Son diagnosed aspie, but NT wife didn't want to tell him.

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My 8 year old boy was recently diagnosed with HFA. It's something my wife has been pushing for for some time because he finds school really difficult.

After he got the diagnosis I sat with him in the garden and explained all about Asperger's, and what it might mean for him, mentioning all the plus points like how it gives him a really long attention span for interesting things, and all the minuses, like how he finds it hard to understand the kids games in the playground at school. He seemed to really get it and was happy about it.

My NT wife thinks I shouldn't have told him, but I think that's wrong because then I think he'll just assume he's stupid and weird, like I did.

Opinions?

I agree with how you handled it completely.

I don't personally hold with making ASD a "dirty little secret", and I think the way you handled it was great.
What is your wife's reasoning?

I agree with telling him. Did she maybe want to discuss it more first, or tell him herself?

I totally agree that telling him was the best thing. It sounds like the talk you and he had went really well, and that you explained his Asperger's to him in an optimal way.

I disagree with your wife about not telling him. I also agree with the other person here who said it should not be "a dirty little secret". I think when a parent withholds information like this from a child, about him or herself, it actually is harmful ultimately.

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That kinda says it all, doesn't it? Now only thing left to monitor is how he processes it in the long term, and stay alert for self-esteem issues. And keep sharing information casually, about neurodiversity, the way the brain works, also in other people - let him know he's not alone. You wouldn't believe my happiness when I found out Tim Howard has Tourettes, and my enthousiasm when I got to share that with my kid. (disclaimer: I know, not all non-NT people are superheros, neither should they be, but roll models are important).

Your wife is probably scared and nervous that he would think they're something 'wrong with him'. My kid's dad was the same, but since I'm borderline NT / ASD-ASHD, I understood as well how important it is to get a name for whatever it is that you're struggling with. Otherwise, you just feel like you should belong, but you know darn well that you don't. I think NT people just don't get that part.

I told my son about his diagnosis - he was 7 at the time. His father and I were separated by that time, and I didn't discuss with his father whether or not our son should/would be told. Obviously, our son did realise that he had various appointments with people and he had an SLT, and he's not daft, so he knew something was up.

To be honest, I'm more concerned about the fact that you chose to describe your wife as "NT" in your post - I don't think that her neurology is relevant in this instance, and it seems that you might be falling into the habit of dividing the world into 2 groups of people - those who are autistic and NTs. People, and life, are much more complex than that, as I'm sure you know, and such simple distinctions and "othering" tend to be less than helpful.

Edited for grammar.

Last edited by Marcia on 05 Jul 2014, 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I suppose that I would consider the child's age and severity level. If the child was old enough to appreciate the nuances, sure. If the child had mild severity, or already had supports, sure. Other than that, I might wait until the child could accommodate (and not worry about, or blame) the diagnosis information. In your case, I agree that the time was right.

I also agree with telling kids when it's the right time, and it sounds like it was something that your son was ready to hear. In my experience, it's not a conversation that happens once and is over. It's a journey of discovery for everyone involved. It sounds like you've made a really good start.

I'm also not sure what the NT wife had to do with it-- I'm the NT wife in this case, and knew immediately that he'd be told and worked out how to do it. I think that knowledge like this is power and understanding. For anyone, knowing what your strengths and challenges are can be empowering.

It's a detail. What's the big deal? Are people going to get all prickly over being called not autistic now?

Us against them mentality- labelling her to emphasise the difference. Probably not a good idea for a family. The family should be the team; it shouldn't be the autistic team and the NT team. There are millions of ways to describe someone (my fat wife, my Indian white, my smart wife, my NT wife, my chocolate-loving wife....), but you have to decide which label is the most important in the context. When you add an additional label, it suggests the added label changes her status in this situation. So her being NT makes her opinion about handling his AS kid less valuable since he's AS too? IMHO, she's the kid's mother and that's the end of it- her opinion matters. I'm NT and I believe my opinion about parenting my kids who have ASD matters... Because "MOTHER" is the overriding label.

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To answer the question, I think you should have discussed it with her, as you should all major decisions...
What you did with him sounds okay to me. What's not so okay is the disregard of her opinion.

This is putting A LOT of words in the OP's mouth. I hope he'll post again and let us know what, if anything, he actually meant. I doubt he was trying to say that his wife's opinion doesn't matter to him.

probably, as a major contributing factor, the fact that you did not first have a preliminary conversation with your wife really bothers her

I'd be open to hearing why he thinks her being NT changes anything. But it's not just his use of "NT" that makes me think he doesn't value her opinion; it's also that he actually did not consult her first, so evidently he doesn't.

I am not the original poster but maybe the OP thought providing the detail was relevant b/c he did not understand her perspective and thought maybe it had to do with a different way of thinking more common to NTs. He might have wondered if this is typical of NTs as maybe she was looking at social ramifications that he was missing, for example. I guess we will see what he thought if he posts again.

I discuss my husband's neurological status sometimes when I think it is relevant. He is less AS than me, but is ADHD, and I am not. So sometimes we deal with things differently b/c of that. My husband knows I do this, reads my posts, and is not offended and I don't think he views it as forming teams or anything, though I will ask him. now. I am not trying to offend people who are more NT than me, or have ADHD when I do this. I hope it is not interpreted that way.

Nope, as has been said by others, I'm just wondering what point was being made by including that detail, rather than just referring to "my wife." Since that detail was included in the post itself as well as the title, I assumed there must be purpose behind it. And I wasn't sure what the purpose was.