021 – Sports radio legend Dan McNeil on raising his Autistic son and best friend, Patrick.

Transcript:

Dad To Dad 21 – Sports radio legend Dan McNeil on raising his autistic son and best friend, Patrick.     

David Hirsch: Hi, I’m David Hirsch. This is the Special Fathers Network Podcast, stories of fathers helping fathers.

Tom Couch: And I’m Tom Couch. Today David talks to Chicago sports radio legend, Dan McNeil.

Dan McNeil: I love the National Football League and all of its problems.

Tom Couch: Dan’s been broadcasting all across the radio dial throughout his 30 plus year career in Chicago.

Dan McNeil: I have some news for you.

Tom Couch: Currently he’s broadcasting at his old home, sports radio 670, The Score.

Dan McNeil: All of us were watching Sammy Sosa through kids’ eyes.

Tom Couch: But today Dan’s going to talk about being a dad, a special father to three boys, Van, Patrick and Jack. It’s his second son, Patrick, who’s autistic.

Dan McNeil:  And it took me about four years to understand that there were things I could do and only I could do to turn it in a positive way, most importantly for Patrick.

Tom Couch: The bond between Dan and Patrick is very special.

Dan McNeil: He regards me as his best friend.

David Hirsch: That’s pretty powerful.

Dan McNeil: And that’s been the greatest joy in my life for the last 15 years. Taking him to musicals downtown.

Tom Couch: We’ll hear the story of the McNeil family, Dan’s kids, his wife, Sherri, and how he’s adjusted along the way.

Dan McNeil: Look for those positives, because they are there.

Tom Couch: That’s all in this Special Fathers Network podcast. Here’s your host, David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Being a father is very important to me. Being a good father means being a successful role model for your child, helping them be happier, more fulfilled and productive members of society. I’ve started a number of charitable organizations designed to increase the role of fathers.

One of them is the Special Fathers Network, a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. We’ve been interviewing some exceptional fathers of special needs kids, and we want to share their stories with you.

Tom Couch: And now let’s hear David’s conversation with special father Dan McNeil.

David Hirsch: I’m thrilled to be talking today with my friend Dan McNeil of Dyer, Indiana, a father of three boys and an afternoon drive host at AM 670, the Score, here in Chicago. Dan, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Dan McNeil: David, it’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

David Hirsch: You and your wife Sherri, who have been married for 12 years, are the proud parents of three boys from your first marriage with Jill: Van, who is 27, Patrick, who has autism and is 24, and Jack, the youngest, is 23. Let’s get started with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family and your siblings.

Dan McNeil: I grew up in northwest Indiana, in a town called Highland, 30 miles south of Chicago. I have an older sister, Tammy, and a younger brother, 10 years my junior, the accident baby, Little Mikey. I grew up loving sports and loving talking about sports and writing about sports. And I’m very lucky in that I knew what I wanted to do at a very early age.

I wanted to be on the radio or writing for a newspaper at the age of nine. And that’s when I began starting my career. I got a little tape recorder for my birthday one summer, and I would turn the sound down on the television, the Blackhawks games, and do the play by play myself.

David Hirsch: Oh my gosh.

Dan McNeil: I would go back and review the tape, and what can I get better at? And when Kenny Holtzman pitched this first no hitter for the Cubs, I went into my mom’s office and grabbed her old Smith Corona and did the old hunt and peck and wrote a ten inch game story on Kenny’s no hitter, and made up quotes as though I was talking to him.

David Hirsch:  Oh my gosh.

Dan McNeil: But I was smart enough to know I wasn’t going to be good at sports to make a living at it. So I began crafting a career outside of it at an early age.

David Hirsch: At age nine.

Dan McNeil: At age nine. Yeah. First byline at the age of 14, and as soon as I got to Ball State in 1981, the headphones went on and I went to work.

David Hirsch: Wow. That’s amazing that you found your calling that early in life.

Dan McNeil: I’m lucky that way, because I have no other skill, so it’s a good thing I started honing the few skills I do have at an early age.

David Hirsch: Okay, so you have an older sister, Tammy?

Dan McNeil: Yes. Tammy. She’s three years older than I am. Not necessarily a joy to grow up with. She was a troubled kid, and a few years older than I am, she caught the tail end of the Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze experience. And as a result of that, she put my parents through a lot of hell.

