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telling your child their diagnosis

simon

Hi -my son is 8 years old and diagnonsed with high functioning autism 18 months ago. He struggles with social situations, making friends and staying calm as well as managing his immense anxiety. He has a part time LSA at school.  

We have so far not told him his diagnosis as we felt it would not really help him and might be detrimental. We talk in terms of him having difficulties others don't and needing support for this reason.  However, we feel that it may be time to tell him he has ASD and then linked to this maybe to be more open about his diagnosiswith others as well. (we wouldn't do this if he doesn't know himself).

However, we don't want him to feel labelled and for this to have a negative effect. Opinion seems to be divided on whether it is a good idea to tell a child this age when they are high functioning asit is perhaps not so obvious to others with these children.  Not sure if this post makes sense...hope it does! Appreciate thoughts.  Thank you.

Parents

  • While we were waiting for diagnosis I took the plunge and explained Aspergers to my son. I told him what it was and described some of the symptoms. He immediately said "like me" and appeared to recognise himself. He then wanted to read 'the strange incident of the dog in the night time'. he was just us when we got the diagnosis and appeared unfazed by it. He is a bit older that your son though so I don't know if that makes a difference. All I can say is that I'm glad he knows and that there are no secrets.

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  • While we were waiting for diagnosis I took the plunge and explained Aspergers to my son. I told him what it was and described some of the symptoms. He immediately said "like me" and appeared to recognise himself. He then wanted to read 'the strange incident of the dog in the night time'. he was just us when we got the diagnosis and appeared unfazed by it. He is a bit older that your son though so I don't know if that makes a difference. All I can say is that I'm glad he knows and that there are no secrets.

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