Telling people your child is autistic

[lollipoprainbow]

My dd 9 was diagnosed on Friday as having ASD, how do you tell others about it or should I keep to myself ? I don't know how to tell family as I'm not sure they know anything about autism and won't understand. She is high functioning but struggles socially so she doesn't like speaking to family members or people she doesn't know. Should I tell them she's autistic?!

So my DS was diagnosed last year, aged 9, and we've told the school, some family and close friends. I decided not to share it widely because it felt like DS's information rather than mine.

Might be worth giving yourselves a week or two to process it, before telling others? My DS told family members himself. With the exception of school, no one we have told has been remotely surprised

I think at that age, while I would definitely tell school, I would let DD have a lot of say in who gets told beyond that. How does she feel about her Dx? Did it come as a surprise or was she expecting it?

Although I can see that it could help explain to some family members that she's not being rude in not wanting to speak to them, if you think they won't understand then it won't necessarily make anything better to tell them. I think landofgiants' suggestion to absorb it for a while yourself first before telling anyone other than school is probably a good one - and will also give you time to work out what you want to say.

I probably told too many people when DD was being assessed, and looking back I can see it was more for my benefit than hers - I felt really lost and was looking for support and reassurance. While it did result in me being put in touch with some other parents of autistic kids locally which was very useful, I do worry about the breach of her privacy. Luckily she was quite small and a lot of people have moved on or probably just wrote it off as a slightly neurotic mother, particularly given that we didn't have a Dx yet.

Told school, doctors, close family and friends and parents of children with special needs that know me. Other than that. No one. It's none of their business. I had a friend who would tell everyone about her child's diagnosis, I would look at her and think why, they don't care about your child. Not only that, she hadn't told her child about his diagnosis and was there blurting out to strangers in front of her child. Honestly!