And Little Mikey, 10 years my junior, remains a good friend. He lives in Arizona now and I see him on a regular basis. I see him as often as I can.

David Hirsch: What do your siblings do?

Dan McNeil: My sister does as little as possible, and my brother is in high-end furniture sales.

David Hirsch: Oh, that’s cool. So, how would you describe your relationship with your dad?

Dan McNeil: My dad did the best he could with very little modeling. His father was an absentee father. His stepfather was an abusive father who kicked him out of the house at the age of 15, because he wanted to run track. People think I’m kidding when I say it, that I come from unadulterated white trash, but it’s actually very, very true.

And my dad with very little modeling did the very best he could. And he was dealing with a number of things in his most important relationship, which was with his wife, my mother, who had severe mental illness and was a raging alcoholic. She was an early guinea pig in the whole lithium thing and mental health.    

Mental health still, when you think about it, it’s in its infancy, and you go back to the 1960s when electroshock therapy was something that was commonplace, it was pretty scary. My dad had that to deal with, and he had my sister who was a troubled kid. So here I am. And then having to play the role to some degree of surrogate dad to a newborn when I was 10 or 11, when Mike was born, was an interesting experience. But it made me better. It truly made me better.

David Hirsch: So your relationship with your dad has evolved over time. How has it changed from when you were growing up as a young person to today?

Dan McNeil: I think he has a little bit more respect for me now than he used to. He had to work at an early age. He didn’t have the opportunity to go to college. And he resented me for having privileges. And I remember when I was two weeks away from concluding my internship at WGN radio and still living in his house, he says, “I’m looking forward to this internship’s conclusion so you can get a real job like the rest of us.”

But I think my success has opened his eyes to the fact that I wasn’t just trying to become a professional student or slide by. And I think that’s helped our relationship. And I think he’s mellowed. He’ll be 84 later this summer. We’re not as close as I’d like us to be, but I think it’s evolved to a point where we’re both very content.

David Hirsch: So you talked a little bit about your dad’s dad. I’m thinking about grandpas now, and the influence they may or may not have had on your life. Did you have a relationship with your mom’s dad?

Dan McNeil: I did. My Grandpa George was a good man. My maternal uncle and his family, my mom’s brother, my uncle Dick and his wife Gail, and my cousins, Lisa and Richie in Elk Grove Village. Really, the only family I have left through my parents is my cousin Richie and his sister, my cousin Lisa. That’s it. So it’s a very small web.

David Hirsch: Are there any other father figures growing up other than your dad and your grandpas?

Dan McNeil: I was lucky enough to have great coaches and teachers. The town I grew up in had 30,000 people. I’m still in touch with my high school football coaches. And my high school coach, Dave Shelbourne, who was a quarterback at Northwestern in the late ‘60s, grabbed me by the shirt collar when I was leaning toward the other side of the tracks when I was a junior in high school.

And he said, “You’ve got all the talent in the world, but I’m not going to put up with nonsense. I mean, getting kicked out of chemistry class. And wearing your hair as long as you are, with a Rolling Stones tee shirt, doesn’t represent our programs as much as I’d like you to.” I listened to him, and that was a good thing, because I learned a lot of valuable lessons by continuing to play for Dave Shelbourne.

David Hirsch: It sounds like he had a positive influence. He was a positive adult male role model in your life.

Dan McNeil: Yes, he was. And because of my dad’s struggles, I didn’t have as meaningful of a relationship as I probably needed with my dad. So those coaches helped fill that void.

David Hirsch: Anybody other than Dave?

Dan McNeil: Everybody on that staff. I remember with five minutes, Al Hollock, Dan Miller, Pete Hedges, Jerry Fleener in baseball. Those were great influences. And I had several people who were people I admired in sportscasting, who were generous enough to spend time with me. People like Jack Brickhouse and Harry Caray. Those are really positive, heartwarming memories.

David Hirsch: Excellent. So you went to school at Highland High School in Highland, Indiana, and then Ball State University, where you studied radio, television and journalism. If you were to think back on your education, particularly at Ball State, what were the big takeaways?

Dan McNeil: I was trained to do what I do at a state school where the annual tuition is less than $20,000. I had some great mentoring by the staff. I learned how to write for broadcast, and what the difference is, writing for broadcast versus for print. Ball State has an excellent journalism program. I dove into both. I wrote for the school paper, wrote a column on anything I wanted to, called “Participant observer.” Also covered the men’s football team, basketball team for both the paper and the radio station.

