how to explain autism to a young child

Post Reply New Topic

be simple and as justified as as possible.

Hi Jeni,

Great to see you.

Me explaining autism to NT kids would be like the parable of the blind men describing an elephant.

Is the young child autistic?

Are you the autistic adult trying to explain to an NT child of the opposite?

no shes nt

Sorry...I should have asked earlier: How old is the child?

this comment made me simile im still sick but ill be better soon.

5 and 3

I would say something like: "Some people just want to be alone with their thoughts, or their books. It's not that they don't like you. It's that they want to learn about the world in a different way. "

I'm sure you'll get plenty of responses that will help you with your objective.

Children of that age are extremely accepting of all adult behaviour - there is no need to explain, the children will learn from experience.

I regularly take care of my grandchildren ( 5 & 8 ) - their mother, my daughter, has inherited some very strange ways, but the children know that they are loved. That's all they need...

level of abstraction there is too high for 5 and 3. Will give it some thought.

My son often says "what?" to me and that tells me he isn't understanding what I am telling him. I don't know how else to explain it to him so I don't even tell him again and figure I will wait until he is older. Even trying to keep it simple doesn't always work. Some things are just too complicated for a kid that young to understand.

That's the nice thing about children that age, they *gasp* tend to accept people for who they are. Same reason why you don't need to explain race to a young child: they literally don't see it. Children under 6 are the only demographic that universally accept me and treat me like a rock star. The simple answer is to say nothing at all.

Here I am an adult and I still don't see race. I know it exists and I knew at a young age some kids had a different skin color than the rest of us but I thought nothing of it and still don't. If a child describes someone by their skin color, they are being literal, not racist and I still can't grasp how it's racism because it's no different describing someone by their hair color or eyes or body type and height. But I guess that is my literal mind. I was in fact confused why people would treat someone different because of their skin color and why they would be treated poorly and my mom told me of course I was confused because I was never raised to be racist and they never taught it to me. If a kid asks why are some people brown? It's an innocent question because they are curious to know why some people have a different skin color than we do. I asked this question when I was little and boy did my friend give me flack for it years later and I don't even know how old I was when I asked it. My old friend bought it up when I was nine and I didn't know what she was talking about. I still don't remember it. I will never know if I really did ask it or if she was messing with me (like I always thought) and it would be weird I would even ask it because I have an uncle who is black (my dad's brother is gay so he is married to a guy who is) so why would I even ask it? especially to a mother who is black herself and her other child but maybe I was trying to understand why some people have a different skin color than me and because of my limited language, I didn't know how to ask it properly so I asked the mother "Why is your kid brown?" when they came to pickup their daughter. It may have been better if I asked instead "Why do some people have a different skin color than the rest of us?" but that may have still given me flak later by my friend because it might still be seen as racist and my best friend knew I had problems and limited language and I didn't understand things as well as others my age and I was behind so wouldn't she know the question was innocent?

Here is another funny story my mom told me. When I saw my uncle for the very first time, I was about five or six, I asked my uncle how long did he have to be in the sun for to make his skin that color. Then before he could even respond, I went on saying I think it's pretty and I wished I had that color.
I do have memories of trying to get my skin dark but instead I would end up getting sun burned and getting more freckles. I thought that was how people got black because my mom told me the sun makes your skin darker.

AWOW: Once your child starts going to school. She may start to succumb to peer pressure and rebel ageist you. Your child my start to hate you and feel ashamed and embarrassed to be around you for your autistic traits.