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Should I tell other parents about my child's autism?

MonkeyElliot

Hi, 

My daughter is 9, and having been back at school for 6 days I have already been into school twice for incidents that have happened and we have had several severe meltdown at home. My daughter's biggest problems are her social skills, which often results in her being brutally honest and others perceiving her as being mean. Often, she is just retaliating to things that have been done to her, but she is always 'in trouble' at school.

We don't have a formal diagnosis as yet, but the school SENCo is sure it is ASD, and when I met with her consultant last week, she is also. We are hoping she'll make the MAAT meeting in November / December, so should have a diagnosis by early 2022 (it has been a hard fought 5 years to get to where we are). 

My question is: should I tell other class parents about my daughter's ASD now, or even at all. I have discussed it with my daughter and she sees it as being just another stick that the children can beat her with, something else they can tease her about. But I have tried to explain to her that if the other parents, and children, knew about her condition and why she says and does things the way that she does they might cut her some slack. 

I just wondered what other parents experiences were in terms of telling classmates? 

Many Thanks in advance. 

  • in reply to Martin

    I like this idea very much Martin, thank you. I will discuss this with her tonight. 

  • in reply to MonkeyElliot

    Majority of the time my eldest child’s peers don’t mention his autism. We have had a few occasions recently with one boy calling him names an autistic brat etc etc and another few incidents of a child hitting my son with a ball kicking him on his stomach and braking his water bottle and then saying they won’t do it again and want to be friends but another incident always happened. I worry about how vulnerable it can make my son and how other children can abuse that vulnerability. 

    There are also times when children have been supportive of my son and helped him. 

    If you have close friends and your daughter is friends with their children maybe let those parents know.

  • in reply to MonkeyElliot

    A middle ground might be to inform the parents and, possibly through them, your child's classmates, that your child has communication problems that she cannot easily control. This means that she can appear to be unfriendly, but that she does not intend to be. This would avoid the label of 'autistic', but might help improve relations with the other children.

  • in reply to Lau

    I am in constant contact with the school. While she is being bullied on one level and from her perception she is only retaliating, what I also have to consider is that the other children perceive that she is being mean to them. The difference being that she doesn't intend to cause offence, but in reality they are retaliating to her being blunt or direct or rude. She has had access to a quiet space, but I will confirm with school that that is still available to her, but she hasn't always used it as she is embarrassed about what the other children think - which is part of the reason why I think it would be a good idea to explain it to the class. She is so focused on being embarrassed about her condition, in terms of people knowing about it, that she can't see that if people knew they would better  understand why she behaves the way that she does. 

  • in reply to Lau

    Sorry, to be clear, I certainly would never betray her trust. I am looking for people's experiences of having told classmates / parents. If I could have some evidence that it might be of benefit then that is what I would discuss with her so that she would want to tell them. Conversely, if people have had bad experiences, I need to take that into consideration when discussing it with her. 

  • I would be informing the school that your child is being bullied and is then saying things in retaliation. Your daughter is being provoked and the children doing the provoking should be spoken to. Meltdowns are happening because your daughter is overwhelmed and not coping with the challenging environment that mainstream schools have and if she’s being given in trouble constantly no wonder she’s having meltdowns. Children then provoke her and she’s just being challenge all day from adults and her peers.  The school should be making adjustments to ensure she can feel more safe and secure and always have a quiet space away from her class to regulate if she needs time to herself.

  • I wouldn’t betray her trust if she’s asked you not to. Its your daughter that is autistic not you. It’s her private business. Feel free to discuss with teacher and professionals involved but her peers and their parents I wouldn’t. Your daughter will end up not trusting you.