Plus I lived at the radio station and the newspaper. I was working 40 hours a week, probably almost the entire four years I was there, in addition to trying to maintain a 2.7 grade point average. And I had time to let that rock and roll, that hippy flag, fly a little, and cover music as well. So I kind of toggled.

I didn’t know whether I wanted to work at WXRT radio the rest of my life, saying cool things, like, “If you only have enough change in the sofa cushions for one Bob Marley album, the one you buy is live because of songs like this. Here’s Trenchtown Rock.”

I didn’t know whether I wanted to do that or sports. Which is why three, four years ago I flipped the sportscasting thing and tried gig at 97.1 FM the Drive.

97.1 FM the Drive. Here we are today at the crown jewel of Chicago radio stations driving in today, listening to a station that plays “Bitch” by the Rolling Stones from Sticky Fingers.

David Hirsch: Well, it sounds like you got a lot of hands-on work experience while you are getting your education, which is unusual by today’s standards.

Dan McNeil: That’s the only way to get better at it. It’s not something you can read in a book. It’s not something you can gain much value from a lecture. You have to put those headphones on and speak. You have to get behind that keyboard and write. Otherwise you’re never going to develop those skills.

David Hirsch: It sounds like the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours—you have experience.

Dan McNeil: Yeah. That’s exactly what it is. And you have to accept the fact that you’re not going to be paid for a long, long time. Fortunately, I’ve been lucky enough to see some cash along the way. Cash is good.

David Hirsch: Cash is king. Some people would say. So from a work experience, you’ve done radio and newspaper in Chicago since 1985, including gigs at the Northwest Indiana Times, Chicago Sun Times, the Chicago Tribune, ESPN 1000. You mentioned 97.1 FM the Drive, and then two other times at AM 670 the Score.

Dan McNeil, Denny Parkins, Afternoons on the Score. Brent Musburger joins us now on the Score. How’s it going, Brent? “How are you guys” We’re outstanding, Brent. “Do I remember smoking a cigar with you once upon a time?” Yeah. We got thrown out of a bar in Seattle. “Last cigar I ever smoked, Dan. I gave it up.”

Dan McNeil:  I’m a White Sox fan inherently, but I was swept up in the Cubs fabulous season of ’98. Several of the bullpen members were regulars on our show right here on the Score. It was a really fun summer. Kerry Wood became a regular. Nice. And it was just a great summer. It was a wonderful experience, because it was the first time, under the lights, the Cubs were contending for something. It felt special for that reason as much as any for me.

David Hirsch: So which is your favorite sport?

Dan McNeil: I love the National Football League and all of its problems. And Sundays, in my—I hate the word “man cave,” but I’ll use it, because that’s the best description of it—with four televisions, in my recliner, and my NFL Sunday ticket through Direct TV, I am in sports heaven for 17 consecutive Sundays. And then I get football on Saturday and Sundays, once the wild card weekend start.

So I love pro football, and it doesn’t have to be local. People complain about the bad Thursday night games, color rush Thursday. I’ll watch the Dolphins and Jaguars. I’ll watch the Chargers and Chiefs. I don’t need it to be the best, because I can find wonderful players doing wonderful things, and again, I watch at that level.

David Hirsch: So you grew up here in northwest Indiana. The local team would likely be the Bears. Pick one Bear. And there’s about 10 of them that have been involved with the Illinois Fatherhood Initiative. McMahon, Peyton, Tillman, Duerson—all these guys are past honoree dads with the Illinois Fatherhood Initiative, so I’ve gotten to know each of them a little bit over the last 10 or 20 years. Pick a name, not necessarily from that group, but just pick a Bear that you admire or that was special.

Dan McNeil: Dave Duerson was one of those guys when I watched the movie “Concussion” several years ago, I had to stop it because I got very upset. Dave was a great guy. Ron Rivera, head coach of the Carolina Panthers is a very good man. He’s done a lot of charitable work with me. Visiting kids in hospitals, helped him back with the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund outings he used the host. He’s a good man, a terrific father, and he’s a really a credit to Charlotte.

