How to tell my 8 year old he is autistic?

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Hi all,

Am looking for advice/guidance on how others found best worked for them when it came to telling their child they had autism?

My DS is currently 8years old and has been struggling a lot more recently in the classroom. I have sat down with his teacher and head teacher and we all agreed that we think it would be in his best interest if he had a better understanding of his autism.

We have spoken to him before about him having autism but he didn't fully understand he just said "ok am different" and that was all.

TIA for any help

Following.

We’ve started talking to our 6 year old in passing (not making a thing out of it) that he has a special brain.

I don’t know if this is right or not, I’ve heard mixed opinions from the professionals

Our ds was starting to notice he was different (he has a lot of extra support at school). We kinda framed it as everyone is different and some people find some things more difficult than other people. In your case you find x, y and z difficult and this is because you have autism. We had some books about autism we talked through but actually I think books where a character has asd have been more helpful. There is a book called 'I am special' which is a guided way of having the conversation. At the time he seemed unbothered by what we told him but a couple of months later he started to struggle with the idea a bit more (and in particular the unfairness).

Is he under a SALT? I am a SENCO and our SALT runs a programme called "I am special" that helps children understand their autism. I think it is a good idea to have conversations about it, I've known children whose parents chose not to tell them and it can be problematic. You could read some books about autistic children - two nice ones are Leo and the Octopus and Our House is on Fire (not about autism per se but about Greta Thunberg and it talks about how she feels different).

The Superhero brain is a really nice book too.

We were advised to help our DC think of it a bit like part of a jigsaw. We got them to think of all the things they liked/identified with and showed them that they were made up of lots of different pieces. Then we added in the autism piece and spoke about how it was a part of them but not the whole of them. We spoke about how different jigsaw pieces impacted on each other and that the autism piece often impacts on things but it can be in a good way too.

There are lots of loveky videos on youtube where kids of different ages talk about their experiences and lives too.

The National Autistic society also had a great resource where they showed the fact that it's a spectrum really clearly. It had lovely, easy to understand graphics that helped my DC see that every autistic person is completely unique and will notice the impact in a different way. It was helpful as it let us talk about the things they found more difficult as a result and also the things they found easier. My DC is very proud of their memory and attention to detail and we were able to discuss how we all find it really helpful. On the flip side, we also were able to talk about when things were harder and try to work out what might help.