disclosure to peers

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Having only recently gotten our diagnosis, we're not sure how to approach telling other kids about Mr. E. He doesn't know about the Asperger's yet, but tomorrow we have an appointment with his psychologist and will be discussing things with him at that time. Mr. E is in french immersion at school, which means that since grade 1 (he's in grade 4 now), he has been with the same group of 40 kids in various combinations. He is very well known as being weird and different. I guess my issue is that he has one more year with these kids before heading off to middle school, and I'm wondering if it would be helpful to explain to the class about Mr. E's differences, or if it would just make it worse.

Truth is, he only has one friend (and this kid doesn't attend his school)... they are kind of friends by default because it's my best friend's son who happens to be just 6 months older than him. This kid is very intelligent and compassion and I am so thankful to have him - he is pretty patient with Mr. E even though he doesn't understand why he is the way he is. After we have our appointment tomorrow, we'll be sitting down with said friend and explaining things to him. I'm sure he'll be receptive, as he tries very hard to include Mr. E even when it might be difficult - ie. he invited him to his birthday party coming up this weekend, but asked if I could come too in case things get "tricky". I understand this, as the rest of the kids there will be his NT school friends who have very little experience with my boy. There may be meltdowns, there will definitely be a lot of random and inappropriate comments, etc, as any social situation like that gets him pretty riled up. We want Mr. E's friend to know ahead of time about the diagnosis and have a better understanding of it, if for no other reason than being able to defend him to the NT school friends.

Anyway, if anyone has had experience with explaining to a classroom of peers (9-10 year olds) about Asperger's, we could really use the advice! Is it a good idea or bad??

We did this a while back...or I should say our son did this. I left it entirely up to him, though we did have some discussions about the possible outcomes - some kids might react badly, some kids might treat him worse, some kids might stick up for him...but at least nobody would wonder anymore.

As I've said here before, on the advice of someone here on the forum, we disclosed the diagnosis to DS using the book "All Cats Have Asperger's Syndrome." He took a while to get used to the idea, and I explained to him that the diagnosis was his, that he could decide (outside of the people who needed to know) what he wanted to say and when (I knew he would be disinclined to tell at first, if you have a kid who blurts, you may want to wait for summer vacation so they have some time to be with the information.)

He proceeded very cautiously and thoughtfully: first told the most trustworthy child in the class, a girl, and that went very well. Then he told his best friend who doesn't go to his school and who he's known his whole life, and that went well. After that, he told another close friend who reacted quite badly, as though he was contagious.

He kept quiet about it for a little while, and then finally decided to have his teacher read the book to the class; things seemed to go very well - and this was several months ago. Thus far, we've seen no negative fallout: only the kids in his class know, and they seem to be respecting his privacy and his differences.

Non-diagnosed, but preparing to tell my sister about my ASD suspicions. I am very worried about her reaction. Please wish me luck.

Good for you!

Unfortunately, I did not go through with it. I was planning to, but got too nervous at the last moment. Advice, anybody? I don't know how to tell anybody.

Maybe get them a copy of a book like Look Me In The Eye, or The Journal of Best Practices or another book that's about a person or character that is similar to you but is diagnosed, and then use a book discussion as a jumping-off point? Or you could use any of the number of TV shows on the air with AS characters in the same way?

It's weird and difficult, but my guess is it won't really be a surprise to family - it may take them time to make the association between what it is about you and the word Autism, but they probably understand at least some of it already.

I just realised this is in the parents forum. Sorry.
The thing is, my family does not want to know. My parents don't want me to be Aspie (or similar). Besides, they are both doctors, but they don't seem to understand. They keep telling me to 'try harder' or 'don't be weird'. The problem is not ignorance, it's denial (in some form; I've read about denial in psychology textbooks, and it seems to be so). They get angry if I bring it up.

One of the reasons I post here and not elsewhere - and I'm guessing I'm far from alone - is explicitly to get input from people on the spectrum, parents or not. You posting here is helpful to parents who need to know what this looks like from the inside.

Our family took it pretty well when my son was finally diagnosed, but we'd struggled so hard for so long and got so many diagnoses - I think a total of four, all somewhere on the spectrum at least - that I think they were as relieved as we were. Once my son was diagnosed, the rest of us started to see things in ourselves and got ourselves diagnosed.

It's important to remember that the Asperger's diagnosis (I know it's gone now, but the idea is still there) was only offered to the public starting in (I think)1994. That means that 22 years ago, people who were able to fake "normal" in some situations were just "weird." It takes a complete change of mindset to realize that the weirdo kid who rocked back and forth in the back of the classroom but won the science fair every year is actually disabled rather than just not trying hard enough (because you KNOW he's SMART) to fit in. It doesn't occur to people how painful it can be to sit in the back of the classroom without being able to move your legs, or use the wrong phrase innocently and have everybody suddenly take it angrily, or to become totally unglued because of a last-minute change of plans.

It doesn't help that we have so many cultural issues with the idea of disability - some people with AS don't consider it a disability, some neurotypical people consider autism such a severe disability that they act like it's a demonic curse. It's confusing on a good day. Add to that the crazy and broad diversity within the autistic community, it's very hard to explain.

I found when I was trying to explain my bipolar disorder (I'm one of those people who would probably be considered "cured" of autism - so, I was diagnosed with "subclinical" autism and an anxiety disorder that is somewhere between OCD and bipolar) it helped when I reminded people of a day when I had shown significantly crazy behavior. You might want to consider presenting evidence and then showing how knowing you are on the spectrum is helpful to you.

It's tough. Hang in there!

Thank you for the advice. It makes it so much easier for me to be able to talk to somebody about ASD (even just through the internet), because I am not able to discuss it with anybody I know in person. I joined WP less than two weeks ago, and it has been very helpful to discuss my suspicions of ASD (which I have been largely keeping a secret from everybody I know for the past 5 years).

If you want to ask any questions about 'what this looks like from the inside' I would be happy to answer them.

Just paying it forward! I was in a not much different position some years back! WP is a treasure.

I know this is not the right forum to ask in, but what is the function of the friends/foes feature of this website?