David Hirsch: One of my closest friends, and a former Chicago Bear, part of the ‘85 team, is Mike Singletary. Did you have much interaction with him?

Dan McNeil: I did from time to time. Mike was really, really intense.

David Hirsch: That’s not past tense, by the way. He is just the same now.

Dan McNeil: Yeah. We still have the soundbites from him on the 49er’s sideline.

Come on son, this NFL now. You gotta be kidding me. Look here. Look here. Settle down. You get the ball a hundred times to practice. Okay. Shiloh, look here. I’m to ask you a very honest question. If you can’t play, let me know if I can get somebody in there. These guys are busting their tail. These guys are working. Are you going to play or not? You got to come into that thing. Not out here, in there. Hey, good job. Good job guys. Wow.

He’s incredible. Mike might be one of those polarizing Bears in that people have really strong opinions on him, whether he’s everything he was painted to be in terms of his wonderful skills, or whether he’s overrated. You get a lot of arguments on both sides of that argument, but clearly that ‘85 team definitely looked to him for leadership, and it didn’t matter to anybody more than it mattered to Singletary.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, I admire him, not so much for his on-field accomplishments, but for the person that he is, the husband that he is, the father that he is, the believer that he is. And I think what you see is what you get. He doesn’t mince his words. He’s speaking from the heart, and you either love him or you hate him, I guess.

Dan McNeil: I think most people choose the former. I think most people love him.

David Hirsch: Yep. So you’ve written a book, The Greatest Book of Chicago Sports Lists. Tell me something about that.

Dan McNeil: Well, it’s sold almost 6,000 copies. That’s not much. Ed Sherman from the Tribune approached me 10 years or so ago about putting together the Chicago Book of Sports Lists, and it seemed like a very easy project that would be a good first foray into publishing a book.

It’s toilet reading. “The ten best Bulls draft picks in franchise history,” “Ten Cubs who are better than you thought they were,” things like that. It’s not rocket science by any stretch, but it was a good experience. And I think I figured out—at an hourly rate, it was very nice. I mean, we didn’t get any bonuses on the back end. But if I looked at it financially from that standpoint, it was a fine hourly rate.

David Hirsch: Well, it sounds like it was a fun project to work on.

Dan McNeil: Yeah, it really was. And I will stand by my contribution, which Ed rejected and said he wanted that to be defined only as my list in the book, in bold letters, capital letters. And that is “Ten Chicago athletes who never got teased in the shower.” That might have been my favorite book.

David Hirsch: It’s too funny. You’re working on another book?

Dan McNeil: Yeah. This might be my magnum opus, David. I’m working on a book. I’m halfway home on it, been on it for four years. It’s a book that I have to put away for lengthy periods of time because I get so emotionally drained writing it.

A working title right now is Tickle Me, Daddy. It’s about my relationship with my 24-year-old son, Patrick Michael, who is the apple of my eye. And it’s about what his autism did to change me and change his brothers and reshape his mother’s world and give her a life that she otherwise never would have had in a positive way. It’s something that I need to complete. And I need to finish it to be complete and share my message with other fathers who are going through similar things.

David Hirsch: That’s awesome. I can’t wait to learn more about that. And maybe we’ll do a follow-up interview years down the road after the book is complete, and we’ll revisit the topic.

So let’s talk about special needs, your connection to the special needs community on a personal level, and then beyond. So you made reference to the fact that Patrick, who is 24, has autism. What were your and Jill’s connection to the special needs community before that?

Dan McNeil: Before Patrick’s diagnosis, we did not know much about autism. In 1996 when he was diagnosed, very few people really understood what autism meant. When we asked our town to put up signs in the neighborhood, “Caution: autistic child at play,” whatever the wording was going to be, they thought it was a better idea to put “Deaf child at play,” because autism in that era was not understood.

Now everybody knows, because it’s an epidemic, one in 88 now being diagnosed with autism. And the incidence is even higher in boys. So we dove in and began working with an organization my ex-wife Jill founded INFEAT, Indiana Families for the Effective Autism Treatments.

David Hirsch: What’s that organization again?

Dan McNeil: INFEAT. I did a bunch of fundraising. It took me several years to get more invested emotionally. I had a microphone and a following, so I thought it would be ridiculously irresponsible and almost immoral not to use those resources to raise awareness and raise funds.

