On enforcing the rules..

This is the hard part. You don't want to hurt or damage but you also can't lay down and let him walk all over you. There are people who say we are hard on Brandon but what they don't realize is that if you go outside the rules or give an inch you've lost control. We enforce the rules here at our house and everybody is involved. I hold Brandon just as responsible as his sisters. We put Brandon up with the same rules as his sisters. He also has the same consequences. We don't verbally abuse or physically abuse the kids which alot of people do. Alot of people tend to let all this get to them...the frustrations I mean. If Brandon hits someone we go over what happened and work as a family as to what the right thing to do is. We role play this with Me Robert and his sisters. This is very important. By role playing, he can work on the socially correct way to handle things. We do spank if the offense is serious enough, we also use the withdrawal of toys, computer games and XBox as an attention getter. By placing a consequence on the action we are helping him to recognize what he did. Brandon used to drive me crazy because he would hit someone and when i asked him why he would say because I did. This would go in circles. We did not have cause and effect down. If you do this, then this will happen. If you lie or hit then you get in serious trouble. Picking up a stick during recess and ignoring the teacher when she tells you to put it down and THEN getting sent to the principals office is semi serious. Running out into the street is serious . Not paying attention needs work and encouragement. We work on that ALOT. Now some might not agree, some might say that since he has autism I should not do anything but I dare say, walk a mile in my shoes. Walking that fine line between rules and hugs and discipline is a hard one for any parent. The best part is when it was over is the hugs and learning how NOT to do whatever started it in the first place. Love does answer alot of problems but Tough love answers the rest.