A decade ago, I was asked to do a about being the father of an autistic son, and another who is neurodivergent. That talk helped me decide to write a film that would focus on a father and a son who is autistic. , in theaters now, was inspired by many of my experiences with my sons Nikos and Dimitri, and was made by artists who had children or relatives or friends who were neurodivergent, and it shows.
The film is an authentic portrayal of the challenges that fathers, and mothers, must face when raising a neurodivergent 11-year-old boy. The fact that the title character of the boy, , is played by a child actor, William Fitzgerald, who is himself neurodivergent, only added to the level of truth that was found telling this story about fathers and sons. When my boys were first diagnosed — one was 4 and the other 6 — I can see how much I didn’t know at the time.
I can also see how much I had to learn. I say this because I made so many mistakes, which never stopped me from acting like I knew how to navigate the lives and needs of two special needs children. The good thing I suppose is that I never stopped making decisions.
This included moving every time one of the two got thrown out of a school (we moved 10 times in 10 years in search of the right school); we moved when special ed services were rejected, we moved if the boys were targeted by certain administrators for being too much of a burden. And all of the moving — all the therapies, advocates, services, lawyers — pu.
