Explaining to his younger brother.

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My eldest is 6 and "mid spectrum". He is verbal but needs to go to special school. Whilst I hate the "high / low functioning terms I'd say he was mid function... if that makes sense.

His younger brother is 4 and NT. He's a very social little boy and is begining to notice that his brother is different to other kids.

I feel that it is probably time to start explaining a bit about his brother so he can start to make sense of it. My dilema is I don't think my eldest is ready for me to explain to him that he is autistic. I don't think he will actually grasp the concepts to be honest. So I think I will feel bad if I explain something about him to his younger brother before I have the conversation with him first. It just feels a bit wrong to do this.

On the other hand I want to equip his younger brother with knowledge. In particular we need to start laying the ground work for why his brother will be seen to get away with behaviour that he will not! He's already starting to notice this and I can see his mind calculating the unfairness of the situations. So pretty soon we are going to need to explain why some rules are different for him, otherwise he's just going to think we hate him!!

Does anyone a bit further down their autism path have any advice?

My NT daughter is six, and we've just begun this discussion. She's started asking questions about why her older brother has problems with organization and following directions. So far she hasn't noticed his social impairments, probably because he's five years older and is more or less "at her level" in that department. I've just basically said, "Your brother has autism, which means his brain works a little differently. That's why (fill in the blank) is hard for him." She seems content with that explanation for now.

anecdote: The other day hubby rhetorically asked son why son can never remember to put his toothbrush away. Daughter says, "It's because of his autism, Daddy!"

I'd just like to say that I don't think you should avoid explaining autism to an autistic child just because you aren't sure if they understand. I'd say it's a worse mistake to not explain autism to a kid who could actually understand it and benefit from knowing about it than to try to explain something and have the kid not get it. And since there are so many adults who are just finding ways to show they understand so much more than people always thought, I'd be hesitant to ever assume an autistic kid definitely won't understand something.

I'm looking to be a single mother through sperm donation, and the way they recommend you tell kids about being donor conceived, to me, sounds like a good idea for explaining disabilities too. The idea is that you talk about it regularly on an everyday basis, answer your kid's questions honestly, and maybe also get a book to read to explain it to them. You start as early as you can - for donor conceived kids you're supposed to start explaining it when they're tiny babies - because even if they definitely don't understand yet, it trains you to talk openly about it and have many discussions so their understanding can evolve naturally as they grow.

So my advice is to tell both kids about it right now. Maybe see if you can get a book about autism and read it to them to start the conversation. Then just make it a regular topic of conversation, eg commenting on how autism is affecting regular everyday situations. For different rules, for example, you could say "you have to do X because you can do it, but because he's autistic and finds X hard, your brother will do Y instead". Just make it something that it's no big deal to talk about.

There's this great book called "All Cats Have Aspergers." I know your son's diagnosis is autism, so maybe this would just confuse the matter, but its a great book for explaning what is going on with an autistic person in terms that are safe and fun for a young child. I wish they would run an updated version called All Cats Have Autism.

There's also this book. I haven't used it, but it looks great: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/all-abo ... 1931282116

I want to get "All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome" for myself. As a person with AS traits, and a cat lover, this book is PURR-fect! (Spelling and pun intended).