Any advice re explaining to their child that they have autism?

[LetLoveRule]

Hi

My dd is 7 and has HFA/AS. She is doing really well, bright as a button but obviously she has her fair share of difficulties as well. As her parents, we feel that she would now benefit from knowing that she has autism and this is why she perhaps sees things differently to others. Her school is fantastic and they have also said that they think that this would help her.

Any advice you can give me? At the moment we feel we need to find the right time to 'break' the news, but obviously it's something we want to do as matter of fact and positively as possible. We don't want to make a big deal of it!

Thanks

I think you will find information on the National Autistic Society website. Some people choose to read books with their children and there are booklists on the NAS website.
Some people suggest asking someone outside the family to tell them but we told DS ourselves. I think telling her while she is still quite young is a good thing. People who find out their parents knew but did not tell them can be quite angry when they do find out.
It might be as well to do it at half term so she has plenty of time to digest the information before going back to school.

Thank you for your advice - that's really useful. I will have a look at NAS and take it from there! I really do feel it would help her - she can already identify for herself things that she finds different or harder than her peers. We definitely want to tell her ourselves.

We puzzle about this, as DS is nearly 4, HFA/Aspie - too early to tell yet, but he is already aware that he has lots of appointments etc and asks why. So far we've just said he has a special brain and that people are helping it work. When he's a bit older we'll explain more.

I will be watching this thread. Ds has just turned 6 and i havent told him anything yet. Ive been waiting for his official dx next month, but im not quite sure what to actually say.

We have not said anything direct yet and DS (8)has not asked despite numerous appointments. Very often in his own world, at the moment if it is not about Pokemon it is entirely irrelevant! However we have started to sow some seeds by reading the first two of Henry Winkler's Hank Zipzer books. Very American, and the main character has dyslexia, but the whole theme of struggling with aspects of school, not always understood by others, less than sympathetic teachers (applied at our old school not new one) etc is in there, plus there is the friend who knows it all, very literal, walking dictionary ... so lots to tie in with for conversations and we link back to it from time to time.

we told ds3 when he was in Y3 at school. He has 2 other brothers one of whom is severley asd so I had to tread carefully.

Basically we felt he was becoming frustrated the more he was becoming aware of his problems and if he knew there was a reason it might help. he found it extremely helpful and was very relieved.

We told him that the name of the difficulties he had was autism but that didn't mean he was like his brother.

Everyone has difficulties with something. Our neighbour has difficulty with his eyes which don't work like ours so we call that being blind. grandad's ears don;t work like ours so we call that being deaf, your brain hears people talking but sometimes thinks its a foreign language so you don't understand until someone translates it into your english. Thats why sometimes it takes you a bit longer to answer because your brain is busy translating.

Your brothers autism is different. he gets very scared about changes and you do too but not to the same amount. You are halfway between you NT brother and your asd brother. For some things you are the same as ds1 (NT) for others you are the same as ds2.

Everybody finds something hard If they say they find nothing difficult they are lying. even the queen will have something she finds difficult.Its just yours has a name called autism.

Thank you all - very, very helpful.

Eatyourveg - I really like the idea of explaining that everyone has something that they find hard. I really think my DD will find it helpful to know. All we need to do now is to take a deep breath and pick a good time. We have been recommended 'I am utterley unique' - it is a lovely book and describes my DD to a 't' - I think she will be able to recognise her strengths (she has many!) from this too.

Thanks again.

one i dea that popped into my mind reading this was because there high functioning.

explain it as and using an example of a board game rules ,

that everyone is playign the same game,

ie everyong ones playing monopaly but your using the rules from snakes and ladders or something

cause hfa is basically that a different ruleset for life

other then that the websites mentioned should help

all the best

I told my DS about his AS. He wanted to know why we kept going to the hospital.I told him that he saw things in a different way to other people, and that he notices things that others miss. I also told him that Einstein was thought to have AS and as he was an extremely clever man that put my DS in with a very special group of people.
He then mentioned that when grows up and has got Alevels he would go on to study Quantum physics although he wasn't sure if he was clever enough for that!

Hello again

Well we had a casual kind of chat with DD at the weekend. We looked at 'I am utterley unique'. Every page introduces another strength such as 'I have fantastic focus', 'I ask a quadrillion questions' - every page really true for her. She was very interested and showed her teacher the book on Monday. She hasn't mentioned it much since, but we keep reinforcing the positive aspect now and again, pointing out if she notices something, does well in a test etc. We can then start to introduce the difficulties she faces from there.

Very pleased so far. Thanks for your suggestions and support too.

I didn't say anything to ds until one day he came home from school crying saying "I was naughty today at school, I can't behave even when I try I just keep doing things that are naughty".

I just said "you are not naughty, you are different, but not in bad a way but it means that sometimes things that are easy for other kids are harder for you and sometimes things that are hard for other kids are easier for you". Also told him there are loads of other kids like him out there but they just go to different schools so he hasn't met any yet. We have just met a HFA child actually, a couple of years younger and are currently arranging play dates with him.

Me and ex talk about his autism in front of him in a positive way so I think he is absorbing it gently in that way.