He Will Make a Way

You’re Not Alone

If you’re a parent walking through a child’s communication challenges, you are not alone. This is our testimony — I hope it encourages you. I’m a father of three beautiful boys, ages 4, 3, and 1.

When the Words Didn’t Come

My oldest son is a happy, wonderful baby who transformed my world. From day one, he would smile, run around, and make tons of noise — and it brought joy to my heart. As a youngster, I had always envisioned having a son to share fun moments with. While I embraced every moment of him as a baby, I would always think — “in a year or two we’ll be playing together and having so much fun.” I committed to being patient and attentive to every need of my children, and I sought the Lord for patience and understanding.

When you ask the Lord for patience, in my experience, He answers with having you wait for things.

As he approached two years old, we noticed other children his age speaking far more words, and he didn’t fit the “milestone charts.” As parents, we kept an eye on other children his age while trying to focus on him as an individual. Around this time he was diagnosed with “expressive speech delay” — he understood much of what we communicated but had difficulty expressing himself. When he was upset, he found ways to communicate that resulted in unwelcome behaviors. We got a referral and started speech therapy immediately.

Therapy provided its own challenges for a couple of reasons:

1. During evaluations he would misbehave and not cooperate, making it difficult for the therapist to get a true assessment of his abilities. That led to the second problem.

2. He was greatly underestimated by anyone who didn’t know him well. Outside the home, another challenge arose: as children tend to do, he would test authority. Combine that with his high energy and big personality, and you have a situation that was difficult to manage — for us as parents, therapists, friends, and teachers alike.

Out of love, we received tons of feedback from people who didn’t have the full context. As parents, we were constantly challenged on “what we should be doing.” He was constantly compared to others, and when he communicated through hitting, tantrums, and bad behavior, it seemed easier for others to isolate him.

Checking Our Faith

To nonbelievers, this may sound far-fetched, but we had to check our faith. We asked, “Is God in control?” Something kept coming to mind — “did you not dedicate him unto the Lord?” The more we meditated on this question, the more we released it to the Lord. Our prayers became more focused and intentional as we sought His answers for how to manage each situation.

For a while, we kept praying and trusting the Lord, but it came with our own faith challenges. Since he didn’t speak his first intentional word until about three and a half, we kept asking what we were missing. We scoured articles and Reddit forums on the matter, and wonderful people shared their testimonies — that kept us encouraged. It was an emotional rollercoaster, but as the emotions simmered down, we knew the Lord was in control. This spiritual battle is one that Paul refers to:

How God Made a Way

Our breakthrough came through fellowship, mentorship, and hearing godly counsel from the Word, service after service:

1. In fellowship, other testimonies revealed that God can move in your life. They showed me that when God moves, you will know it is God!

2. As we see throughout Scripture, biblical mentorship accelerates growth and understanding. In conversation with my mentor, I was encouraged to focus only on the doors the Lord opens for us — and not even entertain thoughts of what’s behind doors that aren’t for me. “The Lord wastes no effort” was a powerful truth I needed to hear. It applied directly to our search for a school for our three-year-old. School after school would be excited to schedule a walk-through, then close their door at the slightest inconvenience — either he wasn’t potty trained, or he did something they deemed unsafe. In one walk-through, he opened and closed a door while playing, and that alone was flagged as a safety concern.

3. By studying the Lord’s Word, we were able to discern these situations as “closed doors” — those schools were not for us. At the time, we didn’t know what was in store. The Lord was about to deliver in a way we could only attribute to Him, reminding us that He is in control. We finally found a school that was not only happy to accept our son as-is, but incredibly willing to work with us. Although his adjustment was challenging, his teachers gave us honest daily behavior reports. That bridge from school to home came with challenges, but produced improvement we could never have imagined a year earlier.

Today, our son is starting his second full year of school. He has many more words under his belt, an entire army of angels (the school staff) behind him, and he is thriving each day. Challenges still come up here and there, but we’ve learned to cast our worries on Him, because He is in control.

What the Lord Taught Us

With that season in the books, the Lord grew us as parents and as a family. The school experience taught us that we needed to adjust our training approach.

We also learned to slow down, to understand him better, and that discipline is necessary.

Even as we “surrendered this situation” to God, we still held on to parts of it. Through my study of 1 Samuel, the Lord showed me the humble heart of Hannah, who promised to dedicate her son to His service if she were blessed with a child. Barren, she cried out to the Lord year after year — and He responded. That ignited something in me: we were doing all these things when we just needed to stand still and hear God.

