friend with asperger's - how to explain to ds

[roseamongstthorns]

advice please: my best friend has a child the same age as my ds (7) with asperger's syndrome. he is a lovely boy and he and ds have always been good friends but now his 'differences' have started to show themselves i can see ds becoming less patient and almost unkind to him (unfortunately in this respect their brotherly relationship means no boundaries). how do i explain to ds that his friend is a little bit different to him and that he may need to be patient with him from time to time. i don't want him to tactlessly announce publicly that he knows there is something 'wrong' with his friend, just to treat him with a bit more care and respect...anyone else had this to deal with?

Hi my ds1 s best friend, (a) they are so close they could brothers, is autistic. They are both 5 And a's traits are more apparent now as he growing he struggles with social situations and communication.
I said to ds that his friends brain just works differently when he asked why he did certain things and was careful to steer clear of words like normal or strange. Ds doesn't treat him any differently but is quite protective of him. It hasn't had any impact on their friendship at all, in fact when he's having a sensory meltdown ds is often the only one who can get through to him.

You could compare it to being left-handed - a small difference that a minority of people have which tends to cause them to behave/experience things in a slightly different way from most other people. Does your DS' friend have sensory issues? A positive way of explaining these is to use a phrase like very sensitive/extremely aware/very strongly affected by...

You sound so thoughtful and kind. Since having a DS with (slight) Asperger's I am more understanding of the 'foibles' of aspies and more patient. But also - very grateful for other kind people. Alas, not all teachers people are as sensitive as you.

Dd is only 3 but one of her friends at nursery is a 4yr old girl and her twin has quite severe autism. Dd has asked some questions like why X "doesn't have a voice" and why X and Y look the same but X doesn't play with me and Y.

I just tried to explain that everyone is different and X can't talk or play in the same way you do because she has autism.

I also explained that everyone's brains work in different ways and that people learn things at different times to help ds understand that dc in his class with autism hadn't yet learnt to sit on the carpet at school. He totally accepted it and has been much kinder to him since, they are so matter of fact about it as kids. There are good books around too, i can't quite remember the title but i once saw one called

I think if it were my dcs I wouldn't so much make it a "X is different" conversation but more a "we all have things that make us different" and try to point out some of your own differences, you partner's differences, your child's differences and his friend's differences and explain that we are all still people with feelings and should be patient and kind with each other as we all learn to do things at different speeds.