Like Father Like Son

Behind the Breakthroughs

In this episode we take a look at a father’s journey with his son diagnosed with autism. From his initial diagnosis to where he is now, we discuss all the highs and lows that happened along the way. Their journey is inspirational one and we hope that you will connect with aspects of it to help you on your journey.

Meet Terry Ruth, husband of Tina Ruth (episode 2) and father of a child with autism. Terry talks about his journey from a father’s perspective. From the initial diagnosis Terry talks about how not to push your child into a role YOU want. Instead your child needs to find their own path and parents should be there to support and encourage them. He lives by the philosophy of you have lived your life, now its time to foster theirs. His son would not be where he is today without the love, support, and involvement of his father.

IN THIS EPISODE:

- Meet Terry Ruth. His wife is Tina Ruth who was our guest in Episode 2.

- We are excited to talk to Terry Ruth because we love to hear from dads. Usually you hear from moms, so it is great to hear from a dad’s perspective.

- Terry explains that when JR was diagnosed he said, “No he doesn’t have autism,” and he had a long convo back and forth with himself.

- He said you go through your 7 emotions and luckily he went through them quickly.

- In his mind he would love his son no matter what.

- Unfortunately the world isn’t going to change for his son, so he has to teach him to adapt to the world.

- That’s hard to do because you don’t want to take away his personality.

- JR didn’t even know he had autism until he was 8 years old. We just didn’t talk about it.

- Terry says that there can’t be limitations and that’s the whole reason they didn’t tell JR right away that he had autism because he may use that as a way of not trying new things.

- Terry shares different examples of how they fully immersed JR in different activities.

- The Ruth’s also do a wonderful job of embracing JR’s interests.

- JR is really happy go lucky. He can get angry, but most of the time he is just happy.

- Now JR is obsessed with football.

- The Ruth’s have used this obsession to socialize JR in high school.

- The first year JR wanted to check out the team and be the manager.

- Terry threw himself in had JR become apart of the team.

- Terry became the strength and conditioning coach for the high school.

- JR sees that his dad is apart of the school so sees he throws himself in it.

- JR excels in peer modeling so weight training with his peers is great!

- JR will be playing football this year.

- Terry told JR that there are two things you can do in life (he is very black and white) you can work or go to prison.

- JR would rather work. School doesn’t come easy, but we also want to make it fun. So they didn’t want him to just do academics. Both Terry and his wife agreed to go through with football since that was his interest.

- School was very supportive.

- JR wants to go to college in Austin. So this summer they are going to visit it.

- Terry has a special relationship with his son.

- He doesn’t want to be his friend he wants to be his parent.

- It’s a good example for fathers out there. You will always have a relationship with your child. The take away is to just to be involved, find what they like, support them.

- Have the philosophy of you have lived your life, now its time to foster theirs.

- Terry explains that he can’t push JR into a role he wants. JR has got to find his own path and Terry is just there to support whatever path he chooses.

- Terry is an inspiration to kids, women, and men.

- Terry is always positive and doesn’t like anything negative because negative is a useless emotion.

- If you can think it you can do it.

- It’s a good mentality for parents. You don’t want your kids to fail so get in there, do the work, and do whatever it takes.

Learn to Mindshift… Below are the four Mindshifts from this podcast:

1. Be patient
2. Wife is always right. Happy wife, happy life. That is one to live by.
3. Take the expectations away.
4. Put in the work and you will get the results.