My son is so proud

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My 12 yo is very, very proud of his autism. Very proud of it. Like shout it from a mountaintop proud.

I saw willaful's tagline :

That is great that your son accepts and is proud of his diagnoses. He has so many great accomplishments to be proud of. I know he will help others on the spectrum to reach their potential. God has blessed you with a beautiful son who has taught you a lot and will continue inspiring others. Who knows he may be the next inventor,professor etc. The sky is the limit.

I am so glad for you and your son so few children are happy with who they are it is great to hear of one who is what marvellous self esteem did you do anything in particular to encourage this or is it innate?

That is AWESOME! Having AS is something that no one should ever be ashamed of. It's just one of the additional things that make us who we are.

My kid wishes school was easier but asked me if "I am I autistic" last summer.
I said yes which made my kid happy.

That's awesome for your son!

My daughter (9) does not know her diagnosis, just that her brain works differently, but she is happy with how her brain works. She is lucky in that her wiring has bestowed her with a number of gifts. She is a gifted artist and writer. Her social deficits frustrate her, but I know if she was given the choice between retaining her gifts and her social awkwardness and losing her gifts and social awkwardness, she'd choose to keep her gifts (and the social awkwardness).

My son is not ashamed of his diagnoses, and I would say he is proud of who he is. But I wouldn't say he is "proud" of his diagnoses, either. He just sees it in a very matter-of-fact way: it is nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to be proud of, it is just who he is. Like he has beautiful eye lashes and curly hair, but he is not proud of that...he didn't work hard to get his beautiful hair and eyes, so he is not "proud" per se. He does realize, though, that he has to work much harder than other kids, sometimes with less success in the end. He finds some of his deficits frustrating and tiresome, which I can understand. He can "work" to overcome most of it, but sometimes he feels tired of "working" all the time at things that others take for granted. He, unlike my daughter, does not have any particular "gifts" associated with his wiring.

I think it is probably much easier for those with gifts to view their diagnosis in a positive light. When you've got "good" along with the "bad," it's easier than when you only have deficits. But I do think that kids raised in a supportive environment can learn to be ok with their deficits and not hate them, even if they don't have any gifts to balance it out. Lots of people are not gifted, but they can love themselves just the same. I think it is when autistics find themselves in an environment that prizes typicality and pushes for it at all costs and rewards all attempts to appear "indistinguishable" that people learn to hate their diagnosis and--sometimes--who they are. Those things, IMHO, are constant "reminders" that someone is imperfect, broken, and not acceptable as they are. Anyone, NT or ASD, raised in an environment where they are made to feel inferior will grow up with an unhealthy self-concept.

My son is proud, too. He loves being unique. Not in the way everyone is unique, but with proof he is unique. He is a naturally happy kid even though a bunch of teenage angst and negativity has seeped in.

It has been interesting to watch him try to process his evolving position in the world, as he has been taught how to fit in and meet his goals; he knows he needs all that to succeed in life and be on his own, but he also feels he has lost something. I assure him that he hasn't, he is still him, just with more people able to see what makes him unique, but he isn't so sure.

Part of me is really glad to hear about ASD kids that like themselves. Gives me hope for the next generation-- that maybe there is something between "stick-up-the-Aspie" from my grandfather's generation and "diagnosis disabled" like me.

Part of me-- I hope it's the bitter, cynical, "diagnosis disabled" part that nobody should listen to ever-- snorts and says that they're in for a hell of a rude awakening in ten or fifteen years' time when they find out that liking yourself only helps so much in a highly social, highly interconnected world that doesn't like anyone and anything that doesn't work seamlessly with its user interface.

I don't know if people like my dad can survive outside of worlds like shade-tree mechanic shops, honest fly-by-night general contractors, coal mining, and long-haul trucking (careers and environments I've actually seen Aspies thrive in). A lot of those things are going the way-- the geeky engineer alone in his office making love to his blueprints with a slide rule doesn't exist any more (trust me-- I would die in my hubby's line of work even if I were a "math-Aspie"). As the analogy goes, being a Linux system in a Windows world is going to get harder.

Still-- go with it. Liking oneself is a pretty critical underpinning for learning those skills someday, should the need be seen and the desire arise. Even if they are closing down the coal mines and regulating the shade-tree contractors and mechanics out of existence, academia remains "America's largest sheltered workshop for people with high-functioning autism."

Funny that we all seem to get so mad at "the experts," when the university system was basically built for us, by us.

This is so heart-warming to hear.

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did you do anything in particular to encourage this or is it innate?

Honestly, I think it's maybe a combo, with some extra "innate" thrown in there? I have always been really supportive of who he is and I've always been really proud of him, of course, and we've done a *lot* of talking about autism and NT and differences and how ASD is not a defect, it's a difference (because that's what I believe), so it's been an open conversation. On the other hand, he's innately proud of himself and thinks he's pretty special and smart and capable, and he's always appreciated being special, if that makes sense. He's never wanted to do what others do, from an early age trying to solve problems differently, make different choices, etc. Since he doesn't care about what other people think of him and he doesn't have a need for friendship outside his family, he rarely comes across something that makes him feel badly about himself.

Don't get me wrong, we have our share of frustrations, especially involving school assignments that require him to think in ways that make him very uncomfortable (opinion questions, inferencing) or force him to do things he thinks are ridiculous (reflection papers, writing "how" he got an answer in math) and these things lead to meltdowns more than we'd like, but these difficulties are never a blow to his own self-esteem.

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Who knows he may be the next inventor,professor etc.

He currently wants to be an astrophysicist I could see him doing amazing things someday