Disclosing Asperger’s In Childhood #1: Start with the Truth

In our family system, we have a major emphasis on truth. We try to know the truth, speak the truth, and accept the truth. Even when the truth is painful or unwelcome, it is better than the alternative—which is to live in deception or denial.

With children, our commitment to truth must be developmental. When a child asks where babies come from, we don’t break out a birthing video—but neither do we subject them to nonsense about storks or cabbages. Like many sensitive subjects, there is a developmental arc to discussions about identity and conformity. This has been especially true in our life with Asperger’s Syndrome.

We began our conversation with our son by explaining some of his unique strengths. We praised his ability to spot aircraft when we saw only clear blue sky. We affirmed his “super-hearing” and sensitive fingertips. We constantly reinforced both his thirst for knowledge and more importantly—his effort at attaining information. But we also used his powers of analysis to help reflect on ways that he lived life differently. 

For our boy, environmental and social stimuli were so overwhelming that he often withdrew into a seated fetal position, tucked inside a sweatshirt. We called this “turtleing.” We helped him see that turtleing was a unique behavior—not something he would see other students doing. Since his intelligence craves categories and dichotomies, we split his classroom behaviors into things that integrated him into the group and things that isolated him from the group. This helped him see that monopolizing conversations, insisting on rigid rules in games, and non-standard (never “abnormal” or “odd”) behaviors set him apart from others, while mutual conversations, playful flexibility, and mimicking the behaviors of others made him more welcome in the social circle of the class.

So far, I’m focusing on things we shared with our son. Next I’ll explain some of what he shared with us, and I’ll finish with what and how he shared his unique identity and special needs with his sixth-grade classmates.