Note: This transcript is autogenerated and does contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
Amy Julia Becker (00:06)
Hello friends, I’m Amy Julia Becker and this is Take the Next Step, a podcast for families experiencing disability. We’ve teamed up with our friends at Hope Heals to bring you weekly conversations with fellow parents, therapists, disability advocates about practical ways to cultivate a thriving future for your whole family. Here at Take the Next Step, we see your family as a gift to our society and to your local community. Your family matters, your child matters. We need you among us.
I am talking with Sho Baraka today about how we take the next step to bring peace within our families. Sho Baraka is a recording artist, a writer, and an activist. He is also the editorial director of Big Tent at Christianity Today. He lives in Atlanta with his wife, Patrice, and their three kids. You’re going to hear more about their family today. Together, they advocate for inclusion as parents of two sons on the autism spectrum.
and we will give you all sorts of ways to find out more about Sho and his work in the Sho Notes. Thanks for joining us.
I am sitting here with Sho Baraka and Sho, thank you so much for joining us today.
Sho Baraka (01:18)
It’s a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Amy Julia Becker (01:21)
So you are, I think, best known as a hip hop artist and a writer, but I asked you to join me here today because you are also a father. And so I wondered if you would just introduce yourself by telling us about your family.
Sho Baraka (01:34)
Yes, I am a father, a father of three. One is 20 years old, that’s our daughter. And then I have two boys who are on the autism spectrum, 19 and 13. And so I’ve been married for 22 years now. And as you may know, the journey has had its highs, its lows, but the one thing that has been consistent is just God’s provision and his love.
for us, which has cultivated in me a heart of compassion and peace over the years. So yeah, it’s just, been an interesting ride, but I thank God for it.
Amy Julia Becker (02:15)
Well, thank you for just that vision of the journey, you know, that you’ve landed in a place of peace and compassion. But at least I have a 19 year old with Down syndrome and ⁓ similarly feel like I’ve landed in a place of unbelievable gratitude for not just for her, but for our family as it is. And ⁓ that was not where ⁓ I started 19 years ago. So.
Sho Baraka (02:40)
Yeah. And sometimes you start at a good place, you divert off course and you come back and then you divert again, you know, and I’m sure you’ll, we’ll dive into that, but I think it’s just about seasons and understanding what tools and resources are needed in that season because you can’t bring old tools into new seasons.
Amy Julia Becker (03:02)
Yeah, I would love to talk more about that. Maybe just to give again listeners a little bit of a context for you. You have a song that came out a long time ago now, Words 2006 is the name of it. And you write about the experience of being a poet and a songwriter. So someone who’s kind of filled with words with who’s given sons who don’t use a lot of words to communicate. So can you just tell us about that experience and what that has meant for you and for your family?
Sho Baraka (03:33)
Yeah, so that song, the impetus for that song was actually catalyzed by another song, which I wrote some years before that, which was the first time I had ever really written about being a father with a child with special needs. And at that time, I only had one boy with special needs. And so there was this lament, if you will, this digital diary about
the answers that I did not have and the song’s called I Ain’t Got the Answers. it’s a song I did in collaboration with a friend named Propaganda who writes about his, like raising his daughter who is neurotypical and just the struggles he had. And so he wanted me to write a song about what does it mean to raise somebody with, you know, on the autism spectrum. And I wrote it and I was kind of amazed, not only by what the Lord
deposited into me to communicate, but also the responses. And so after many years of people just really just sharing their heart and being moved by that offering, I felt like compelled to just write another song that kind of dived a little deeper into, as you said, what does it mean to have a lot of words, but to interact with young boys who don’t.
have a lot of words and they don’t communicate love in the way that I typically expect love to be communicated. And so it taught me a few things is just how ⁓ love is communicated in different ways, how we have to seek love in different ways, how we have to interpret love in different ways, and how sometimes words don’t mean much. And so I think that is a, in a lot of ways, a, title of the film of our lives for
people who have kids or relatives, loved ones who are nonverbal as they label it. And what does it look like to evaluate love differently from what we’ve expected love or how we expected love to be communicated in our previous lives, if you will. And so that song was poignant.
powerful not only for me is oftentimes I’m sure as you write books, you realize you’re not just ministering to the other, you’re ministering to yourself. The Lord gives these words of encouragement are for you first, hopefully, and then for other people. And I intentionally wanted to open the song up with both something that I thought would create great solidarity, but also great dissonance. So the song starts off with this young boy having a
just ⁓ a breakdown. And it sounds like many of our kids when they have breakdowns, it’s just unintelligible sounds because you know, because you can’t really make out the words and it’s just but you know, they’re agonizing. And so in a lot of ways, that’s the that’s kind of like this a pillar of what the song is communicating like, even in our lack of verbal communication, like we
We all share common pain. know when someone’s in pain. We know when someone’s in turmoil. so hopefully the listener can find some solidarity in that as, it shakes them up and disturbs them to the point where they can start to really lean into the song.
