What should you tell/not tell kids about a parent's AS?

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I'm a male living with a female who was tested a week or so ago for AS. If it turns out she has AS (as we both suspect) what should we tell/not tell my two kids (7 & 14) that live with us part time? I'm sure they recognize some of her "quirks" & I would think explaining to them that she has AS would be very helpful to help them understand her sometimes strange behaviour. They do like her but sometimes I think they don't know what to make of her, as sometimes she comes off as cold or overly critical.

Should we/she tell the kids she has AS? How do you explain it to a kid? Thanks.

For the 14 year old - have him watch Ben X and listen to Temple Grandin's speech http://www.commonwealthclub.org/audio/0 ... mplete.ram

For the 7 year old - talk to his school teacher. You need to lower the teaching down to his level - so a school teacher will have the right words to explain it.

This may sound obsessive, but don't make a big deal of it. If there's something wrong, children already know it's there.

The thing with AS is that it can quickly become an excuse rather than an explanation, and especially children who cannot understand the meaning and significance of such a complex problem as AS. You do not want your children to disrespect or ignore your partner because they think she is [ insert stereotype ]. If your children are already disrespecting or ignoring your partner because of her behaviour, the solution is to change the behaviour/function within the home system, rather than say "look, it's ok, she just has this disorder" because, speaking from experience, that doesn't make the kids want to respect her more.

Call me a jerk but I wouldn't view my parents the way I do now if I found out about them having a disorder. I'd prefer for them to tell me when I wasn't living with them, it'd be weird...
Obviously, that might just be me, some teenagers might be very open to it, but yeah.
EMZ=]

Yeah, you do have to deal with the public perception of "crazy", especially in the teen. The 7 year old might not have picked up on that yet, though nowadays I kind of doubt it. Maybe it would be important to remind them that she's still the same person.