My asd son has just opened up to me about his hormones and sex....

[userzH]

He's 14 and I'm so incredibly proud of him.

He shared some personal stuff which he was worried about which I reassured him was completely normal.

We also spoke about sexuality and he told me he isn't sure whether he likes boys or girls.

I'm a single mum. I have suggested ds open up to his dad about this stuff but ds doesn't feel comfortable enough to do so.

He has well being sessions at school - he goes to a specialist school and said he would feel comfortable enough talking to his well being teacher who is male and absolutely lovely and im hoping he could calm his worries.

My son seems to think there is coming wrong with him and that his feelings etc are not normal.

Is there any good websites out there or information about this sort of stuff? Particularly for teenagers with additional needs? With him having autism, it is more difficult to understand.

I’d probably be aware a lot of teenagers with autism believe they are the wrong sex as a way of trying to fit in to a society they don’t feel they belong in.
If you hear him say something along those lines I would probably be cautious and not let him rush into anything.

I'm not sure I'd be posting something that he's just been brave enough to talk to you about on a public forum, tbh.

Please get your thread moved to a different section. AIBU will just get you flamed. There are plenty of people on here that can give you good advice.

Why? He's not going to read it or know about it. It's not like you know who I am from this post

I'm dealing with this on my own and I know full well this will be something he wants to be open and honest about so I want make sure I handle it correctly.

I think you could have got the advice without sharing what he told you.

My advice would be that whatever anyone suggests, read it first before you show him. There is so much misinformation out there and young people with ASD are more likely to take it as fact then others.

My Ds came to me wondering if he was gay - similar age .

I simply told him he doesn’t need to label it . He can like who he likes . He is now 17 with a g/ friend ..

I think what you’ve done is already perfect op. You’ve built trust. You gave him a non judgemental supportive time to chat and air his concerns. That’s all he needs - a safe space to talk and voice his anxieties.

What he’s feeling is very normal at 14 and he’s choosing to talk to his mum rather than be lead by Mr Google (and potentially porn) or his immature mates (however nice they might be). He sounds a good lad and hopefully he’ll be able to come to you again if he has any more questions. That’s enough I think at this stage.

Thank you. I'm really glad he felt comfortable enough to come and speak to me.

The thing with my son is he's very vulnerable. He doesn't have any friends....he still believes in Santa, he's very very young for his age in some ways but very mature in others. He was extremely concerned that he had something serious wrong with him - like an illness.

Not unusual, especially with ND children. They are only just developing and the world is full of confusing messages about relationships and sexuality (even for NT adults let’s face it!)

I’ve heard of similar conversations where the child assumed they’d marry their sibling, or they were panicking because they didn’t ‘feel’ any gender or sexuality etc.

He sounds lovely and as long as you were able to reassure him and let him know he can always ask those questions, he’ll come through it I’m sure. The more he asks and knows, the more he’ll correlate it with other info he gets in PSHE at school hopefully too.

Ps. By ‘only just developing’ I meant in terms of puberty and exploring sex and sexuality.

there is a book, ‘Sex is a funny word’ which is aimed at younger children and covers all the biological stuff as well as sexual orientation. It’s accessible and well reviewed. Might me good for your son.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/22889878

Just wanted to say you sound awesome and handled it brilliantly. My girl (13) had a similar chat with me and I was a bit thrown, but (hopefully) kept my cool and blagged it ok! If I find any resources I'll be back, but I wanted to say you sound like such a lovely Mum.