My Non-Verbal Son Can’t Tell Me What Happens When We’re Apart

I don’t know what Lucas does when I’m not around.

Keep in mind, I’m not saying that in a mischievous way. I don’t think my non-verbal son is running three-card monte games on Route 110. I mean it literally.

Lucas can’t tell me about his day or his adventures. So much of letting one of my two favorite people on Earth go somewhere is trusting that the world will be fair to him.

The issue goes beyond being nonverbal. Time itself is an issue for my son. He doesn’t really get the idea of tomorrow, yesterday, or a few hours ago.

Everything with Lucas is right now. You can’t punish him for something he did this morning. You can’t scold him for something he did last night.

You can’t ask him about his day.

And, honestly, that’s rough. I know to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and latch on to the affirmative in most instances. But this is a negative that seeps through.

Of course, there are ways around this. On days that I am going to cut his hair, I start running my hand along his head early and make the buzzing noise. He will touch his hair where I did it and look at me with a face that says, “Oh. OK.”

As we enter the week before his birthday, I start singing Happy Birthday to him. He always stops short for it. I’m pretty sure he gets it.

Now, there will be people who say, “No. He understands time. He just can’t tell you.” And to that, I say, OK. Still makes no difference in communicating his day.

His school day can be a mystery too. Even then, we have our little tricks.

When we get artwork back in his knapsack, we can figure out if he really made it or if it was “aide art,” created by the teaching assistants. How do I do it? I show it to him.

If he taps it twice, he made it. If he stares at it like I’m giving him an eye test, he’s never seen it before.

Also, each day the teachers write notes about his day. That’s all we’ve got. It’s a matter of trust.

And, honestly, that’s rough too. I need to trust the notes, trust the people, and understand the “why” behind it all.

That transcends class and can be applied to any time that Lucas isn’t in my care. Reports from anyone, be it school, babysitter, or family member, all come down to the words they say.

It’s my job to listen and try to understand Lucas from these secondhand stories. This bond that we’ve built, where I can decipher his nonverbal cues, has to be applied to the tales of another person. It’s like playing the game on level two.

There’s a lot to glean from the information these people provide. I learned a long time ago that there’s an important follow-up question I should always ask if I hear that my son had a tantrum with someone.

What happened right before that?

It’s the million-dollar question. It tells you everything.

That’s not to say that I’m looking to defend my son in these times. If he’s 15 years old and having a fit over not getting a bag of mini-muffins, that’s something he needs to learn to stop. The bigger he gets, the more concerned I get over a moment like that leading to catastrophe.

It does, however, tell me a lot about the situations he’s dealing with. Just like Lucas rarely has behavior issues when he’s with me, I want to understand why they happen when he’s with someone else. That doesn’t necessarily mean anyone did something wrong. It means I know what works for us, and I want to figure out what happened.

He doesn’t meltdown over food with me and I know why.

He trusts that I’ll feed him.

That didn’t happen overnight. It’s because I’ve kept him in the loop on everything. If food was cooking, I showed him. If his iPad was charging, I showed him. If the pool was closed, I took him to the locked gate and showed him.

I respected him and gave him the reassurance he needed. He learned that life sucks sometimes, but his dad has his back.

This isn’t some major discovery. This is basic empathy. Since he was two, I’ve tried to envision the world through Lucas’s eyes.

It wasn’t difficult to do. I’ve been misunderstood many times, and it can be incredibly frustrating. I could never dream of a life where I couldn’t ask for something and trust I’d be heard.

I’d melt down too. All I’d want is for someone to show me that they get it. Show me you understand.

So I did that for Lucas, and it grew into the bond we have today. We worked hard for it.

My role as his guide in this world isn’t limited to our time together. Whenever Lucas isn’t with me, I need to help those he’s with better understand him. I need to ask questions and find the why behind every action.

Because even when I’m not there to understand Lucas, he still deserves to be understood.

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