How to tell a child they are autistic

[lollipoprainbow]

My dd9 has been diagnosed with ASD. How do I tell her? What do I say that doesn't make her feel bad about herself ? advice please

Well I bought my son a book and left it lying about -for a year-

He wasn’t interested
I talked about how the bits in his brain that make him shy are stuffed full of clocks and maps - he loves this as he’s a total smarty pants.

Then his brother was given a book from school, from the Senco - he found it useful.

My little one then found the brother book in his room and thought his brother was autistic and was being overly nice for him for a few days before we all twigged.

We all had quite a good laugh about it 😂😂

So yeah we explained the concepts slowly and in a rather offhand way

He’s 9 and only learned the label a few weeks ago.

It depends on your daughter’s strength and weaknesses. My son is really happy in himself so I appreciate we had it easy.

That depends a lot on what she is like, really, and what your instincts tell you.

My son was diagnosed (with Aspergers) at 6. He was as sharp as a pin, hyperlexic and very very articulate. He knew what was going on right from the outset of the process, so it didn't come as a suprise to him when he was told of the diagnosis, but he did go very quiet and sad for a little while. He wasn't pleased about having ASD, but he was very determined that nobody was going to hide anything from him or talk down to him, so we followed his lead. He had a lot of questions, but went through periods of not wanting to talk about it, so we left books about ASD (some age-appropriate ones, but also Tony Attwood's book for parents and practitioners) in the toilet. He read them all, and over the next few years talked about it gradually more and more, until by the time he started secondary school he was pretty comfortable with it and happy to tell teachers etc where necessary.

Sorry, that's a ramble. TLDR would be: follow your instincts. You know your child. Be guided by her and whatever is a natural way of processing difficult information for her. A friend of mine and her son wrote notes and left them for each other every evening, rather than discuss face to face.

I went with talking about someone famous who my son admires who has asd, then talking about some similar strenghths my son had and said that he also had asd and did he have any questions and sort of left it there for the first go.

No idea if it was a good way to do it.

Thanks she's very sensitive so want to tread carefully, she already thinks she's different due to major friendship issues at school and getting angry. She hates the way she looks etc. I think the diagnosis could tip her over the edge !! She'll also expect mummy to fix it too as I usually can!

Well that’s the problem I had, I was so worried about setting him off

He was so volatile he used to scream with rage at not having the same name as his brother so that’s partly why we were so subtle.

One thing that helped my son- we used to role play situations at school all the time - on the way to and from school. Quite a long journey so plenty time to defuse and discuss.

When he started school we even had to practise saying hello or making eye contact - he used to roar at the teachers as a greeting

I think I’m autistic as well - without the clever bits sadly - but could have really benefited from some understanding at school. I didn’t realise how I came across at times until I was probably in my twenties. All you can really offer girls is guidance. Self esteem thing probably feeds off that and into physical viewpoint. It’s tricky with girls. My sister I think is autistic too but she was just a super masking brainy social butterfly who would then come home and crumple.

This is a good video from the National Autistic Society - might give you a gentle , positive way to open the conversation:-

Hi, have you been given any good ideas? I bought "I'm an Aspie girl" and gave it to dd and asked her if she knew anyone that was like the girl in the book. She identifies with all of it and was quite incredulous that the book existed. It allowed us to have a chat about each page. Have only just had asd confirmed so currently on the post diagnosis emotional rollercoaster, seeking support that isn't there, not knowing what to do next... did is also 9, and amazing but an anxious turbulent little thing. I haven't explicitly told her yet and am wondering how and when. Hope you are surviving and if you find any top tips or great resources please share!

Chris Bonnello has a good article about when and how to tell:
autisticnotweird.com/when-should-i-tell-2020/

And also some good ones for young people:
autisticnotweird.com/advice-for-children/
autisticnotweird.com/growing-up-autistic-advice-for-teenagers-with-asperger-syndrome-or-mild-autism/

He's autistic himself and also a teacher who has worked with autistic pupils so he sees it from a professional and personal view.

A great book for around her age I think is "A Different Kind of Normal" by Abigail Balfe. It's illustrated, very funky - tells her personal story but also talks about autism more generally (including aspects like gender identity).

Fiction books can be a really great way in too. I really loved "A Kind of Spark" by Elle McNicoll which is about a 10 year old autistic girl in Scotland who has one autistic sister and one NT. The relationships in it are really nice and the main character is really nice and relatable. The author is also autistic.

If you want to explore more autistic literature for YP, Lizzie Huxley-Jones has a great list here:
lizziehuxleyjones.com/#autbooks

If she likes YouTube, there are some quite cool YouTubers with videos about how they got diagnosed. Not all their videos will be suitable, but autistic vloggers like YoSamdySam and Purple Ella might be worth a watch (and InvisibleI, though she doesn't make videos any more, but I think her old ones are still up).

My DS was diagnosed at 3 and we started drip feeding terminology at about 7 (his emotional / communicative age really wouldn't have taken it in any younger.) We started by talking about his special talents (in his case sight reading and visual memory) and talked about he was good at those things because he had an autism brain that made it easy for him. However, the bad side of having an autism brain is it was always very busy and that could make him get tired quickly.

We're gradually building up his understanding...