Would you tell whole school year your child is autistic?

[thegreentree]

Apologies if I've not quite used the right language around this but... DS attends a mainstream school, he is in reception and has an autism diagnosis.

This is more of a WWYD than an AIBU but DH and I a trying to figure out what would be best for DS...

• To wait until DS is old enough to understand he has ASD, and can choose who he wants to tell?

OR

• To let parents know now so they can hopefully explain to their DC why DS is different? And hopefully act in a more understanding way towards him.

DS is bright but I can see he is struggling socially at school. I'm increasingly starting to feel like it would be good to tell parents (we have an active all year what's app group that I would probably share it on). Just to give everyone some perspective/insight to why DS is a bit different, and to hopefully encourage their kids to be a bit kinder?

I don't know if this is naive. And once disclosed I can't take it back. I would be devastated if DS as he got older hated me for sharing this info about him so widely.

WWYD?

Hmm, I'm not sure. DS has 2 kids with ASD diagnosis and one suspected ASD. I guess their could be more I don't know of though. I wasn't told explicitly but it's a small class and with one child it's very obvious and the other it came out in conversation and the one undergoing assessment I know very well outside of school so it was natural to discuss it. It's not affected anything between kids or parents - we do whole class parties and no child has been excluded from these.

My son is asd. I dont tell every parents in school. I just tell his friends parents. I always open about his conditions. If its not his friend i dont bother to tell.

I would tell the parents so that they can help their children understand now, I wouldn’t see it as a secret that has to be hidden but then I think autism is part of a persons identity and something to be proud of. If a child had a hearing impairment which effected their communication and required their peers to face them to let them lip read or speak more clearly I don’t think anybody would suggest keeping the impairment secret and not sharing the things their friends could do to make communicating easier for them, just because autism is a neurological rather than a physical condition doesn’t mean it is shameful or something to hide. Schools should be celebrating and supporting children's differences and promoting inclusion and understanding.

Yes i agree the children would have began othering him anyway. However, when my son came home from an early age describing meltdowns etc, it wouldve been so much easier if i couldve said "Billy has autism. This means x, y and z and you need to try to realise that he will react in ways you may not always understand."

As it stood, the school did no work about difference or autism or SNs. And then at home, i tried to explain but my son just didnt get it. Maybe if a childs school is better with dealing with SNs its not necessary for parents to know. But i could see the child was floundering and no one seemed to be doing anything about it.

This.

Especially when he doesn’t know himself yet. It’s his information. Other people need to show tolerance for weaknesses even if they don’t know the cause. We are all different.

The adoption community has a good approach to this that we in the autism community should learn from.

I have an autistic son, a little bit older, and no I wouldn’t. I have told the parents of his friends and anyone who looks after him or needs to know. It’s not a secret (I mean it’s fairly obvious if you spend any time with/watching the class, he’s usually got ear defenders on, a chewy fidget toy, he won’t look at anyone, he’s usually humming…), but it is personal and I don’t think it’s fair for me to broadcast it to a bunch of adults that don’t know him. The class teachers have been excellent in integrating him and explaining what needs to be explained to other children and I’m happy for people to be told if it’s helpful, it just doesn’t need to be premptively broadcast to the class parents.

Personally, I don’t understand the secrecy? If people know, then they can understand and relate to issues he might have and make reasonable adjustments?
(but maybe I’m the oddity here?)

My son was diagnosed with ASD at 5 in Reception. We told him about his diagnosis and are open with him and others about what it means.

He has grown with his classmates and they are very supportive of him and help him a lot.

I don’t think it needs an announcement but I don’t think there’s a need to keep it quiet.

A point to note is my son is extremely intellectually able with advanced verbal reasoning so could understand our description of his condition and articulate his questions about it.

My younger son is more severely affected and in a special unit so this is moot for him.

The vast majority of people unless they work in education, health care or have a personal link themselves don't really understand what autism is and can be unpleasant which can lead to their children being unpleasant in return. So telling everyone is a little pointless and opens up telling everyone your DCs medical info and potentially causing abullying scenario.

You could mention that you he has additional needs and needs understanding - which doesn't give away his diagnosis or you could mention specifics if necessary, DC finds crowds difficult, DC doesn't like loud noises etc and be more open if / when DC makes any close friends.

Whenever DD had friends over I'd check with their parents if there were any dietary or medical needs that I needed to know about and that is the only time I found out about DCs with asthma or food issues and I would expect a heads up them of anything I needed to know.

My son was horrendously discriminated against at school for some rather mild very obvious autistic traits. I was dismissed as a single parent. Now he is 24 and diagnosed later in his teens ( he left school at 15 with no qualifications - literally walked out!). He has a good job considering and is thinking of going back to education. I am currently waiting for a ASD assessment as things make sense. Sorry for rabbling. Please be guarded as people are not always kind but I wish you and your son luck and kindness.

Not all parents or children are enlightened or kind.

A lot of neurodiverse teens and adults prefer to keep open the option to “pass” at least sometimes.

Personal information is personal information and OP’s DS is too young to consent to releasing the genie from the bottle.

That would first require them to understand autism and how it affects this child.

Most won't.