Amy Julia Becker (07:04)
So as you’ve learned about communication without at least lots and lots of words, what does that look like for you with your sons? What does communication look like?
Sho Baraka (07:17)
It’s taught me that I can’t love on my conditions alone. think, what is that book called? ⁓ The Five Lung Languages taught us how, not only how we like to receive love, but how the people we love like to receive love. And oftentimes, if you are a person who has words of affirmation, you give words of affirmation.
And you expect everybody should be content because I love the words of affirmation and that’s the way I give it. So you should be excited about the fact that I’m affirming you two words. And so it’s taught me that I have to learn different language, like love languages that I’m probably deficient in. And one of my boys is definitely just quality time. He just wants to be around me. doesn’t want to talk to me. And when he does want to talk to me, he wants to talk to me in what they call like he scripts, he does scripting.
Amy Julia Becker (08:04)
Hmm
Sho Baraka (08:12)
And ⁓ it’s like he wants me to rehearse lines ⁓ as we call, like run lines to movies he likes or cartoons he watches. And so that’s the way I love on him. And he smiles when I do it and he just loves it. And sometimes he just wants to be around me when he’s doing his thing. And I just try to make time to be close to him. ⁓ So I forgot actually what the question was. so yeah.
Amy Julia Becker (08:40)
communicate with them if it’s not through the kind of what you would have expected. Yeah.
Sho Baraka (08:45)
Yeah, I had to also let go of some of the ways in which parents like to live vicariously through their kids. truly, truly learn how to allow them to develop their own interest and sit with them in that. And so one of my boys likes NASCAR and I’m not the NASCAR type, but hey, you know, sometimes I’ll just try to sit there and enjoy it with them or
He loves construction vehicles. loves kind of like all types of, I guess, city vehicles, whether it be ambulances, fire trucks, police cars. so anytime there’s one, we point it out, trains, he loves trains. So there are things like that. You just find a way to enter into their world and investigate. And I do, I try my best, even though they aren’t the best with
I guess you can say reciprocating conversation. I don’t assume that they don’t understand. Cause I do think that is something that we, we devalue in them. We act like they don’t have comprehension and they do. And so that’s why early in our, our marriage, our wife and I told us, realized that we can’t talk about them around them as if they’re not able to comprehend what we’re saying. And so I do talk to them. I have conversations with them as if they’re
young, either young adults or teenagers. And even if they don’t understand immediately, I’ve just kind of continued to talk to them. And the fascinating thing I’ve found out is that they comprehend and they sponge a lot more than we think. And oftentimes I think they know that our expectations for them are low. And so they only perform to those particular levels because they know they can get away with it.
And as they get older, they test that patience. And so ⁓ I’ve found that my son, especially my oldest, he knows way more than he lets on. And so I try to have conversations with him. I try to talk to him. I try to engage with him on that level, find their interests, tell jokes with them. I’ve learned how my oldest son likes to joke. My youngest son likes to play tag and run around the house. So I do that with him.
So it’s things like that.
Amy Julia Becker (11:15)
So how did you, I’m guessing, I mean, there was some movement within you that got you to a place of saying, you know what, I’m gonna sit and watch NASCAR as opposed to I’m gonna change my son so that he wants to watch what I wanna watch or he’s clearly not interested in engaging with me, so I’m gonna go do something productive right now, right? Like how did you get to a place of being able to essentially surrender to like sitting and watching NASCAR?
Sho Baraka (11:46)
can’t say that there was this epiphany moment. just think it was a, there had to be a slow perpetual chipping away at the heartness of my heart and realizing I’m not gonna win this battle through force. just not, I can’t force him to change. And I think this is also something that I probably learned through marriage, and knowing that my wife and I are different types of people and me just,
telling her she should do this because I like it or I enjoy it, that doesn’t win people over. And that’s also not service and love. And so what does it mean to say, you know what, in spite of your affection for a particular thing, I am still going to not only love you, but I’m going to appreciate you. And then also try to listen to you and be sensitive to what.
where there could be negotiation. And I think it was over time, I just found myself saying, you know what, my son’s not gonna like the things I like and that’s fine. But I just wanna be in proximity to them because that’s the first steps I think towards love and understanding and compassion is just putting yourself in proximity. so yeah, and over time, ⁓ we found not only can I tolerate NASCAR, but he can also tolerate certain types of like they’ve watched
So we’ll watch like certain TV shows or movies and then we’ll realize later that our sons are watching it without us. And we’re like, see, they’re paying attention. They’re paying, but they like it on their time, you know?
