telling ds he has aspergers

[Yummymum1]

ds is 7 and was diagnosed last year with AS.He has been given a place on a saturday club for children with special needs and we feel we ought to prepare him for this by telling him he has special needs also!!
He is very bright and able and attends mainstream school.We have ordered a couple of books from NAS but i wondered if anyone out there has any experience of this.

I told ds1 (ASD)either just before or just after his 7th birthday. I gave him the Kenneth Hall book and he was fascinated to find that there were other people out there similar to him. (Ds2 also has ASD but is very different to his brother).

Tbh I was dreading it but ds1 was actually pleased to find out that there was a reason for him always feeling different to other people.

Good luck.

Thanks coppertop. Which book is that? Is it specifically aimed at children?

I would be very interested to know the book as well as we are about to talk to our nine year old about this. Has it helped him at school CT, my son doesn't cope too well at school and we want to use the talking about the dx with him as a way forward.

It's this book.

It was written by KH when he was 10 and in it he talks about his AS and what it's like for him.

Ds1 found it helpful for school because until he read the book he couldn't understand why he found classroom noise painful or why he was the only one who struggled with writing etc. His self-esteem and self-confidence were really starting to suffer and he was starting to say things like "I can't do anything properly" and "I'm no good at xyz". Now he gets why he feels different he's much happier about life in general.

Hi yummymummy,
my experience of this was that ds at first was hurt and said "so I'm a nutter then" or something along those lines. he was angry, and sad. then a couple of weeks later I (casually) showed him some stuff about AS as I was looking at it on the NAS website and he got very interested and could then relate to a lot of his behaviour, saying "Oh, I do that, I see now" etc.and I printed a lot of stuff off for him.
So it took him a while to allow it to sink in IYSWIM. but I think it was a good thing to do.
he is 12 by the way and was very aware that he was being assessed for something.

Try this one too:
www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE/WWW/WEBPAGES/showbook.php?id=1843102064

Sorry, crap at links...

Thank you everyone.That has been really helpful.It seems that it is a positive thing to do for the child and helps them understand better.We have been dropping things in for a while now like "not everyone thinks that way" and "you see things in a different way to other people" so it hopefully wont be too much of a shock.At tea tonight he said "I was born on a different planet " which was interesting....