Personally I wouldn’t put it on the group chat. Iv told some parents that my son is autistic but only when he’s done something that could be considered rude, like not responding to them or their children, but it’s quite noticeable he has additional needs so they probably already knew.

Because the parents of the children my son doesn’t play with or speak to, often parents I have never spoken to and sometimes have never even seen because for example their child goes to wrap around, don’t need the intimate details of my child’s condition. His actual friends and their parents need to understand more details, random girls in his class he has nothing to do with just need telling by the teacher “x is wearing ear defenders because he doesn’t like the noise in the lunch hall” or “x is sitting on a ball because that’s how he concentrates best, now let’s get back to….” There’s a difference between “secret” and “not shared with thirty odd people, half of whom I don’t know anything about except their child is in my child’s class”.

But presumably the school would have been rubbish either way if they were doing no work? And I don’t see how an ‘open disclosure’ to you personally (who had already decided the child was autistic) would have helped. Why is it easier to say ‘he’s autistic’ than to tell your son ‘x child is having a hard time. Sometimes people find things very hard, when that happens we do xyz or we get a teacher.’

Like there’s no reason the magic word ‘autism’ would have suddenly helped your child be understanding - and parents of classmates knowing would make absolutely no difference to the child floundering in an unsupportive school environment. Unless you were all trained in working with autistic children and planning on volunteering your time to support him at the first hint of a disclosure of their private information. Which I doubt.

Okay. Well from now on I want to know which children in my son’s class have divorced parents. And which children are in the care of the local authority. And which ones are delayed in meeting their goals, and which ones have been victims of abuse, and which ones have suffered bereavement, and which ones are dyslexic. I feel an open disclosure of everything I’m nosy about would help me support those children.

Oh, no… it’s actually not my job or business and I wouldn’t be supporting those children, would I? Unless you are planning on working in the classroom, you really don’t need to know the individual needs of every child - and many of them will have needs of one kind or another.

@kanaloa you seem to want to take offence to my post.

I am saying the children didnt understand. Putting a name to something helps children understand things more easily. Saying "sometimes people find things hard" doesnt help because thr other kids are thinking "well thats not hard, why cant he behave like us".

The school were allowed to be unsupportive because no one was pushing for a diagnosis. Now hes in year 6 and has struggled socially all the way through school. It wasnt fair and i have no idea what the school and parents were playing at tbh.

I personally think it’s a good idea to be upfront with the other parents. My daughter had a boy in her class all through primary who had a teaching assistant supporting him and needed allowances made for him to cope with a normal classroom. In p1(reception) my daughter often complained that he’d hit her and we raised it with the teacher who went in to a panic and said ‘ I can’t discuss him with you, I can’t discuss him with you.’ Totally fair enough but it would have helped to have been able to explain to our daughter exactly why he found school difficult and was lashing out. We had to talk in really generic terms about how he found school hard and tell her to stay away from him as much as possible because we had no idea what his actual diagnosis was.

How exactly would it have been easier to explain “autism” to your child than to explain “impulse control”, or “sound sensitivity” for example?

Was your primary aged daughter an educational psychologist?

Yes, it was never a secret about my DS being autistic, but neither did we do a Big Announcement. I always felt for DS to fully accept being autistic it shouldn't be a shameful secret, or a cause to celebrate. It just is, like him wearing glasses and having black hair.

I dont think there is any reason to be more specific though? I know when my kids came home from school complaining that x or y would do this or that I would always explain in generic terms that maybe x or y has additional needs and finds thing you find easy difficult or what ever. They never needed am actual name of a condition. I don't even know of those kids has additional needs, I don't think it matters, it's just explaining that everyone copes with things in different ways/not everyone will behave how you want them to etc

I find it difficult when expected to accomodate/tolerate behaviour that would be perceived as unacceptable in NT children the same age, when i don't know a child is ND.

Statistically, most children are NT so I'm never going to assume is ND unless I'm told.

I also want to help. I want to avoid triggering difficulties for a child who already struggles with every day life. I want to find ways to minimise their stress. I want to support their parents & offer to help in any way I can. It's very difficult to do this if I don't know that there's a problem.

So i think it really depends on your child's behaviour/profile & how they react to things. If their behaviour is going to be regularly impacting people around them I think its helpful to explain why.

Do you feel the same way about being told a child’s adoption, fostering, care, child protection or abuse background? That you won’t use your imagination about why some children are withdrawn or anxious or hyperactive or lash out? You just insist on your right to judge harshly unless given confidential information to persuade you otherwise?

Wow. There are some truly terrible fellow parents out there.

Oh @Foolsandtheirmoney don’t go spoiling the fun with your common sense and compassion. These people want their sticky beak tights respected. 😉

I dont think there is any reason to be more specific though? I know when my kids came home from school complaining that x or y would do this or that I would always explain in generic terms that maybe x or y has additional needs and finds thing you find easy difficult or what ever.

But to do that you need confirmation that they do have additional needs. DC has been hurt a few times in rough play by a child in their class. Child does not have additional needs, they are just quite... free spirited and the parents (friends of friends) impose few/no boundaries at home. I do not and will not excuse other children's unacceptable behaviour to mine, or expect them to accomodate it, unless i know a child genuinely has additional needs.