My husband and I are on the verge of separating due to the fact that my husband and I are having problems coming together in our methods of discipline. My husband is rigid in his discipline and is strict with my son whom is 13. When you ask my son to do something his first reaction is to say no and argue however if we remain calm my son will calm down and usually do what is requested. My husband believes that he should do what is expected of him right away and he is disrespectful. They begin to argue which escalates the situation and makes our family very arguementative. I'm afraid that it will become physical. I'm not sure how separation will cause my son to react. Unfortunatly, I think that he will believe that it is his fault and not our ability to parent him. Has any one been in this situation and could give any type of advice? He has recently been retested and they are also debating if he has Asperger's. They said that the testing showed that he was just above cutoff for Autism. Meaning he they saw the characteristics of Autism but very mild. His psychiatrist belives he is just lazy body and that he has a lazy mind and that we are not parenting him properly. WE are going to find out the results next week. I realize that nobody can really help me. I guess I,m just reaching for some sort of support from people who may understand what I am going through.

separating

I will ask my husband for his take on this. One thing I learned at a recent conference from Barry Prizant, not so much "learned", as "was reminded of"- that all the strange and difficult behaviors are due to things that the kids find stressful, anxiety-provoking or just plain hard. They really do experience the world differently than you and I. Things that I would never find stressful can be totally debilitating for my son. It would be good for your husband to go to one of those autism conferences and hear from experts and adults on the spectrum themselves, as well as meet other parents and dads. best wishes Marianne