Then came a recommendation from one of my favorite writers — Thomas Sowell. “Late Talking Children” and “Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late” approach this topic from an angle I had never read about but had felt in my heart. As I read, I wondered: did the Lord point me in this direction?

Around the same time, a professional at the school pulled my wife aside and shared the very same information found in the book. When she shared it with me, it felt like confirmation — guiding advice from the Lord. The advice was important yet simple: “You know your child best. Don’t let anyone be quick to put a label on him. Do your due diligence before accepting any label.”

Spiritually, our faith grew because we had seen the Lord move. Just as the Israelites cried out to the Lord, we began leaning on Him for provision in more parts of our lives. The goal is to have faith that the Lord will provide in EVERY aspect of our lives. This was our Red Sea moment — when the staff was lifted in faith, the Lord split the sea. He delivered.

Lastly, and most importantly, our gratitude has grown tremendously. We’ve zoomed out to see how the Lord is moving. We’re so appreciative of every person who has loved on our son and supported us — at times, all we can do is praise the Lord for what He is doing. I can’t repay the beautiful people involved in our son’s growth, but I can celebrate the rewards they are storing up in the kingdom.

Our Therapy Journey (For the Curious)

If you’re like me, you may be curious about the details of our speech therapy journey — here they are.

After the diagnosis, we started speech therapy with the same medical system he uses for primary care. What we didn’t know at the time: after three months, they enforce a three-month hiatus for the child. That didn’t sit right with us, so we found another provider.

At about two and a half years old, we moved on to the next therapist. His evaluation was rough — he was attached to us, and any time he was put in a room away from us, he would act up. This was consistent. At the time, he had virtually no spoken words, but he understood us. He wasn’t mute — he would stim and sing songs (the songs were, I believe, a form of “echolalia”). We believe the songs came from his early time in front of CoComelon. As time went on, he communicated not with words but by pointing and leading us to items. That worked well for needs, but not for emotions — and that’s where the challenges came from. To express his emotions he would hit others, run wild, hit his head with his hands, or even bang his head on the wall. Actions and emotions could be mixed up: hitting others could mean “you’re fun, let’s play” or “you’re making me upset.” It took context to guess which.

The behaviors continued everywhere we went, though certain authority figures yielded different results. At home, our son would test us, but the bad behavior stopped quickly. Everywhere else — with the exception of a few people who were very firm with him — it continued. He’s the type of boy you have to meet where he is. He’s smart enough to find the weak point and expose it, and when people underestimated him, he played right into it. As parents, we were seen as too hard on him because we expected better; what others didn’t realize was that he knew what he was doing. At school, he would act out because he associated it with going home early. Even with timeouts awaiting him at home, he wasn’t connecting behavior outside the home with consequences inside it.

We recognized the scenario for what it was: when we weren’t around, he didn’t respect authority, and he didn’t understand how his actions at school could result in consequences at home. He was already in a few activities outside of school, and one was a great fit — a Ninja Gym class for kids. The class builds independence while following instructions in a fun, high-energy setting. What better way to get his energy out? Early on, he fought instructions constantly, so we implemented a system: whatever activity he fought in class, he practiced at home. If he skipped jumping jacks, plenty of jumping jacks awaited him at home. We also noticed that what he seemingly “didn’t understand” in gym class, he “magically” understood at home when timeout loomed.

In time, consistent discipline, clear expectations, and patience from us as parents produced much better results. He is growing and maturing day by day. We still have our challenges, but they look very different today. We understand his personality much better now — he is playful and silly, and we encourage the silliness because his classes are filled with smiles. The goal is to keep that happy energy in the classroom and elsewhere while still following instructions. His attention span is MUCH better. At home, we stretch his focus with fun activities that push him to learn; it drops when he isn’t having fun. Wrestling, throwing balls, building things, and other physical activities keep him engaged. He loves following me around with a drill, hammer, and other tools, always trying to help me fix things. We’ve also started Raspberry Pi projects together to build his logical skills, while my wife pushes his creativity as far as she can. The results have been night and day when we keep him busy with his interests.

As an aside, our middle child is following the same path (without the behavior challenges). Toy Story is a major interest of his, and we leverage it every day — the progress continues. Whatever you do, don’t give up hope!

Resources That Helped Us

To Train Up a Child: Turning the hearts of the fathers to their children By Michael Pearl

Late-Talking Children By Thomas Sowell

The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late By Dr. Temple Grandin