Going to tell my 7 year old he is autistic

Ok, I think he must have noticed something is up even if he does not know what.

It seems it would be better to say than to allow him to struggle or be confused.

I suppose the challenge is to ensure the news is a positive experience, which comes down to wording and framing.

Yeah! IMO him knowing what Autism is first and understanding that it’s not scary before telling him he has it is a good way of going about it. If you look up “famous people with autism” you’ll find a ton of good examples. Mozart and Einstein (we think they had it), the actor Anthony Hopkins, activist Greta Thunberg, the creator of Pokémon Satoshi Tajiri, and so much more. Maybe by knowing that so many people have been successful even with the struggles Autism can bring, it can help your son find hope in the diagnosis!

Yeah my daughter was in public school for first grade as well and really struggled with it. The class was just too big (about 26ish maybe?). We managed to switch her to a special education classroom for students with social/emotional disabilities and it had half the class size. I think the change in class size was exactly what she needed, as she seemed so much less exhausted when she gets home and we got less reports of her being overstimulated.

It’s good for AuDHD children to get integrated into larger NT classrooms, but 1st grade might not be the right time for that for all children. We’ll try again with our daughter in the near future, but not yet.

Wow, amazing she had such self awareness to put that together. I didn't know that there was an asd character on that show.. I wonder if I could show him that and he could put that into context as well.

I hope in telling him, it will make him beat himself up less in the areas he struggles. He has cousins with ASD but no immediate family and since I am neurotypical, as well as my husband, we don't have the same viewpoint to connect on. We will have to ease into the talk and just start with him knowing he has it and answering his questions ?

Thank you so much for the article and warm welcome, this all had been wonderful support 

Thank you for this, I deeply appreciate the point of view. We do have some private schools here for kids with similar abilities but most say to keep him in public school with neurotypical children. I was told last week from his overstimulation and not wanting to he in class, he is just in the hall, LRT office or in the main office.. I think his education is suffering.. as it is a small school and they just don't want to focus on just him. He is brilliant, feel like it is being wasted.

Wow, this sounds eerily similar to the situation we had. My daughter was diagnosed with ASD/ADHD at around 4yrs old and we told her at 7. We really eased her into it over the course of a few months by introducing her to Autistic people first. Ex. I have Autism, so we explained my experience to her. Bruno the brake car from the cartoon Thomas & Friends All Engines Go is Autistic, so we used him as an example too. Eventually she came to the conclusion herself “I think I might have Autism!” and we supported it by telling her about her diagnosis.

Our son was about 11 when we told him. I wrote him a letter which he read at the kitchen table with us, about how some of the issues he was having with school were identical to mine at his age, and it was because I had autism, and so does he.

Everyone is different I guess but in our case he accepted it really well. A couple years later it became apparent he needed to be tested for ADHD and we stated talking to him about that - from his perspective the diagnosis couldn’t come soon enough…

If it helps, he’s currently in a school for about 500 pupils of all ages that have specific learning difficulties and, on entry, I asked the headmaster how many of the boys attending his school were aware of their diagnoses - he suggested ‘probably most of them’.

From my personal perspective, I wish I’d known I had autism when I was still a child, things would have been so much easier and could have been so different.

Best of luck.

Hi and welcome to the community!

You might find the advice in this article helpful:

NAS - Talking about and disclosing your autism diagnosis > When and how should I talk to my child about their diagnosis?

Thanks for the article :) I will definitely look it over. He is diagnosed, and noticing he is different or has different struggles than his peers. I thought maybe if he knew why, and that everyone who loved him was there to support him, he might be easier on himself when experiencing struggles ? If that makes sense.

Thanks for your thoughts :) and yes, he has a confirmed diagnosis of asd and adhd. We used to do speech therapy and occupational therapy comes to his school to help him with writing for his fine motor skills. We talk about asd infront of him but he has never really put it together. I thought it might be helpful to tell him, as he mentions some of the reasons he doesn't like school is because of how loud it is, how writing is hard, how boring he finds it (as it doesn't pertain to his special interests etc. I thought maybe if he knew that he was neurodivergent it might explain why he feels this way? I think at this age he is noticing some differences between himself and his peers. I've seen people write about how it made them feel seen to know their diagnosis.

Are you sure he has autism? If you just suspect it, it may do more harm than good to suggest it. You may want to see someone first to be sure if he is struggling.

If you know, then it is a question of whether it will help him to know. Being told you are different when you don't think you are and don't want to be different may reduce his confidence. Does he need help at the moment?

It he suspects he is different then maybe it would help to raise it in a positive way.

Even if you tell him, what do you think it will change?

I don't know what the right answer is.

I suppose if you have to know it might be easier if you know earlier, but I'm not sure.

Hi, I’m not sure if it’s your suspicion that your son is autistic, or he has the diagnosis, but does not know it yet and you are wondering, how to tell him. You may find this article helpful:

https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/diagnosis/before-diagnosis/how-to-bring-up-that-you-think-someone-may-be-auti

i tried to find article specifically for parents who want to tell the child about the child’s diagnosis, but couldn’t find it. I think it was there.