Who do you tell?

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Who do you tell that your child has Asperger's?
everyone, no one, only family or close friends?

I know a few different families and I see both extremes. One boy is a family member, but I only found out by the grandmother(who is my DH's Aunt) and otherwise his parents do not talk about it.
And then I know another family who is the complete opposite, they tell everyone and they are so open about everything.

My fear is that if I tell people kids in the school will find out and start treating my son differently. He is still young enough and high functioning that although he is "odd" he still has friends and kids like him.

I think it depends on your situation, your child, who, and why you are telling.

I will tell other adults, mostly if they will be spending any considerable amount of time with my son. If he perceives that he has been treated unfairly, he will defend himself (meltdown) in a most spectacular display of verbal belligerence. He does not recognize social structure, so it makes no difference if the offender is child or adult. I have been trying to stop this for 6.5 years to no avail. The only group of people he seems to differentiate is very small children. He never explodes with them and will defend them to the bitter end.. (To the point that he kicked an adult in the shins defending a little one.) So yes, I tell people sometimes..
More interesting, as we're working on identifying his frustrations and trying to find ways to work on dealing with it in a more acceptable way, he has started telling people. When on the verge of meltdown, he will ball his hands into fists and hold his arms straight down and say, very loudly, something like, "STOP. I HAVE ASPERGER'S AND YOU ARE FRUSTRATING ME VERY BADLY RIGHT NOW. I NEED YOU TO STOP!!" Which is preferred to him chest bumping and screaming incoherently in someone's face.
As far as his close friends go, they all know. hahaha All of his close friends are either Aspie's or have ADHD..

I still say that it really depends on your child. If he's going to a friends house for a play date, I don't think it's a bad idea to let the other parent's know. If your child does act out, hopefully they will be more understanding. However, if he's generally pretty good with transition and in one on one situations, maybe there's no need to.

-Just a note-
My son was fairly popular when he was younger, he's very social. But his oddness became more pronounced as he got older. Now he's in social skills classes and possibly will be put in special ed math. The other kids know he's different. And they're starting to treat him that way. 4th grade has been hard for him. Kids become less accepting, crueler. He's being bullied more days than not. I finally had to ask the teacher to do something about it. It breaks my heart, especially when he just wants to be friends with EVERYONE...

It's a hard road to go. Depending on your son, perhaps he's at a level to really get it and maybe you should just talk to him about who to tell or not to tell.
There's no one answer that fits everyone.

Good luck.

I suspect in your situation you might be better off not telling people. He's still the same person; better to be "odd" and liked than thought of as "disabled".

I love that your son can do that for himself by telling others that they are bothing him, that is huge!

We haven't even told him yet that he has Asperger's, I know the day will come some time soon but we want to speak with his doctor about how we go about telling him. I don't want to sound negative in anyway so some advice is probably best.
I think I will only tell those who we are close with and who I know wont judge him. If he chooses to tell people he can do that, but I also don't want him to get hurt, although I know that time will come as the kids get older they can be so mean.

We have quite a few threads on (a) how to tell the child and (b) who to tell, if you want to see if you can pull them up. It is an interesting topic, and I think a lot of it may have to do with the personality of the parents, actually.

Me - - I not good at NOT talking about things but the kids like me to respect their privacy so I have to take a little care.

Short answer: I tell everyone who will be in charge of my son for any decent period, because they need to allow him to go off and take care of himself if he's overloading. People aren't normally inclined to let kids wander a little off, but that is EXACTLY what my son may NEED to do. He knows all the rules; he won't go too far, but they do need to know that I consider it crucial that they listen to him and don't do anything to prevent him from being able to self-regulate. The adults are always grateful to have the information, and they all have stories of conflicts that didn't need to happen if only parents had TOLD them.

I can't imagine having the school out of the loop but, then again, I also know not all schools understand AS equally.