Jordan Lee Ikitule

Good bro and I just want to say thank you guys for having me on and like morning shift is massive.

A little bit of nervous but yeah.

No, no, no.

Massive thank you and yeah, I remember you from dance as well.

There's a side of Jordan that we don't know.

I got the history books.

We might have to talk after this.

Yeah, but yeah those days where I was crazy like I guess I've seen you know a lot of the stuff you've been doing so I Think everyone who's been involved in the dancing in those days and sort of seen how everyone sort of done their thing It's been cool, but he's still dancing at the moment

Yeah.

Because it was like, you got served for real, bro.

yeah two of them don't have autism but my middle child does so it's been like a massive learning curve bro to be honest like when I sort of first was learning about it through my son like I was sort of the first to recognize it and I was just like man what what is this like it's

type of behaviour he was doing, because it was a little bit weird, yeah, and it was difficult, and there was all these, like, mixed emotions, and I think when you're a dad, you have, like, aspirations for your son, so I had, like, all these sort of goals, and I grew up, you know, without a father, like, solo mother, like, state housing, and never got to meet my grandfather, so when I had my son, I was just, like, I had all these, like, yo, I'm going to give him, like, this and everything, and going to go to his rugby games, that sort of buzz, and

yeah sort of like when he was three years old he started doing some just weird type of movements and stuff and i just remember telling my wife and she was like oh don't speak like that you know it's just a phase and then i ended up telling my mom and same thing then my uncle same thing they're like you know you don't need to speak like that about your son

but i think i just had that connection with him and sort of knew something was a bit different um and then it wasn't until the the daycare bro they were like oh you guys might want to get him checked or something he didn't say what but they were like yeah maybe get him checked and that's sort of how it all began and once he got diagnosed with autism we had like it was a weird feeling because you have this like

real like sad and sorrow and love at the same time but i think once we got over that phase i was just like gee i'm all in like what's happening in the autism scene and absolutely yeah this is sort of like three years later this is our third run for autism so

i was just one of those like hearty dads bro like keen to try and do everything we can to i guess raise awareness like that road gets thrown around but i think it's more so like education like just a lot of people don't really like myself before i had my son like i didn't really know what autism was so yeah

It's been like, to be honest, behind the scenes, I think in the front, like what everyone sees, it looks pretty cool and stuff.

But behind the scenes, bro, it's been crazy because I'm still a father myself of an autistic child.

And there's a whole lot of complexities, especially in New Zealand when it comes to like the support and stuff.

And I'm just like a realist, bro.