David Hirsch: So go back to when you first learned that Patrick was diagnosed. What was your reaction? What was Jill’s reaction?

Dan McNeil: Our reactions were quite different. She rolled up her sleeves and went to work, and I felt sorry for myself. She immediately began immersing yourself in ABA therapy, one-to-one treatment, PECS communication systems, picture exchange communication systems. She got trained to make a difference immediately. And we hired a staff of people to work with Patrick one-on-one, because the public school systems, even private systems in the ‘90s, weren’t capable of making a difference.

I felt sorry for myself. I felt sorry for my family. Why him? Why us? Why me? I self-medicated. I was angry and it took me about four years to understand that there were things I could do and only I could do to turn it in a positive way for my family and for myself, but more importantly, most importantly for Patrick.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thanks for being so authentic about that. People often talk about being in denial and dealing with the grief and the anxiety, the uncertainty in a lot of different ways and not all healthy ways.

And it’s important to understand that and put it in perspective, and then with whatever period of time, try to be part of the solution. And that’s what I heard you saying is most importantly on your son’s behalf.

Dan McNeil: Yeah. I mean, he didn’t choose it. It chose him. And there are a lot of things people say to you when you share the news with them on something that’s as potentially injurious to a family, just a ton of heartache in autism, and try to comfort you, and say things like, “Well, things happen for a reason,” or, “God only gives those big challenges to those with broad shoulders.”

You don’t want to hear that when your child is hitting his head on a hard ceramic tile floor because he can’t communicate what he wants from the refrigerator to his parents. There is no God anywhere near that, so you don’t want to hear about God. You don’t want to hear about how you’re going to be better because you’re just so fricking upset that your child is in such pain. It’s horrible.

David Hirsch: Plus you don’t have any control over the situation, which I think troubles dads more than ittroubles moms.

Dan McNeil: It certainly does, especially those of us who are baby boomers. Our fathers were the providers and women never went to college way back when we were growing up. We’re close in age. I’m 56. That was changing, but it changed very slowly. Dads still were socialized to be the fixers. Lawnmower broke. Dad will fix it. We got a leaky pipe. Dad’s going to fix it. Dad’s gonna get rid of all your nightmares for you. Dad has to be solution oriented, but with autism, there’s no advantage I had by being Patrick’s father. None. I didn’t have an inside edge on making a difference. I was completely powerless, and it terrified me.

David Hirsch: What type of advice did you get early on to help put this in perspective?

Dan McNeil: Early on, I didn’t get a lot of advice. I think I found a great deal of comfort in spending time with other families who were dealing with the same sort of thing we did. We got very connected with a few families near us geographically. We had common interests, and we would talk, and that’s what people had to do. We had to share ideas on what was working.

At the time it was casein free, gluten free diets, which made no difference for Patrick. You swap ideas, and you realize you’re in it together. And only through forming that big support group can you manage to maintain some sanity sometimes. Support groups are enormously valuable for people who have needs that go beyond what’s typical.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, what I hear you saying is that you need to be part of a larger community so you’re not isolated, because it can be overwhelming, and understand that there’s other people going through the same thing, and try this, try that. There is no silver bullet. It’s not one size fits all as far as solutions are concerned. And you lean on one another, and that’s another life lesson, right?

Dan McNeil: Yeah. And you can, as I did initially, I can be mad that this is my Sunday afternoon with special needs baseball, instead of going to watch little league baseball. I can choose to be mad about that. Or I can choose to recognize that Patrick’s issues aren’t as bad as some others. I mean with autism, the pendulum swings so crazily on different symptoms and behaviors.

But I think that’s when I started turning a corner, right around 2000, four years after his diagnosis, when I saw that there were some dads who had it way more challenging than I did. One kid who was probably in his early teens would stand in the outfield and just wail, just so upset that he even had to be there. And I watched his father sweating, holding that boy’s hand. It wasn’t easy. It made me feel real lucky that while Patrick couldn’t care less about the baseball, at least he was content to be there.

David Hirsch: Everything’s relative. Thanks for sharing, Dan. So looking back on it, what were some of the more important decisions that you and Jill made raising these three boys, including Patrick?

