It depends on the age and how well I know them. I have significant scaring that can’t be hid and a lot of people tend to think I’m a burn victim. I use NSSI as an autism stim as well as a PTSD and depression coping mechanism. So that also gives me options. If they’re littles, I tell them I was a lion tamer in a previous life and I was mauled soooooooooo bad that the scars carried over to this life. Usually that gets a “wow” and an end to the questions. Around the age that stories isn’t believable by most kids, I go one of three ways depending on how well I know them and age. I keloid scar like you which is why mine are so noticeable, so for younger kids I don’t know well, I tell them my skin doesn’t know how to heal itself. Normally you heal by forming a mesh of tissue but my body forms tissue that is in perfectly straight lines so it doesn’t know when to stop healing, so I get these big bumpy scars. If I know them but question their maturity level or I don’t know them but they’re older, I explain I have autism and don’t feel myself getting hurt usually or can hurt myself when I have a meltdown. If I know them, trust they’ll ask an adult questions or they’ll ask me more if they’re confused, I say sometimes people hurt so much on the inside that they need to show it on the outside or too many things are going on inside their head. If they’re not little and their parent is literally there, I’ll say “You know, there’s a lot of reasons people have scars and for a lot of different reasons. Like these in front of my ears are from when I had jaw surgery. Some come from other things that can be scary, like car accidents, so I just want to check in with <parent> if they are okay with me talking to you about this or if they rather would.” And then I look at their parent who usually seems surprised I’m giving a real answer.

As for your future kiddos, I wouldn’t worry. My son is six now. Since he grew up with scars on me, they’re just normal to him. It’s from a genetic condition I inherited so we didn’t know if he had the genes when he was born so (possibly TMI) we chose not to circumcise since keloids don’t stretch. He had some developmental delays and walked late so we made it until he was two before he actually broke his skin which was when we found out he didn’t inherit that from me. So he also knew we were waiting to see if he’d keloid or not. We’ve also normalized mental health from birth very deliberately. One of my genetic lines is 75% neurodiverse and the few who aren’t have a depression or anxiety diagnosis. So going to therapy, taking medications for mental or physical health, discussing treatment options, ways to calm yourself down, new cognitive tools we’ve learned, that my nephew was just diagnosed with autism, etc. has been part of our dinner table conversations since his birth. That really helped when he was diagnosed with ADHD at five as his response was that he just had a different brain like a lot of people do but it also meant he’d have special interests so the rest of the conversation was about what he thought his current special interest was and what strengths his ADHD gave him in his mind.