APSPERGERS - Live HAPPY? HERE'S HOW!

hopefillsme said:

I'm supporting him in that transparency, at the age of almost 12, I think he can make a decision. There has been lots of discussion around this.I think he wants to raise awareness as he gets older, and perhaps become famous one day for being a face for awesome Aspergers.

I don't want this to become an argument and you have clearly given this a lot of thought but I note that you haven't got a lot of people supporting this approach and would like to offer some more thoughts on the issue.

People with autism are often immature in a lot of ways as they have not processed and made sense of a lot of the social input that their peers will have processed. They are at risk of being taken advantage of because they are relatively naiive. It is a common problem (a real problem involving very real risks) that they do not know the distinctions between family vs friends vs strangers and we are often far too open and trusting as we tend to treat everyone the same. Stranger danger is a much bigger issue for an autistic child than it is for a non-autistic child.

His ability to argue may be stronger than his experience. He may be able to persuade you of things that your age and maturity should identify as dangerous. You are the parent, you have to be able to define, and reinforce behaviours, that he will need for the rest of his life. (Are you on the spectrum yourself by any chance?)

His desire to become the face of autism is admirable but he really does not have the experience or wisdom to do this. He can do this later if he still wishes to. He really should not be making that decision now.

hopefillsme said:

I'm supporting him in that transparency, at the age of almost 12, I think he can make a decision. There has been lots of discussion around this.I think he wants to raise awareness as he gets older, and perhaps become famous one day for being a face for awesome Aspergers.

I don't want this to become an argument and you have clearly given this a lot of thought but I note that you haven't got a lot of people supporting this approach and would like to offer some more thoughts on the issue.

People with autism are often immature in a lot of ways as they have not processed and made sense of a lot of the social input that their peers will have processed. They are at risk of being taken advantage of because they are relatively naiive. It is a common problem (a real problem involving very real risks) that they do not know the distinctions between family vs friends vs strangers and we are often far too open and trusting as we tend to treat everyone the same. Stranger danger is a much bigger issue for an autistic child than it is for a non-autistic child.

His ability to argue may be stronger than his experience. He may be able to persuade you of things that your age and maturity should identify as dangerous. You are the parent, you have to be able to define, and reinforce behaviours, that he will need for the rest of his life. (Are you on the spectrum yourself by any chance?)

His desire to become the face of autism is admirable but he really does not have the experience or wisdom to do this. He can do this later if he still wishes to. He really should not be making that decision now.