Since I am an elementary school teacher, I felt comfortable sharing my daughter’s diagnosis with several colleagues because we all work with children. In one case, my special education teacher was talking about characteristics of ASD, specifically that these kids tend to not be very caring. I took this opportunity to share with her that this is not true for all kids and explained that I know because my daughter has ASD and is generally a very sweet girl! ❤️

One thing that I have tried to make clear to my daughter is that she should never feel ashamed of her diagnosis and is free to talk about it to whomever she wants. In the same way, I feel the best way I can help her as a parent is to share our story to help break down the sterotypes and show my daughter, through my actions, that having ASD is just something that makes her more special than most and certainly not something by which to be ashamed.

I did tell my colleagues. You never know who else is struggling with the same or similar issue. Some of my colleagues were very resourceful as well as some are very supportive towards me and have been there to listen to me vent on my struggle.

When I did work, yes I told them. Actually I told the manager in the interview to explain my schedule request :). But I talk a lot lol. Really it's up to you, I like to remain open to help others open up about it. I think the biggest problem with autism is the lack of education.

Even though I am private about certain areas of life autism is one I never held back on sharing. I look at it if they're going to judge over something that's not her fault, then they're not worth it. But I feel if I hold back on talking about it'll show, stand out at times she's around me. I have a hard time disguising things though, thats just me.If I sense them feeling uncomfortable it's kept to a limit.

My life is an open book. If someone is interested in asking about my children then yes I tell them that my eldest son is autistic, it is nothing to be ashamed about and it also helps me to spread awareness about autism and sometimes it helps just to talk to other parents so that you realise that even though your child is experiencing the world differently from other children they all go through similar difficulties which they overcome in their own time and at their own pace :) Good Luck with whatever you decide x