How do I tell my toddler he has autism

[Bufferrring]

So my toddler has been diagnosed with autism (and my own lagging behind diagnosis will be coming off the back of his)
He is bright but suffers extreme anxiety and confidence issues (and we've obviously done our best to raise him with good self esteem but it's part of his profile) I suspect inattentive ADHD from genetics (again, me) and the way he presents.
Anyway, discovering I had autism was a huge shock to me and I don't want him to go through that. So want to tell him from the off that he has autism. I have a few ideas, relate to my own and not daddy's different ways of doing things strengths/weaknesses, stress that it just means some things will be trickier and we will give him the tools and patience to help him. A few books, toddler appropriate like 'A Friend For Henry', discuss characters who have similar difficulties (Elsa sometimes has difficulty controlling her emotions, Gordan sometimes likes to play alone etc). I can draw so will put together a book for him so need ideas for that.

Was hoping someone further on this journey could give tips to help and what worked for them.

Thank you

Sorry that should say nt daddy's not not daddy's.

Interesting question OP. I guess the tricky thing is he is several years off being old enough to understand what autism is? So for now is this about being positive about diverse characteristics in different people, and taking any opps to show that people can like different things, and be good at different things, and need different things, and think about things differently, and it is all good? Think it is fine to talk about being autistic, but autism is just too nuanced a thing to expect them to grasp what it means yet? Agree finding autistic characters is good, but as everyone's autism is so personal to them, it may not be that helpful to say an individual autistic character is 'like you'. They may not be? But it may be helpful to find loads of different autistic characters, with different characteristics, and say these are all autism and everyone's autism is a bit different?

My DS was much older when diagnosed and it was a real shock to him and his sense of self so you are absolutely doing the right thing thinking how to broach this. He finds the stereotype of autism really difficult. It's a journey. Good luck

Sorry OP, have just seen you are autistic too - you will have better ideas than me! (Skim reading ADHDer).

coldcouture you raise good points. We have the book All cats have aspergers (it’s now been changed to all cats have autism) and many of the things in it are not like my ds.

Bufferrring my ds was older than yours when we found out and we didn’t tell him for a couple of years, mainly because I was scared of messing it up I didn’t want him to think there was anything wrong with him.

I had a chat with Chris Bonnello about how to broach it and he advised me to be honest and talk about the negatives as well as the positives but pointed out that he may forget the words but will remember how I made him feel (Maya Angelou quote). As you’re autistic too you can think about how you would have liked to have been told.

Haha no worries, I'm ADHD too so no doubt full of typos.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. Food for thought.