Dan McNeil: Jill knew that I was having issues with some of the time demands, not because of lack of interest, but because of the reality of a very busy schedule, and two other sons who didn’t want to be ignored. Jill said, “Why don’t you back off on the therapy? Let me handle the behavioral issues. You be his social director. You make sure that there are plenty of things on his calendar.” Because he’s very calendar obsessive that he can look forward to, whether it’s the movies or go carts or whatever activities you’re going to do. Make sure you have a lot of things on the schedule for him to anticipate eagerly.

And that’s been the greatest joy of my life for the last 15 years. Taking him to musicals downtown, because he still loves all the old Disney stuff. He still loves Lion King. He’s 24, and he has some problem-solving intelligence that are 24ish, but he still has the spirit and the heart of a five year old. And that’s kind of cool, because I like the Lion King as well. I like Alladin also. We’ve seen both of those musicals several times.

David Hirsch: So it sounds like you took, if I can describe it as such, a “divide and conquer” strategy. Jill focused more on the therapy and things that were more medical oriented. You focused on the things that were more social oriented. Is that fair?

Dan McNeil: Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. She knew it was going to be easier on him ,and she was willing to play the role of bad cop while I had the easy job of making him laugh, which isn’t hard. And Patrick doesn’t have typical friends. He isn’t interested in most people his age. He likes girls, but he doesn’t take much of an interest in typical friends. So I’m his best friend. He regards me as his best friend.

David Hirsch: That’s pretty powerful.

Dan McNeil: Yeah, it is. It is. I’m lucky that way, and I think back of how immature I was, how petulant I acted, 20 some years ago. I am lucky. And I’m luckier than people who don’t have kids who are autistic.

David Hirsch: That’s amazing. So what were some of the biggest challenges that you’ve encountered along the way?

Dan McNeil: Patrick has an incredible phobia of death, and when he sees it, even in film, he talks about it repeatedly. And you try to get him to understand concepts that are abstract to him, why a doctor can’t fix somebody. And I’ve said to him before, “Everybody dies. Dad’s gonna die.” And he immediately got in my face, frantic. This is three or four years ago. “No, no, no.” So someone’s going to have to explain that to him someday. But it keeps me awake at night. That’s the biggest challenge. It’s not here and now. Who’s going to take him downtown when I’m gone? His brothers will, because he’s lucky that way too.

David Hirsch: What impact has Patrick’s situation had on Van and Jack, and the rest of your family for that matter?

Dan McNeil: Van’s been terrific about it. Van’s been a compassionate, protective big brother from jump street on this. Jack, because he’s third and the third child in a family without special needs kids gets less attention than one and two did. So it’s easier…

David Hirsch: Fewer videos, fewer pictures.

Dan McNeil: Yeah. Yeah. They say the more kids you have, the closer you get to letting them juggle minds. Jack resented Patrick. I’ve talked at length with Jack about resenting Patrick. I had him write about it for my book, and some things were incredibly revealing. I was unaware of some of it, just because I hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about that. But he’s warmed up to the idea that while a little brother, he’s a big brother, and he spends a lot of time with Patrick now.

David Hirsch: They’re only a year apart, right?

Dan McNeil: Right, right. With experience comes wisdom, I’d like to think. Jack’s experience has been challenging, but it’s taught him a lot about the potential he has to make a difference. Just like I had to go through a process to learn the same thing.

David Hirsch: So what do Van and Jack do now?

Dan McNeil: My oldest boy Van is working for Jewel’s organization, behavior and learning solutions. He does a little bit of everything there. He’s sort of the IT guy. He deals with employee health insurance things. He does a lot. Jack is doing an apprenticeship as a bricklayer now, and has a tremendous amount of musical and math talent. But he was a little bit too bashful to pursue the music part. I tried to send him to Boston to go to a two year music school where he wouldn’t ever be asked to read a book or write a theme. And he was intimidated by the idea of a move. But he’s only 23, so I’m not done pestering him about that.

David Hirsch: That’s awesome. So what role has spirituality played in your life?

Dan McNeil: Boy, I’ve run the gamut on spirituality. And there’s a big difference between that and religion. I was raised a Methodist, but my parents weren’t too strict on it. As a teen I went through the born again thing. In college I attended a few Buddhist gatherings.

There’s parts of all religions I like, there’s parts of it I don’t like, but the bottom line is you asked about spirituality. I’m talking about religion. I vacillate in my comfort level with my spirituality. I believe in a higher power, but I also question it. I believe the strength of the family and the power of meaningful friendships is the most spiritually rewarding thing in my life.

