fix things had collapsed beneath the weight of my instructions. The help I offered had always been about my discomfort, not theirs.

And when that becomes clear, everything changes.

I was fixing a problem he wasn’t having.

If this story resonated with you, I talk more about what changed after my son realized I was really listening on this week’s episode of
Hi Pod! I’m Dad.