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Newly diagnosed and nervous about telling peers parents and own friends about diagnosis

NAS88305

My 10 year old daughter was recently diagnosed with ASD level 2 and mainly has issues with social skills, making inappropriate comments, making and keeping friends. She is in therapy and social skills group at school and I'm trying to find her an outside social skills group as well. While I expected her to have aspergers for awhile I am still coming to terms with it. I have not told many people, even some of my close friends and coworkers about her diagnosis. I also really worry about disclosing this information to parents of kids she is friends with. I am worried they will judge her and in my head make assumptions that they will not want their kids to play with her anymore because she is different and her behavior is less than predictable. She does act strange sometimes and perhaps disclosing her diagnosis will explain why she acts the way she does to others but I still worry about negative judgement. I want her to make and have friends who are role models for her, but it is challenging for her to develop friendships especially as she gets older. Has anyone else felt like this? How have you coped with these feelings? How did you disclose your child's diagnosis with others? 

Parents

  • A lot things didn't work for me when my son was first diagnosednearly 8/9yrs ago. Social stories did nothing as he couldn't relate if the contents are even slightly different. Eventually he was referred to a therapist specialising in a bottom-up approach called DIR Floortime by Dr Stanley Greenspan (https://www.icdl.com/). It took me a long time to understand him and his challenges, which then led me to try to incorporate understandings of neurotypical social cues and expectations using Lego (since we have alot of).
    Telling other people helped at times but mostly didn't as his behaviour already made them judgmental towards us. Over the years, I learnt that there will be people who eventually can accept him and he has also found some friends along the way, both neurotypical and also others on the spectrum. I found that those who accept him and us as a whole are usually those who knows someone else like him personally. But then again, we're also ok with having few good friends over many acquiantances.

    At the end of it all, the most important thing is what your daughter needs, and what she wants as she grows older. You can only be there for her when she needs you. For me the Floortime method of getting to know him through lots of play and chatting while playing together helps the most for me.

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  • A lot things didn't work for me when my son was first diagnosednearly 8/9yrs ago. Social stories did nothing as he couldn't relate if the contents are even slightly different. Eventually he was referred to a therapist specialising in a bottom-up approach called DIR Floortime by Dr Stanley Greenspan (https://www.icdl.com/). It took me a long time to understand him and his challenges, which then led me to try to incorporate understandings of neurotypical social cues and expectations using Lego (since we have alot of).
    Telling other people helped at times but mostly didn't as his behaviour already made them judgmental towards us. Over the years, I learnt that there will be people who eventually can accept him and he has also found some friends along the way, both neurotypical and also others on the spectrum. I found that those who accept him and us as a whole are usually those who knows someone else like him personally. But then again, we're also ok with having few good friends over many acquiantances.

    At the end of it all, the most important thing is what your daughter needs, and what she wants as she grows older. You can only be there for her when she needs you. For me the Floortime method of getting to know him through lots of play and chatting while playing together helps the most for me.

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