David Hirsch: Well, you think about these things, and it’s had an influence and maybe at different points in your life, and it’s an evolutionary experience. That’s what I think of when I think of spirituality. So what you’re thinking today might be different than what you might be thinking a year or three or five or ten years from now.

Dan McNeil: No question. No question. It is always changing. Always evolving.

David Hirsch: So let’s talk about Jill’s therapeutic clinic. This is the Behavior and Learning Solutions organization. Tell me something about that.

Dan McNeil: She employs 50 to 60 mostly young women who are certified or degreed in behavioral therapy. It’s a clinical environment. The clients get a lot of one to one time. I think there are 50 to 60 students there, clients, patients, whatever you want. She doesn’t like the term student. She likes to regard it as a clinic, because it is therapeutic.

David Hirsch: What’s the age range of those that are the clients or the patients?

Dan McNeil: Between five and 21. I like to consider Patrick a graduate assistant. He had his own office for a little while there, but he wound up not using it, because there was never anything social going on in there. While he doesn’t necessarily engage people, he likes to be in the mix. So he rejected his office after the first year.

David Hirsch: So he’s in a cubicle now, not an office?

Dan McNeil: He’s still getting the treatment every day. He gets one to one therapy for half of his day, and the other half of his day he is assigned tasks where he gets minimum wage to empty garbage cans and things like that. He looks forward to it, and he doesn’t do it for money. He doesn’t really get the concept of money. He does it because he can. He does it because it’s a break. It’s something different, and it’s a checklist. He’s very obsessive compulsive about lists.

David Hirsch: That’s awesome. Let’s switch over to advice. What are the most important takeaways that come to mind when you think about raising a child with differences?

Dan McNeil: I think what I learned that was most important to me is that guy in the mirror is not as important as he always has appeared to be. What we do for others means a lot more than what we do for ourselves. There’s a greater good out there that we can serve, if we’re not as selfish as I was inclined to be. If we’re not as brooding, if we’re not as angry.

Find comfort in the fraternity, the community of autism. Recognize you’re not alone. Try different treatments. If something isn’t working over a period of time, I would strongly encourage anybody with a child with autism to try different things. Fortunately with the internet and because of autism’s status as an epidemic, there are better places to go than there were 20 years ago.

I think the best advice I can I can offer would be to look for those positives, because they are there. It takes a while sometimes for them to completely unveil themselves. But after a while, we start to warm up to the idea that we can find joy from things we never dreamed about, never knew were possible.

The idea of spending an afternoon with a group of autistic kids and finding the joy on their faces as they go horseback riding or to a ball game or to a play. Those are rewards that we never thought about, never gave the time of day to, until we had a child with autism. And that’s been a very meaningful part of my life, but it wasn’t that way initially. It does get better. But it only gets better if we work at it.

David Hirsch: So looking for the smaller moments as opposed to the things we typically think about, which are the highlights in life, the big things in life.

Dan McNeil: We taught Patrick to say, “I’m thinking about,” when he was 11 or 12, because he’s verbal, but he’s not communicative. And one of the greatest victories at any point in my life, in any arena of life, was…I remember where I was on the highway when he said it. Out of nowhere, three or four years ago, he looks over to me, and he taps me on the forearm. And I look at him. And he says, “I’m thinking about Cheez-Its.” And I had to pull off because I was so emotional. That he wanted to share that little nugget with little old me just meant everything to me. “I’m thinking about Cheez-Its.” Maybe that should be the name of the book.

David Hirsch: So have there been other moments along the way?

Dan McNeil: They’re not as often as you’d like, but celebrating those little victories, sure. “I’m thinking about,” and his sentences slowly but surely are getting longer. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to play guitar. I don’t have the finger dexterity for it. But I could make the notes, but they never sound seamless. They always are clunky. I don’t have the wiring for it, and I can only think a few notes at a time.

That’s kind of how it is with his speech. It’s clunky, it’s choppy, and he struggles to get past those first four or five words to make a long sentence. But that’s improving. And hopefully that will continue to improve. I’m sure it will.

David Hirsch: So that has to do with this speech. Out of curiosity, can he write?

Dan McNeil: He can print. He has good laptop skills too. Yeah, he can write, and he has some reading skills.