Amy Julia Becker (13:24)
I really love that. I also, heard you in an interview with our friend, Catherine Wolf a few months ago, and you talked about, I’m not sure which one of your sons, but one of them having just a lot of like breakdowns, like hard violent episodes and now being a kid who’s like super calm. And I wanted to ask, and you talked about a change in you, I think that had to do with that change in him. And I suspect that there are many parents who are in a similar spot where.
They again, might be having trouble communicating with their kids, behavioral challenges, wanting peace in their families. Like, can you just talk about that experience? Which again, I would imagine happened over time ⁓ and not saying here’s exactly what you should do, steps A, B and C. But at the same time, I think it can be so helpful to hear other parents’ stories, especially when a change has gone from a place of like violence and distress to peace.
Sho Baraka (14:19)
Yeah, so this is absolutely true. ⁓ And I, yeah, you’re right. Different people probably need different types of resources and different therapies, et cetera, et cetera. But I think for us, there was a few things that happened that really turned the tide in our son’s behavior. And as you said, a lot of it had to do with me, but I was at a point where I was ready to kill the show.
this boy was, he was a Tasmanian devil in our house. If he didn’t get what he wanted, if he got any kind of dysregulated, it was just so hard to just watch him throw himself up against walls, to bang his head against things, just fling himself even in the car if we passed the McDonald’s. And I was like, look, I want McDonald’s every day too, but I can’t just throw myself around on them. So anyway. ⁓
It got to a point where we went to the barbershop. He threw a fit in the middle of a barbershop and I was just so embarrassed. People were looking at me. I felt like I was the worst parent ever. And I remember that I met this gentleman who was trying his best to try to get me involved in the organization he had. Long story short, I went to this gathering that was in Birmingham. It was an organization called Culture City. He introduced me to a doctor named Marion Blank, Dr. Marion Blank.
And she sat with us for about two hours and coached us through different ways to, to regulate him, to deescalate his behavior. But the one thing she said to me is like, father, you have to understand you can address them in your anger. And I had realized there was a lot of anger in me. And I think some of it wasn’t just anger from having a son on the spectrum, but it was just anger I had growing up. And if somebody addresses me with aggression and violence, I responded with aggression and violence.
And I realized not only as someone who loved Jesus, that probably wasn’t the way that I should respond, but also as someone who’s responding to his child, like I shouldn’t allow my child to lead me towards anger. so she said, you have to learn how to approach him as a calm, confident voice. And so that was the first thing that I did is say, Zakai, like brother, buddy, you got to calm down. You got to chill. How can I help you? But then she taught me how to.
how to restrain him in ways that would protect him and protect me. So after many, many, many days of this, over a period of, I think like six months, he went from somebody who would, oh, and the other thing I realized is that she communicated, he’s like, he’s not just mad for any reason, he’s most likely upset and frustrated because he can’t communicate his desires and his needs right now.
So try to figure out how to investigate what is he upset about? It may not just be he wants McDonald’s, it may be something greater than that. And you have to talk him through this. And so over about a period of six months, we found that his behaviors began to subside. He stopped throwing himself against the wall. He stopped banging his head. He even stopped whining as much. It was just so miraculous. And of course, think prayer and fasting and all that stuff,
I don’t want to say it like as if that was some ancillary stuff. I think all of that helped because it worked on our hearts as well. It worked on our hearts as we were making these requests to the Lord. But I also think it helped him to sleep better. It helped him to be comfortable in his own rooms and his space because for a while he would only want to sleep in our bed. it was a…
It was a transforming thing that not only brought peace to our son, but peace to our household, peace to our marriage. It’s such a beautiful thing. I say, research books by individuals, I recommend Marion Blanket, somebody who’s written a lot about this, I think she’s like a behavioral analysis or behavioral therapist better yet. So yeah, there are different things that-
We tried to regulate his diet better. And so there were different things that we felt like contributed to a holistic behavior change.
Amy Julia Becker (18:43)
That’s amazing and I really appreciate all of those details. ⁓ I want to ask one more question and then try to kind of summarize some of what we’ve said, is just ⁓ quickly, you you’ve also mentioned that you’ve been married for 22 years and that I know it is just challenging.
for any of us to raise children and stay married and kind of in love with each other and and and loving towards each other and I’m just wondering especially for lots of families who perhaps some have had marriages that have not You know made it others who are in marriages and struggling what has helped you and Patrice to love each other well
Sho Baraka (19:22)
Lots of respite, and I know that’s a luxury that everybody can afford, but I think you can afford it when you have friends and family members who care about the things you’re wrestling with. You have to admit when you need rest, you need to admit when you’re struggling, you need to be very clear, not only to your spouse, but to your friends and family members. Just ask for help. Never be ashamed to ask for help.
