Aspies For Freedom

i don't have children myself, but my parents told me very rarley during childhood i was autistic, but told me when i was young (i got loving care and speech thearpy, no aba or quack treatments for us).  i presume they didn't tell me for my own good becuase autistic people have been demonized in much of the mainstream media, and they didn't want my self esstem to fall off and think i was usless or whatever their word of the day was.  the result is i like myself more than if i was being exposed to the curebie garbage years earlier.  yes, i have issues with other people (minor), but becoming nt would depress everyone i know, as they see me as a unique person who brigthens life instead of a horror that needs to be elimated as pushed by many people in the media.  i wouldn't change my personality for a bit.

i ask now, did you tell your children they were autistic?  why or why not?

Better to live with the hard facts than to live in blissfull ignorance I always say.

Not that being autistic is necessarily bad, of course.

We haven't told our daughter yet(she's eight). I'm hoping she'll ask questions first.

When she does ask about autism, or why she's different--she will get a straight answer. I don't want her to feel pigeon-holed into a textbook definition of what she's supposed to be like.

Jeff

I have talked to my daughter a great deal about it. I guess we all learn from our own experiences. My parents were in total denial. I never heard the word autism as a child. It's not like I didn't know and wonder why I was so different from the other kids. My 8/yo has a much better grasp of who she is and why than most adults.

We explained to her that our minds work differently than most peoples. Alot of people have a set of boxes in their mind with labels. If you don't "fit" into one then they will "fit" you into another. Autism is simply someone else's box. She is a unique individual with a perfect mind.

She is her teacher's worst nightmare, she is very attractive and popular. Every attempt to get a "peer helper" to help her socially has wound up with them acting more like her than her becoming more like them. Her peer tutor and now best friend is a straight a and e student. Now they enjoy detention together on a regular basis.

I know I probably shouldn't get a kick out of that but, public school teaches children conformity in a militant fashion. She comes from a long line of non-conformists. :lol:

i know.  this is one of the reasons why i chose private university schooling.  i knew that at a school with just a couple of thousdand students and classes over 100 almost unheard of (a class of 50 is considered very large here, average class size is about 20).  i always wanted attention in class and made sure i understood the concepts and learned what i did.  fourtunely, most of the schools i went to were less milltant, probaly due to the high number of nationalities at high school.  public university would have been way too much for me, as i would have been lost in the crowd with everyone else, being taught like another nt instead of being appreatied as being me.  i know many of the teachers at my school on a personal level and we talk about things ouside of school.

i think i have to agree.  i thought all the superior people were autistic and we were accpeted as being the smartest.  i thought being cured from autism was being able to function in the real world as i am today, being myself with a unique mind.  i thought it was just diffrent just becuase i was diffrent.  looks like i was wrong.  looks like being autistic is way diffrent than i first thought, in the sense that autistic is a diffrent nuerogical pathway, not a roadblock that ceases all function.  a cure in socitey's eyes is acting complety normal, not being able to function in soictey as their own selves.  i guess socitey wants one type of brain and one type only.  from my present understanding of autism, i'm not cured, and i will never desire that.  it will erase my whole personality, which i like.  i'm not a souless body, i am a person.

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Hee hee!  When my son was in 7th grade, he was one of four boys with noticeable Aspie traits, who had great fun at recess every day pretending to be Jedi Knights.  They set up an imaginary Jedi Academy and recruited other kids to be their Padawan apprentices.  

That's funny, at that age the other kids had probably forgotten that they were still kids. My daughter frequently reminds her classmates to be young.

I was told straight away, as soon as my parents knew for sure, this was at about age 10. As soon as I found out I was very relieved to know that there were other people like me, and I wasn't alone with what I was going through. I used to feel terrible before then, and that really was the point where my life started to just get better and better.

As soon as I found out I instantly asked "well, what about a cure?", it was the first, instinctive question I had. But then after thinking about it, because my parents had been so positive about it as well, I decided quite quickly that it was actually an advantage - and from then on wouldn't allow anyone to tell me otherwise. I also was told that some aspies were never told about it until a lot later - and this actually made me quite angry at the time, and confused, it had been such a positive thing for me; and why hide someone from themselves?

