Telling my child about their diagnosis

Does anyone have any tips about telling their child about their diagnosis? Our daughter is 13 and the clinician described her as ‘just meeting the threshold’ for diagnosis, across-the-board. She’s a girl and I think probably excellent at masking.

She recently also had a diagnosis of ADHD, which she seemed more comfortable with and said it resonated. We have a couple of friends with non-verbal autistic children and this is making it difficult for our daughter to connect with a possible diagnosis. Any tips on how to proceed would be much appreciated.

I feel like we’ve been handed a grenade - I don’t know what to do next.

thx

🐝 Bees 🐝 (they/them) Autism resources in bio #stoptheshock #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs over 2 years ago

Really autism is a spectrum. And it is not linear with mild on one end and strong on the other end either, it's all about where you are on it in certain areas and how if at all one area has a knock-on effect on other areas of your life, IQ is not something dictated by autism either as there are higher and lower IQ people who are not on the spectrum much teh same way as any of the cooccuring conditions associated with autism can also be not present in someone with autism and yet present in someone neurotypical. We are all unique, even if we share some similarities in some areas.
I find this one of teh better resources to explain what the autism spectrum is to folks new to the concept. https://the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/ I think once she realises how encompassing the spectrum really is the less she may feel like an imposter and can focus on finding the support that she more specifically needs too.
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