My son, Stalen, recently told me, “I am autism.” He typed this to me on his device. I knew sooner or later we would have this conversation. He’s almost 10, and incredibly intelligent. While I knew one day he would ask about being autistic, I had never prepared for what that conversation would look like.
There are two things I have always instilled in Stalen: that we celebrate our differences, and to be proud of who you are. I certainly wasn’t going to hide from this conversation.
Without hesitation, I told him he was indeed autistic, just like Noah Bear (one of his favorite book characters) and that meant that his brain was wonderful and wired differently than my brain. To help him understand, we went to the mirror and I pointed out that our hair and eye color were also different—and so were our brains. He intently looked back and forth in the mirror at his hair, my hair. His eyes, my eyes. Then he touched the very top of his head, so I touched the top of my head and said, “Different brains too.”
I told him how amazing and loved he is. I listed off so many of the people who love him. I told him how smart, funny, kind, loving, adventurous, and so many other things he is. I reminded him of all the wonderful things he has done. I told him he was going to do so many more awesome things.
I explained that not everyone understands autism, and that isn’t his fault. But we should still be kind to those people.
I told him how I think he has the best smile in the entire world, and how he is my favorite hockey player.
I reassured him his dad and I would always help him and cheer for him. There is nothing that we can’t do together.
Lastly, I told him that he was so special to me. I reminded him how he once was in my tummy, how he heard my heartbeat there, and how he made me crave cranberry juice and turkey dinners. I told him how he had so much hair when he was born, and when the doctor passed him to me, he looked at me with big eyes and I told him I was his mom forever. I told him even though I loved him before I knew him, our first meeting was love at first sight. He loves this story, so he was beaming.
Then we danced around the living room, shaking out our sillies with lots of giggles.
My boy is autistic and awesome and I make sure he knows it.
Originally published on the author’s Facebook page
by Jen Fawcett 
