Trouble with stepparents/grandparents?

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I'm just wondering if anyone else has had trouble with stepparents or stepgrandparents regarding the proper treatment of Aspie/autistic children?

My son is an Aspie (I'm learning disabled and mildly autistic/Aspie), and both his father and his stepmother refuse to understand and refuse to respond to him and his behaviors in the necessary manner. This has, as you can imagine, caused all kinds of problems. His stepmother, however, is the main culprit in this and is really difficult and nasty. She just wants to "whip him into shape", grrrrr. She also doesn't want him "influencing" their young son; never mind that my son absolutely loves his little half-brother, the only sibling he will ever have.

This all came to a head three years ago, when I got tired of their demanding to speak with me privately every time I came to pick him up from an afternoon visit, and then their constant reiteration of the same complaints and their refusal to actually LISTEN to my explanations of his behavior and what they needed to do in order to effectively respond. Yelling and spanking him has the exact opposite effect on him, it actually enrages, rather than chastens, him and he gets very, very angry. We've been working on that and he's much better, but yelling and hitting shouldn't be done to children anyway, frankly. He only stayed for a few hours each visitation because he couldn't handle more; they were and are the total opposite from my parents and I in terms of our parenting and discipline styles and it was extremely difficult for him to make that transition, especially their constant yelling at him (which they'd also do right in front of me). The transitions home from even overnight visits were very difficult for him and it would take him several days to get back to normal, so I finally put my foot down.

So, they'd always have to "talk" to me when I came to pick him up, but they wouldn't listen to me and refused to even acknowledge, let alone accept, his condition and what they needed to do and not do. I finally had enough and said that if they were going to continue to be that way, then I wasn't going to deal with it and they were making things much worse for him. My lawyer backed me up in that, but they dug their heels in. Shortly after that, my son turned fourteen and could decide for himself if he wanted to visit or not, which he usually didn't since it was so hard on him. Now that he's sixteen, he sees them occasionally, and they're still the same way. She is especially bad, and much of his father's behavior comes from that. My own stepmother also has a problem with his condition and makes little effort to understand it, and is constantly critical of him.

So, I'm just wondering if anyone else has this same problem with the "steps" in their Aspie/autistic children's lives? And what do you do about it?

About the only thing I can say to this is that I am the "Step" in my Aspie son's life. I think it is not so much being a step as it is not being willing to accept that a child can have certain issues going on that they will not respond to "time honored and proven" methods of child rearing. It is a case of "I know what I believe. Don't confuse me with the facts."

It sounds as if your son is making the right choices in not going where he is not understood. good luck to both of you.

Wow, this is a difficult situation.

I agree with Corsarzs, I think this is just as simple as having people in your son's life who just don't "get" his diagnosis. It sounds as if they keep trying the old "child-rearing" methods, and wondering why it just doesn't work in his case.

We have had this situation with grandparents, and it hasn't really had much to do with our son's diagnosis as much as the grandparents have a different perception of how kids should be raised. You throw a stepmother into the mix, and it's just uncomfortable for everyone, including her.

Now that your son can choose if he visits the father and stepmother, and he's doing it less, that sounds like more of a controllable situation. Can the little half-brother come and visit at your house? It sounds as if that's a healthy relationship, which would be nice to keep going without the stress of the father and stepmother.

Kris

You're absolutely right that it has a lot to do with different perceptions of child raising. Both my son's father and his stepmother were raised in the "old school", like your child's grandparents, and they just simply refuse to listen to anything else or accept that he needs to be dealt with differently than what they think. To them, his condition is a "failing" on my part and that of my parents, since I lived with them until about two years ago. I feel sorry for their own son, because they yell at him and spank him ALL the time, and he's really a sweet little boy.

I would love to bring their son over to visit without them, but she throws conniption fits at the very thought of it, and she just won't allow it. She says she can't trust us, especially my son, which really infuriates me. He is wonderful with children, always has been, and he loves his little brother. It is, indeed, more controllable since he's of the age where he can decide whether or not to visit them and he simply chooses not to put himself in that situation anymore. What's really sad is that he doesn't even miss his father at all, or his stepmother, just his brother. Pretty sad when you have kids you think that way of you, isn't it? But I look at it as THEIR loss, and not his.