Thank you for the replies. I will check out the psych central links in the above posts. It's very challenging parenting with someone new. He has raised his kids thus far with his philosophy on parenting and his kids are amazingly compliant and easy to get along with so it's a really hard sell convincing him he is doing anything "wrong". I attribute much of his success to his just having low key, easy going kids by nature but his parenting style surely plays a role. I, on the other hand, have kids that are much higher strung--tons of energy, one with ADHD and ODD. They are much more curious, hands on, need a lot of coaching and redirection--they both hit the ground running and haven't looked back, as it were. Naturally, the easy assumption for him to make is that it's my parenting that is resulting in, shall we say, more challenging kids. Whereas I feel most of it is in their natures. Now combine the two parenting styles and whamo--problems. He wants to keep my kids at arms length and parent them like he has parented his kids and is surprised/disappointed that he is not getting the results he has gotten with his kids. This seems to have led him to conclude I have defective kids or am not doing an optimal job parenting. The biggest problem in this situation has arisen because he basically ignores or just tolerates my six year old daughter until she pisses him off enough that he unleashes a barrage of loud, angry sometimes hostile criticism and demands. There is no balance. There is no affection, encouragement or usually even much acknowledgment of her existence unless she is doing something wrong. Obviously I am not OK with this but how do you convince someone who has had such good luck with his wonderful children that all of our kids would likely benefit from a more balanced approach? How do I convince him that my little girl is normal and needs love, support and encouragement as a foil to the discipline? He isn't inclined to take my word for it since he has had easier outcomes with his kids.