While every child is different, I can only go by my own experience of when my parents told me I had autism and why I feel it was the perfect timing.

They chose to tell me at age thirteen when I started asking a lot more questions.

Why age thirteen? Why not an earlier age like five or six? Here are my thoughts ~ 

I truly believe there is power in innocence. Children do not need to know about autism in grade school. Let children be children. Run around and play, make friends, and let kids be kids. Autism is not a priority for them. Even if they start to question things that revolve around some of their differences with other children, I still believe it’s better to wait until the early teenage years, but always letting them know they are special and perfect just the way they are. 

So why do I feel that waiting until the age of thirteen is a good time? Because it’s the beginning of the teenage years when things get  incredibly emotional. Holding these...

I am a humongous supporter of the idea of early childhood education in terms of repetition in the daily routine of the week now that I am older, but that wasn't always the case. Get up, eat breakfast, take a shower, put on clothes, take the bus to go to school and all that jazz. The same goes for teenagers too and I see no difference in the routine, but there are times that I rebelled against that routine. Maybe you have been rebellious too.  

How do we SNAP INTO IT? That is easier said than done, I must admit, but one trick I learned was to not think about it too much, just DO IT!  One thing that helped was that my parents used lists with pictures to illustrate the routine. Another thing to learn is the cause and effect.... if you don't brush your teeth, you get cavities and your breath smells badly; if you don't wash your body with soap when bathing and use deodorant, your body smells badly. That was a motivator for me because I don't like bad smells, they...