Ready to tell my son..

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The place in the city I am in generally tells the kids something like this as soon as they are 7 or older.

"Congratulations, you have Autism!"
They then explain that this means he or she is not mad, bad or defective, but simply has a different way of thinking because their brain is wired differently.. The discussion continues with an explanation of how some of the child's talents or qualities are due to having Autism, which is when you would list the positives on the list you have made. Then the same thing with the difficulties.

Often they mention in the difficulties that most people know how to "read" people, and that they may sometimes have to attend a kind of class to learn how to do that. Otherwise they make it clear that it will be life as normal, but that there is a word for, and that he will not be alone, there are others like him too. Some children are very interested in the last part, and end up having an older autistic adult as a mentor (usually someone with AS).

I agree with Miah. From my personal experience and listening to multiple stories from other families, there seems to be a distinct difference between High Functioning and Aspergers. I find Aspergers are more like "little professors" as we've all heard about. My son does not appear that way at all. I also don't think that speech/language delay can differentiate between the two so I would disagree with that doctor who stated so. If you applied his thinking towards a mute person, what would that say?

It's going to be hard to diagnose children now days because they HAVE clumped everything into a more broad title and those with Aspergers and POS-NOS will not qualify under this new title anymore.. or so I was told. My son was diagnosed when he was 10 and I wonder what title he'd get if we waited for the new diagnostic outline.

At the end of the day, we choose a title that makes sense to us in order to teach our children/ourselves how to manage/accept it. There is no concrete boundary so I suppose we can call it whatever we want .. which could be why they are clumping everything together.

Ok, I finally told my son.. and it was a painful process. Not because he was upset by it but because I thought of it as a "serious" topic and he was so distracted throughout the conversation. I guess he DOES have autism. We talked a lot about his strengths, a bit about his challenges, and googled names of famous people in the spectrum. At the end of it, I think he's ok with it but then did say he's ashamed of it. I think he just doesn't know enough of it, regardless on how much info I gave .. and even that, I had to curb so I wouldn't overwhelm him .. which I probably already did.

Darn flies in the house though .. kept distracting him!
It wasn't a "warm and fuzzy" convo, as I would have hoped but it is what it is.

Give him some time to process it. As a parent ,as you know, it is an iterative process in understanding it. For a child, I think that it would be the same way. He might be bummed about it for awhile, then he might have questions, then he will better understand it. We are going to start the process, ourselves, when it gets closer to the end of summer, and I have no idea how our son will process it.

Hang in there.

If you have it yourself I'd just say "You got that like I do, the Aspergers. Nothings differen't because you had it since you were born. It's like I'm just now imforming you that you're a boy or have brown hair, it's been there all along. Nothings changed, you just have a name for it now."

If he says anything about it meaning something bad, just tell him that's just some other people being stupid who think that and also to not point out that they are being stupid for thinking that, but that they are wrong.

I'd worry about him being upset that you haven't told him this long. If he is, tell him the doctors told you to.

He probably does know somethings up, and might be happy to have a name and explanation to go with it. I didn't find out about myself till my 40's but I always knew something was off, somewhere. Knowing what it was helped me to deal with it for myself and to remember certain other things to try and correct them.

Good luck! You can do this! Don't chicken out. The sooner you do it, the sooner it's over with, and the older he gets the harder it's going to be to give him a reason you didn't. While he's young that's easily dealt with, but the older he gets, the worse it will be to explain why.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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Thanks for this thread. I am thinking about this often.

I need to wait for some consensus with my wife and his therapists. Then I will tell him. I am planning to take Olive Oil's approach--this is a name they give to the way we are. Nothing changes, but knowing about it can help to work around the tough bits and make the most of the good bits.

But I do worry about the possibility that he might take it badly and think less of himself.

I also worry about how it may work out with our daughter--I am pretty sure she will also be diagnosed, but the school doesn't seem to care since she doesn't have as many meltdowns and the teachers love her.

Good luck to all.

A bit of background, my son was diagnosed 2 years ago when he was in grade 5. I did jog his memory about the times we spent at the hospital which he remembered. I don't have Autism, myself, but I certainly do have some "autistic" characteristics that stem from other reasons. We had a little laugh about some of my own "quirks" just to normalize the situation.

I was googling for info and it was advised to tell children before adolescence because at that time, they are already dealing with teenage hormones and such. The last thing they need to deal with is with their new-found diagnosis.. so for those who are considering, please keep this in mind.

Looking back, I think it would have been best that I'd told him at the beginning of grade 7 and not the end. Oh well.

I'm glad you've told him.

My son has known almost as long as I have, ie since he was 7. Personally, I think that made it easier. He grew up knowing why he had challenges but also identifying with the famous people who are supposed to have those some challenges.

I'm not sure how the age difference affects the conversation, which is why I stayed out of it. But I do think it is correct that your son will need time to process the information, and you are likely to have more conversations as he comes up with some questions. Keep the lines of communication open and maybe nudge occasionally.