When do you tell your child they have autism?

Technically, we ARE autistic, it's not like having a summer home or having the flu. So I'd make it as boring as possible! Do you have any human quirks? 

For instance, I might do a thing for my son (small act of kindness like cutting up a fruit salad) when I could really leave it to him to do (he's in his 20s), and he might say, I can do that. BUT one of our little 'jokes' is my responding with, "don't take away my purpose in life!" We joke about random things, especially human-ness (as opposed to Deity qualities one might find in say, Thor). He now jokes about dyslexic moments, and to be fair - there are wonderful jokes about neuro-typicals. "I'm feeling neurotic today, and I'm going to explore this whole bag of popcorn."

So, I might tell him on a random Friday over pudding/dessert, make a cake (not his favourite, just a nice one) & let him know you discovered some fun news about his cool amazing human self. Like, "Our family has autistic genetics! This is exciting for us. That means you might have skilled hearing or skilled focus or be able to understand things in a way I won't." Basically, he's got a set of talents that are rather boring to him, but not everyone has them. 

You could summarise it by pondering new creative ways to communicate. and new creative ways to help with language processing or over analysing or hyper-sensory experience. Start small & don't overwhelm him. Maybe come up with a few ideas and a Family notebook to keep writing down ideas in over time so you can learn more about him. 

And then watch a super hero movie or something fun. I say super hero because they have strengths and weaknesses and seem to understand each other when the world is against them. Now he doesn't have a super-power, but if only one person out of 99 can swim naturally, it can appear that way, but this term can actually add weight rather than help. The best part is, you may see a new dimensions and worlds through his experience. 

Technically, we ARE autistic, it's not like having a summer home or having the flu. So I'd make it as boring as possible! Do you have any human quirks? 

For instance, I might do a thing for my son (small act of kindness like cutting up a fruit salad) when I could really leave it to him to do (he's in his 20s), and he might say, I can do that. BUT one of our little 'jokes' is my responding with, "don't take away my purpose in life!" We joke about random things, especially human-ness (as opposed to Deity qualities one might find in say, Thor). He now jokes about dyslexic moments, and to be fair - there are wonderful jokes about neuro-typicals. "I'm feeling neurotic today, and I'm going to explore this whole bag of popcorn."

So, I might tell him on a random Friday over pudding/dessert, make a cake (not his favourite, just a nice one) & let him know you discovered some fun news about his cool amazing human self. Like, "Our family has autistic genetics! This is exciting for us. That means you might have skilled hearing or skilled focus or be able to understand things in a way I won't." Basically, he's got a set of talents that are rather boring to him, but not everyone has them. 

You could summarise it by pondering new creative ways to communicate. and new creative ways to help with language processing or over analysing or hyper-sensory experience. Start small & don't overwhelm him. Maybe come up with a few ideas and a Family notebook to keep writing down ideas in over time so you can learn more about him. 

And then watch a super hero movie or something fun. I say super hero because they have strengths and weaknesses and seem to understand each other when the world is against them. Now he doesn't have a super-power, but if only one person out of 99 can swim naturally, it can appear that way, but this term can actually add weight rather than help. The best part is, you may see a new dimensions and worlds through his experience.