I don't know how to tell my 5 year old that he has asd, and don't know if I should, maybe I should...

[Deeeja]

Title says it all really.
My 5 year old has asd, and while he understands that his 3 year old brother has autism, we have not tole him about his own asd. I don't know how to tackle this. I feel a little bit embarrased about it, and am worried that his teacher may drop the bombshell.
I know he sees that he is different from the other chidren in his class, but doesn't realise just how different he is, only little things such as he still likes playing with teddies and they have grown out of this, he likes reading books about dinosaurs and doesn't like team sports, parties, etc.
I ws about to tell him a few days ago, but chickened out.
Other mums, how did you tell you HFA child about their condition?

Needless to say I feel embarrased about the fact that I have not yet told him and don't know how, not that he has asd ofcourse.

Can you get him a story about a little boy with ASD that he could relate to?

That is a good idea, he does like reading. He has alot of trouble with fiction though, and tends to miss the story line, his comprehension is quite poor and prefers non-fiction. I could try it though, and then discuss it with him.
do you have any you would recommend?

The National Autistic Society website has lots of good books you could try. Have a read through and see if there's some that would work?

www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=425

Have you heard of 'social stories'? One of those might help.

My DS is 16 and has grown up knowing he was 'different', but not knowing why. He didn't get a label of Aspergers until he was about 12 but it has undoubtedly helped him to understand why he felt and seemed so different to his peers. I'd suspected autism with him for years but I don't think I actually named it to him until he was secondary school age just in case I was wrong.

It's very hard to sit them down and just tell them. I don't think we did it that way. DS started to ask questions about why he was different, so I guess we let him lead the conversations.

Not much help am I really