How did you Tell your Kids they were Autistic?

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For those of you with aspie/autistic children, I'm just curious as to how you explained to them that they were different. How did they take it? Did you tell them as soon as you knew or wait until they were older?

I can't remember quite how, but the opportunity came up when we were having a conversation about something a few months after he was diagnosed with Asperger's.

I referred to the meetings he'd had with various people as part of the assessment process, talked about some particular things he did and said, and explained that people who were like that were described as having Asperger's which was a form of autism.

My son was 7 at the time, and he said it was a relief to know why he was weird.

Edited to add: Looking again at the OP, my son always knew he was different. No one needed to tell him that.

My son already knew he was different. We went for an evaluation for ADHD, but when he was out of the room the doc told me she wanted him evaluated for autism. When we got home he went to do his own thing, and I started researching it. I realized almost immediately that I was an Aspie. He saw what I was doing and immediately realized I was looking it up for myself. He got really upset. In the course of our argument, he said "You'll probably think I have it next." I said "Actually, the doctor thinks you do." Not the best way to tell him, but I'm not much of a communicator. I wanted to research it and talk to him about it after. Didn't happen that way.

i dont have children but i can say how my dad told me i have aspergers

i was having a hard time with my friends and i had just had a meltdown, after i calmed down, he came into my room and asked:" do you remember when you saw that therapist?" and i said " yes" and he said "he works with kids with something called Aspergers, do you know what Aspergers is?" at first i thought about it "no, oh wait, didn't Einstein have it?" and then i thought for second "isn't that Autism??" and he said "well yes, and he diagnosed you with aspergers" and i thought about it, and said " i knew it!!" because i felt like i was always treated differently than other kids. anyways, after i found out, i did some research and i was amazed of how i went through 15 years without a diagnoses and also how obvious my symptoms were and no one noticed anything.

A word of advice for you, don't hide it. Autistic children will eventually figure it out themselves.

I'm clearly too young to be having children (in this time period), but my mum didn't tell me at first, but I spied on her and my therapist. That's how I figured it out.

Anything my presents have told me, they have done it in a very relaxed straightforward way.
My autism was diagnosed really early of course. But as I got older and was taken to different
clinics they would tell me what for and what the diagnosis was as best as I could understand it.
Or I would often be in the room when the doctor was explaining things to my parents.

My daughter new she was different because she was taking special 'friendship' classes at school to help with her social skills. We didn't get an official diagnosis until she was in 2nd grade and she new she was not the same as other kids. We didn't use the word autism right away and just explained that her brain didn't process the world the way others did and she needed help to get her brain to learn how to interpret the signals the world was sending her. She had a lot of issues with oversensitivity to sound, touch and smell.

As she got older we would discuss the various therapies we were taking her too and why she needed them and eventually in late grade school we told her she had something called Aspergers. She didn't really seem to care what it was called - except for the one time she tried to get out of doing her homework because, "Well Mom, you know I have that brain thing, so I shouldn't have to do this." NOT.

We didn't use the word autism right away because at the time there were still a lot of negative things in the media about autistic kids and she was not that severe, so we didn't want her to get scared that she was going to lose ground, rather than improve.

I hope this helps.

I first realized I was different from others at about 5 or 6, which was about the time I was diagnosed with PDD-NOS. I was not told about the PDD-NOS diagnosis, though, only that I had ADHD. Nevertheless, I felt very different from the others, even in the separate special ed classes I was in. I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome at age 13 and was told about that. I didn't think much of it, though, at first, but later it seemed to be very helpful and encouraged me to improve. I now accept that I am autistic.

Up until I was on summer break when I was going into 9th Grade, I thought I was ret*d and I was being punished for not reaching my milestones on time. I thought my parents couldn't take it anymore so they told the school system to throw me into Special Ed.

I've found some documents that said I was diagnosed with Mild Autistic Tendencies which would be AS today. I've also read that I was tested at the age of 5 and a half and I functioned at the level of a 4 and a half year old. I was thinking the documentation really did prove that I was ret*d because I had a functioning level that was a year younger than my chronological age. I was very cynical for the rest of the summer whenever I'd get into a mood.

My mum told me the reason I was different a week after I turned 15. It was a relief to know what my Dx was and that I wasn't as bad off as I thought I was. I was wishing I would have found out when I turned 10 so my more painful stages that I was chastised for things I couldn't help like talking about certain interests all the time wouldn't have happened, or if they did happen, I would have kept my interests to myself. I'd see the US in a brighter light and I'd probably be using avatars of The Beatles and listening to them instead of The Kinks on most days.

My mum thought I was walking around my high school feeling sorry for myself. I was walking around my high school mourning my freedom of expression through my way of dressing and wishing that 1989 would have been 1966 or 1967 - a time when bell-bottoms were all the rage. I was also walking around my school with ideas my mum put in my head that I should keep hush hush about my favourite bands at the time and other things I liked, or else my bullies would torment me.

I accepted everything about me that's different once and for all in the Summer of 2000.