David Hirsch: Okay. Maybe that’s an avenue for communicating, typing things out, you know.

Dan McNeil: They do a lot of that at Behavior and Learning Solutions with him. I’ve been told to worry about his social calendar. He puts in a nine hour day usually. So when I get him either on a weeknight or on the weekends, he’s ready to take a break from being told what to do. He’s ready to tell me about Cheez-Its and Mufasa.

David Hirsch: Okay, so you have to stay in your lane?

Dan McNeil: Yes.

David Hirsch: I’m still thinking about takeaways. Any takeaways for dads who have a child with a physical or intellectual disability?

Dan McNeil: The only person you’re hurting is yourself when you get so angry and upset about it. I still wrestle with it from time to time. Know you’re not alone, and know that if you don’t make it about yourself, it can be a positive thing.

David Hirsch: It’s good advice. What other advice can you share with dads, or parents for that matter, about helping a child with disabilities reach their full potential?

Dan McNeil: I think it’s important to recognize what we have instead of what we want. Don’t get locked into comparisons to other children, whether your child is below another child’s aptitudes or above it, because it’s easy to get angry that way.

David Hirsch: It’s like a trap.

Dan McNeil: Yeah. I mean, one of the families we got close two years ago, the Desak’s, Andrew was incorrigible. Just three or four years went by, and he was tortured every time I saw him. And now he’s one of the most gregarious, outgoing, social creatures ever, right? He participates in Special Olympics as a powerlifter. We took him to a Sox game with Patrick last year, and his verbal skills are tremendous. And if you would have seen him at four, you would’ve never thought he’d get to this level. But it’s incredible.

David Hirsch: Maybe it goes along with never give up, never say never, right? This is an evolutionary experience. Life is an evolutionary experience. And Randy Lewis, who’s one of my close longtime friends, who has an autistic son who’s now 28, said, “Austin is not the same person he was a year ago, let alone three years ago or five years ago. Things keep getting better.”

Not in every situation, but our minds sort of think about the worst case scenario oftentimes, and you need to be optimistic and proactive and intentional about helping them reach their full potential. That’s not just Patrick. That’s Van. It’s Jack as well.

Dan McNeil: No question.

David Hirsch: So why did you agree to be a mentor father as part of this Special Fathers Network?

Dan McNeil: So I can then do what I can to help anybody avoid going down the same path I did. And being full of vitriol and self pity, denial, seclusion, isolationism. It’s so easy to fall into those things. And I could have used somebody who had been through the experience of it hit me upside the head and say, “Hey, who told you life was all about you? It’s not.”

But if you look at this as making a difference for him, you’re going to find some things that are going to make you really like yourself. Because what it looks like just the most daunting challenge in the world can wind up providing some of the most authentic joys you’ll ever, ever experience.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well-spoken. Is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up?

Dan McNeil: Get involved. Involvement is a good thing at any level, in anything. Anytime there is a group of people who have needs that extenuate what’s normal, it’s good to be involved.

David Hirsch: If somebody wants to get a copy of your book or to contact you, how would they go about doing that?

Dan McNeil: The Great Book of Chicago Sports Lists is available probably for 99 cents on Amazon. You’ll pay more for the shipping than you will for the book. And I don’t know if it’s going to be Tickle Me Daddy or I’m Thinking About Cheez-Its, but there will be a book out within the next 18 months.

David Hirsch: Okay, well, I’m going to hold you to that. I’ll be a constant reminder. And if you tell enough people that you’re going to do something, hopefully that means you got to do it. We’ll need to keep you accountable.

Dan McNeil: Yes, that’s right. Thank you, David. I’ve enjoyed it.

David Hirsch: Dan. Thank you for taking the time and many insights. As a reminder, Dan is just one of the dads who has agreed to be a mentor father has part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising a child with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father, or are seeking advice from a mentor father with the same or similar situation to your own, please go to 21stcenturydads.org.

Thanks again, Dan.

Dan McNeil: Thank you.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children connect with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for fathers to support fathers.

Sometimes the mentor father is just there to answer a few questions. Sometimes they become good friends. It’s a proven support system for new fathers with special needs kids. If you’re a father looking for support, or if you’re a dad who’d like to offer support, go to 21stcenturydads.org. The Special Fathers Network podcast was produced for 21st Century Dads by Couch Audio.