As a step parent to an Aspie Teen...

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I am fairly new to the understanding of what it means to be linked to a young adult with aspergers and how to cope with the differences.

A little background: I married a man with an asperger teen - he's now teetering on 18. His home is with us and his other siblings live with their mother. He holds down a job working about 12 hours per week and is in his senior year of HS. His father and I live about 45 minutes away from his HS and work so he commutes with his Dad who also works in the same area.

I'm pretty certain his other siblings (ranging from 10-20 years of age) don't quite understand him and why he is different. His mother does tend to allow him to stay, however, after about 3 days, he's told that he's worn out his welcome there and must stay with us.

He does have fits of anger sometimes - although never around me - it's only geared towards his mother and Dad. His Dad does a tremendous job of keeping his cool and not flying off the handle. His mother on the other hand, does not.

My first concern is: when his behavior does get out of control, or when he does something that he shouldn't, what is the best form of discipline for him? He behaves exceptionally well at school, we just don't know what to do about his mis-behavior at his moms. Since he works in the same area as his Mom's it makes it difficult for my husband as he has to wait on him if he works certain nights since his mother will not allow him to stay...

Thank you in advance for any help or insight you may be able to give.

he needs a cat and joe dimaggio autograph

Other than that, I can only sugjest meds (if is behaviour is that bad,) counselling. maybe CBT

Cognative brain therapy. it seems to work well for most aspies, and if i was wealthy or had insurance i'd be doing it right away

CBT = Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, but I love the idea that it's brain therapy!

We do have a cat, however, we are lacking the JDamaggio autograph - lol. He's currently on meds as I'm sure that has helped tremendously. He also has a counselor that he goes to.

Again, I am looking for answers as to how to discipline him when he knowingly does something that is not acceptable - ie : lying, sending inappropriate text messages, profanity, and outbursts which in turn makes it inconvienient to his father when he's not allowed at his mothers house due to his behavior.

Thanks again ...

Ebay has really great deals on JD autographs. i'd go there, and sorry i dont have any children so I'm afraid i wont be much help. But if i did have a kid with the same problem, i'd use traditional methods of disapline. (wich means anything that wont put you in prison for)

Goodluck.

I have taken your advice and posted on the other forum. Thanks for pointing that out!

DISCLAIMER: Not a parent, am a person on the spectrum.


'You mother might have her issues, too. And that's okay. People have their issues.'

This is where you can be most helpful as step parent to a young person who is Aspie. In one or two sentences, you can be a social interpretter. And brief is usually good.
Actually, he sounds like a pretty good kid. He's both in school and has a job. And the issues you list actually seem pretty garden variety. Okay, lying is not so cool. Maybe you could tell him, you know, you can sometimes I'd rather not say. That is preferrable to lying.

And also, coming from a major argumentative family, it took me a long time to really wrap my mind around the idea, people can disagree on fundamentals. We can agree to disagree, without having to spell this out in a laborious conversation. I mean, I can now somewhat accept that people have their priorities and have the things they focus on, which are different from my priorities and my areas of focus.

You might ask him that you'd rather him not use profanity in conversations with you, but also try to cut him some slack. Profanity kind of seems an ingrained part of the human condition, in pretty much all languages, etc. I learned to use profanity when I was coming down from my Christian period the summer after my 9th grade year, and I kind of allowed myself to be taught by the movie "Saturday Night Fever" which in a way was the first adult R-rated movie I saw as a (young) adult. Might wish it had been a more healthy, more socially skilled movie, well, so be it.

Okay, then as person who is Aspie, social noninclusion or partial inclusion, hurts, is unfair, is hard to understand, and is a source of a lot of anger. If you are being scapegoated at work or treated as some kind of second-class citizen, sometimes it's worth it to quit that job and look for another one. If school is merely so-so or more second-class treatment, maybe adding another positive---paramedics class, political activism, martial arts class (and any martial arts teacher worth his or her salt always teaches walking away from a fight if you reasonable can), if you get something else going in your life which is a positive, sometimes takes the edge off a bad situation.

Anyway, he seems like a pretty good kid, and you seem pretty in touch with the situation, including I suppose the issues of being a step-parent, which is something I don't have personal experience with, although in actuality my parents probably should have gotten a divorce. In any case, good fortune and here's wishing you all the best.

Thanks KMurphy for sharing everything about your stepson. I was recently married and my 17 year step daughter is about to be diagnosed with AS and a lot of what you said, she is exhibiting right now. Your testimony has truly helped me. Thanks agian! Best of Luck...God be with us all!!

may be his mother is a dick? not much you can do about that

It does sound like his mother may be a trigger for his outbursts. Perhaps that's where the problem lies. He probably already knows that his behaviour is not acceptable, as he doesn't behave this way around you. So I don't know if discipline is the answer.

I do not see a post in the parenting section?

My kiddos are too young to have any ideas about this, but I am sure someone can help (Though I think it sounds like perhaps his mother is the one who needs help; if his behavior is directed at her and not you, then one can assume it is because of something she is doing that you are not.)

Well, I used to behave a lot worse around some people and not others, and I can tell you what the difference was: the people who triggered my own "outbursts" were always people who treated me like I was unimportant and fundamentally inferior to them. They'd order me around, call me irresponsible, childish, bratty, whatever; they'd try to use shame and threats to make me do what they wanted, instead of just politely asking. When you have an Aspie kid, you have to be straightforward with them, explain why you make the rules you do and what they're good for. You can't just demand things. Yelling will overwhelm them--can send them into sensory overload and shutdown. A rational explanation is the best approach, especially when the Aspie you're talking to is practically an adult himself.

Kids tend to fulfill your expectations. You expect him to be a good guy on the verge of adulthood, learning stuff and messing up occasionally as we all do--well, then that's what he'll be. On the other hand, if you expect him to be a bratty, immature, generally unpleasant person... well, you won't like the result.

Regarding uncontrolled meltdowns and similar: They're a great source of shame to many of us, because we have them and later on we regret it, and wish we could have controlled them. Sometimes we think we should have been able to. But once you're started, once your brain shuts down, that becomes impossible to stop... Don't shame him over that. Just wait until everybody's calm and he's had a chance to rest; then get him to fix whatever damage he caused and apologize to anyone he impulsively insulted. Maybe he can talk to his counselor about the situation and how to predict and prevent further meltdowns in similar situations; or if he trusts you or another family member enough to talk about it without getting mad, then talk to them about it.

Meltdowns are just as unpleasant to us as they are to our family members--probably more, really, since a family member can at least leave the room, while we're stuck in the center of it all. If we had our way about it, we'd never have another meltdown; but that's the reality of life with autism--your brain is occasionally going to shut down, and you have to learn how to deal with that so that you don't hurt yourself or anyone else. As you grow up, you learn to prevent them, or at least to go somewhere private before you get too far into a meltdown. It's an essential skill to learn. My parents thought they could shame me into never having another meltdown--they were wrong. All it did was make me hate myself for having them. A better approach is to treat them almost like seizures or panic attacks--something very nearly beyond your control, something where being responsible means learning to manage your symptoms in an effective way. Once I stopped blaming myself and started learning to understand why they happen did I make any useful headway.

If he acts up around him mother why do you feel you need to discipline him? If his mother is triggering the behavior maybe the solution is to get her to see a professional to determine what she is doing to trigger the behavior and learn more effective ways to deal with him. Who do you think it will be easier for to change, an 18 year old with AS or and adult NT? Fix her behavior and you fix his.