Now I can see some reasons why some parents wouldn't want to tell their younger children, but I still generally disagree, I think telling children as young as possible is best, then it need never be associated with anything negative, just a matter of fact and something positive. It dosn't have to be formal, if its a positive thing, which it can be, why does it need to be hard? As a teenager though, I probably wouldn't have accepted it, and would've probably denied it completely and even considered it as some sort of an insult. All that said, its probably still worth pointing out that actually I know almost nothing about children now, other than from my own memories, so please do get other advice first!

I was diagnosed when I was eleven, but wasn't told until I was fourteen. That was at the school's request, which for some reason felt it was better that I wasn't told immediately.

Neither me, nor my parents, fully understand the reasons behind that... It was never presented as a negative thing by either my school or my parents, though.

Bonnie, I can only speak for myself but I have never personally felt discriminated against due to my diagnosis, only very rarely. Like I said, things only ever got better for me since I was diagnosed. How old is your son now, by the way? For the most part it got me the support I needed, and continues to do so and helped me to get on and so far be successful (with work on my part of course). And I'm also proud of it, I focus on the positives rather than the negatives which I know mostly can be worked around. Not everyone is against you; I still believe most of the people who support me want the best for me. Of course things might be different in other places like America but surely not that different, I don't know?

I'm new here and just wanted to add our experience. Hope it helps.

My son was told about his AS when he was six y/o (he's just turned 13). He was physically disabled from birth and knew how he was physically different and why. At six he was doing long division and became frustrated, yelling, "Why am I so stupid?!" I had to tell him then and there that he was by no means 'stupid', that most six year olds could not do multiplication and division etc. It helped him enormously.

Because we homeschooled for over six years, he wasn't subject to the pressures from NT's. Something that may help your kids understand and deal with their differences is studying racial prejudice. I taught my son the history of the struggles of people of color from slavery onward and taught him that being disabled was just different - like a different skin colour, not better, not worse, just different. Of course, we were concentrating on the physical disabilities, but there is much positive information on Autism in books (Freaks, Geeks and Asperger's Syndrome is his favourite) and on the internet.

By the time my son went to a regular school part-time, his sense of self was very firmly established. He was proud of who he was and his differences. I think it's somehow easier when there is a physical disability to deal with - 'blending in' just isn't an option.

I was diagnosed at age 3, but I was told at age 8 when I was mentally capable of understanding that I had it. Actually, I realized that I was not like the other people before hand. I thought I was going insane or something until my mom told me.

I am the older brother of FlareHolyMeteo. I had known that he was when he was diagnosed and of course always tried to protect him during grade school and all of that. I remember Flare taking it very well and being practically relieved because he couldn't figure out why everyone thought he was different. Knowing, I guess, was half of his battle.

I got a book called 'Different Like Me: My Book of Autism Heroes' by  Jennifer Elder that is pretty good. The book is written from the perspective of an 8 year old boy (that's when the author recommends reading it to your child). My son is only 4 but I plan on reading it to him in a few years because I think it's really good and positive. The book mentions different famous autistic individuals and their autistic characteristics. The book covers some obstacles these individuals had to face from peers, teachers etc.
-Rae

I found out about mine while I was in the process of getting my daughter evaluated. My mother was soo against me letting her be dx'd that she called me one day screaming at me. She said to me over the phone, "she's not autistic, you are!" and all the peices fell together.

My own childhood was sheltered and never knowing why I was so different caused me much pain in life. I was given up for adoption at the age of three. My parents were told that I had autism "a severe form of brain damage" Of course this was the early seventies and as someone else pointed out it was considered retardation then.

My adoptive parents never allowed me to be formally dx'd and by the time I started school I was considered an oddball to say the least. I also had alot of behavior issues but because I made good grades I was never red-flagged for ASD.