Our lives were pretty much set, my life more or less revolved around my son's life. I had a flexible job I was able to be with him at the important times,  dentist ,Dr's, and so on. I felt happy,  content almost,  that I had done the right thing by leaving his mother and there were no adverse affects on my son. It had been extremely hard at the outset but now it seemed we could start to really enjoy our new life. There was one thing niggling at my thoughts something I thought about from time to time but then put to the back of my mind.

When and how will I tell my son he has autism, or will I in fact have to tell him, will that be done by some one else? If I have to tell him? How do I go about it ? Up to age eight I don't think it really mattered but at nine and beyond his cognitive awareness was catching up with his peers. Often I have been told that my son is about two years behind in maturity. That being said: it is by no means a clear cut indication of his emotional depth or understanding. Over the years it has become increasingly obvious to me that you can not pigeon hole autistic children by simply saying they are behind because they can be both behind and ahead of there peers also their emotional view of the world is quite different from  children without autism.

As it happened at age nine in the winter of 2011 I was asked if I would like my son to attend a ten week course in social skills. This would involve him, leaving his school on a Thursday afternoon around 1 pm to attend another primary school in the city. No transport was available so I had to break my working day to get him there. This whole process started to intrigue my son. Why, he was reasoning,  I am the only one in my class that leaves early on a Thursday afternoon ? Why am I going to another school and attending a class with other children from other schools? What is so special about me?

At least one of the other children attending this course was a pupil from a school for autistic children. I don't think it took much brain power from my son,  to work out that  if the child sitting next to him, working on the very same things as him, was autistic,  then it would follow that he himself was in fact autistic. I was not aware of this discovery until one night I was helping him with homework and trying to encourage him to write neatly. "Take your time and think about what you want to write, careful now". I was saying.
"Dad !" he said, on sensing a hint of frustration in my voice."I am autistic that is why I can not write".
He had obviously accepted this fact with out a lot of fuss, in fact he was now using it as an excuse. My initial  reaction was no reaction in fact I did a very good impersonation of a statue. Since that evening though I have stood my ground and told him that no matter, good writing is always useful in this world.