Has do I tell my 14-year old son he has asperger's

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I know someone who grew up in Olot, Spain, which is in Catalonia.

Miss Dorkness, I, totally NT, HATE dirty talk. I just repeat the things he likes to hear over and over as if it were a script. Seems to work for him anway, Oh, goodness I needed that. So it's not an aspie thing I swear.

Kraftiekortie, Barcelona is in Catalonia. It`s a fantastic city. If we weren't so "poor" and if my husband so boring I supposed we'd travel more. But "been there, one that" so I suppose the dry years are okay. Time and place for everything. Except that i miss the US like crazy. And it's too expensive to put a 4 member family on a flight to the states. So........life s---s and then you die. I think i need to become buddhist.

Just sit him down and tell him he has a mental disability called Aspergers. Tell him Aspergers just makes a person life a little harder, but it has great parts to it. (Like it makes you more creative and smart.) Then let him read about it online.

thank you 2cat,

Actually, he doesnt really seem to care that much. He knows that he has bad executive functioning, but since he's got a group of friends he would never believe at this point that he has any important social difficulties because they are currently "disgused". He's immature so thinking about psychological things like understanding people's thoughts, feelings are not in his area of interests or abilities. And the web is a complicated place to explain it to a 14 year old like my son. Unless you know of specific web sites (that would be great) that are meant for boys this age (although they would have to be in spanish because he's not great at reading english at this level).

I actually think i'm going to leave it for now.

Momofteenaspie, you're doing the right thing waiting. When I was 14, I was actually very mature for my age - too mature for a couple friends as it turned out since they wanted to become really foul-mouthed, raunchy, and so on once they got into college. But, had I been told at 14 without having the whole spectrum thing explained it might have made me think I I was more backwards than i ws.

Framing it as "not getting social cues," or one other symptom, might be a good way to start, telling him everyone's a little different, once you do tell him. Use examples - for instance, i was told as a Junior in high school (16) to mentor a kid a year below me and "include him ins tuff with my friends." Now, I've had *Middle School* kids in our church 9so 11, 12) tell me that would send up red flags, and yet I was clueless about the kid's rough past. Had I known I'd have been ready to try and find out why he talked and acted the way he did.

So, that's an example you might bring up - "You know, I was on this forum where someone with your brain's wiring mentioned this... how would you react?" And tell him that if someone tells him somethign like that he should let you know and some of his friends so they can help him figure that out because if I'd done that I'd have been *much* better off.

(We helped the kid and he's a great family man now but we could hve done so much more. And, even if I'd just told one friend in particular I can just hear him saying, "Uh, why would a coach/teacher say that? We're not in Kindergarten.' Which would have tipped me off that there was a reason this Speech Team coach was saying to include this new kid in stuff.

To me, it's all about finding the attributes - I'm close enough to NT that it could be PDD-NOS and I had my traits figured out on my own years before I put them together and realized it was Aspergers. And, yes, I originally didn't think it could be becasue I associated that with autism which, well, you said it yourself, worrying he'd ssociate that with the head-banging and such. With me, it's more just my brain's wiring. (And being legally blind/hearing impaired, thinking much of the problem was due to that for a while.)

P.S.: i scored 27 on the Wired magazine test, with 32 where 90% of Aspies are at or above, but might be more like 30 becuase I credited some things to my poor vision/hearing. Today I help in our church's youth department where I love to talk & interact with the kids but often find myself havinga plan of what I'll talk about with them beforehand, though of coruse letting them lead the conversation in other directions & being ready to pray, etc. for something. I don't recognize people well but they accept me and may figure it's because of my eyesight. I also work on online missions at Godlife.com, and have written Print on Demand books as well as being a part-time attorney on my own doign wills and estates. Though I wonder sometimes if it was a mistake to go to lw school part of me has always been a "people person" though a bit of a clumsy one, and I'm glad I didn't think "autism" right away because I might not have tried as hard. Now I'll never have to ask "what-if." I'm sure your son will be just as accomplished in what he's good at.

Sorry if you didn't want the encoruagement, but as I say, I'm a bit clumsy sometimes so I go overboard a bit.