And one of the things we realized early in our marriage is if we loved each other as best to our abilities, as long as we could, we would provide the best living situation for our kids. so despite what our kids are going through, we always have to realize our marriage is utterly important, not only for our thriving and our flourishing, but for the thriving and flourishing of our kids as well.
And so I think it’s simple. I kind of talked about this at the start of our interview. The other thing is that we have to realize that as our marriage is going through different seasons, our children are going through different seasons. And we have to be, we have to acknowledge that as you have a 19 year old, I have a 19 year old. And the reality is, is that they’re different at 19 than they were maybe at 16 or 15. Hormones are starting to
kind of like get crazy now. And then you have to wrestle with this concept of will they always be alone? ⁓ But you still have this fact that they’re attracted to people. So there’s that now as an adult, I have to raise an adult in my household, which is crazy to think about. so, but then there will be no school system for them pretty soon. And so what does that mean for us?
We won’t be empty nesters. What does that mean for us? And so you have to be thinking, you have to think through all of this with, you can’t be afraid to address it. And that’s the other thing is oftentimes I think fear handicaps us from being proactive and you have to be proactive in sense of like, man, the Lord has not given me a spirit of fear, but a power of love and sound mind. And so how do we address this before there’s chaos?
I don’t want to be the tyranny of the urgent running around when something happens. Let’s be proactive. so there’s trying to just manage ourselves as seasons come, but also what seasons do we expect to come and how can we best prepare for that?
Amy Julia Becker (21:56)
I like to, when I’m interviewing people, just write down some of the things along the way that you have said. And so I’m going to read back a few just as we come to a close that I think are really helpful for any parent. As you said, some of these will be helpful at different seasons, but ⁓ you did mention assuming that they understand more than they can necessarily communicate back. You mentioned the power of proximity.
of just literally coming alongside and being with, which I think for any of us as parents to just slow down and be with our kids is a really just good reminder. It’s something we all can do, but so often we need to, rush ahead to the next thing. ⁓ You mentioned just being calm and confident with our bodies and our voices. And again, that’s not something we always can do, but it’s something we can pray for and work towards, right? ⁓ You also mentioned like the, the desire that they have to communicate even if they can’t, right?
⁓ And then finally just that ⁓ that last idea of just admitting need and asking for help and those just are that whole list of things which again I think will be relevant for some people in different seasons But they are things that we all can do and sure Absolutely, like look up Marion blank. Is that what you said? Her name was like there are other people who can help us in these very particular ways and we need that we also there are these like ⁓
Yeah, ways of being that we can all practice that I think you’ve given us a glimpse into. Is there anything you would want to add just as we come to a close?
Sho Baraka (23:26)
The other thing, the other tool and resource that Marion Blank developed which changed our boys was a site called ASD reading. And basically it’s a site that helps them with like sentence structure, syntax, helps them learn how to type. It’s wonderful. I think it’s, we haven’t used it in many years, but for a while it was a wonderful, I guess, miscellaneous resource alongside the school that they went to.
And I saw it help cultivate them in ways that I think probably would have taken me a year or two years.
Amy Julia Becker (24:03)
Well, again, thank you for both these like very specific practical resources as well as these more almost broad just ways of being that we can all take steps towards. I really appreciate your wisdom and just getting a little glimpse of your family.
Sho Baraka (24:19)
Thank you for having me and peace be unto you and your family and your daughter.
Amy Julia Becker (24:26)
Thanks so much for joining me here at Take the Next Step. This show is produced in partnership with our friends at Hope Heals. Hope Heals is a nonprofit that creates sacred spaces of belonging and belovedness for families affected by disability to experience sustaining hope in the context of inter-ability communities. Before you go, I wonder if you could think of someone else who would benefit from hearing this conversation with Sho Baraka today.
that person comes to mind, would you take a minute and send them a text or an email or whatever other kind of message and just tell them that this episode is for them? Next week, I’ll talk with psychotherapist, Nero Feliciano. She is the author of All Is Calm-ish, and we’re going to be talking about how our families can navigate the holiday season with a sense of both peace and purpose. So we have one more episode before we take a break for the holidays, and I hope you will join me there.
In the meantime, can always follow, rate, and review this show. More people will find out about it that way. And of course, people find out about it when you share it with them. You can always send suggestions or questions my way. We’ve got a link in the show notes that says send us a text. You also can email me at emejuliabeckerwriter at gmail.com. I want to thank Jake Hansen for editing the podcast and Amber Beery, my assistant, for doing everything else to make sure it happens.
I hope you leave this time with encouragement to start with delight, connect to community, and take the next step toward a good future for your family.
