My oldest son has always loved his little brother (the one with SPD), he would cry when he cried and bring him toys to his swing (which he loved, no surprise there) and sing to him as he rubbed his head. As they got older though and the screaming and constantly needing to be held started to make my oldest felt left out. My youngest not only has sensory needs, he also has autism (high-functioning-also known as Aspergers-I will discuss it in a future blog). The struggle with relationships for my youngest began against his brother. You take my toy, I scream, you move my line of blocks, I scream, you play the game differently than before, I scream. My oldest would run away and cry and hold his ears (they are only 21 months apart). My oldest learned early on that he played a role in helping our youngest navigate life. We didn't put him in this role, he just came to it as the closest person other than us to our youngest. He still struggles with the hard days, the meltdowns and the rigid fixations (another indicator of autism) and of course these things occur more frequently when his sensory needs aren't being met (or something went wrong in his diet-I will talk more about this another time).
We learned early on that our oldest needs breaks, time away, time to process and time to remind himself why he loves his brother so much. I think all siblings could use healthy time away from each other, but even more so in the case of a sibling with a disability. They can easily become mini-parents and my husband and I have worked to help him not feel that responsibility on his shoulders.
We have recently started sending our oldest son to a sibling support group. They also have a parent to parent group which is great! We need to be able to talk about these things with others who get it too. The sibling groups mostly get together and just have fun; they also talk through how things are going and the struggles they face due to their siblings behaviors. If there isn't a group like this in your area and you can't find local support, there is almost a group for every disability out there. We enjoy a sensational parents group, and Asperger experts (they have amazing tools in how to navigate Aspergers as a Neurotypical-someone without autism).
Most importantly listen to your child (the sibling) and watch for signs of distress. Have special time with them so they know their needs are important too. All children have needs and their voice needs to be heard too.
A word of advice from our son's older sibling (11yrs.)
“My brother is really creative, and he has a lot of ideas. He
is good with clay, we had a Claymation set we got for Christmas, so we made
clay for our Claymation. We had 5 packs of clay with different colors. One
packet was Dinosaurs that tell you how to make the characters, and we didn’t
listen to that, we just made up our own characters. It was really fun and we
made a bunch of videos about camping, friendship and people coming to our house
and we made a table with dinner and one guy ate all his food and his plate too.
We also play Lego, and we pretend we make our own Youtube, we call it
braintube. We create characters and make up names for our channels. It’s all
made up and I am the "popularist" one.
Here’s what I dislike about my brother. He’s really crazy,
and by crazy I mean crazy. Also, he pushes me to play games that I don’t want
to play, and if I don’t sometimes he hurts me. I hate bedtime. I get all ready
for bed, and then he turns on the light and it goes back and forth. I tell him
to go to bed, but he keeps getting up and MAN it’s so annoying and dumb and I
really don’t like it. It’s non-stop. We play this game at bed time called
school and we pretend that I am him at his school and sometimes I react
differently than I might with the teachers and his friends. He plays the other
people like his teacher or his friends. That’s actually not a dislike, I like
that. But, sometimes when I’m really tired he begs and begs me to play it. So,
I tell him to stop asking, but then he won’t stop, so then he turns on the
light. Sometimes when I am sleeping he gets up on my bed and he won’t get off,
and then I call for mom and he blames me! Also, he goes to the bathroom, then
goes to mom and when he comes back and turns on the light, and it hurts and
burns my eyes. That’s all I have to say.
My advice to you is be nice to them, don’t tick them off.
Try not to be angry at them, because they will get angry at you. Sometimes my
brother punches me. So, I guess I could say I like him so-so, and we do have fun.”
As you can see, it can be hard. My boys haven't always gotten along, and it breaks my heart. But, the truth of it is my oldest has had to get the brunt of the younger's fury. I still see that they love each other, it's just a balancing act of letting them play and work things out and knowing when to step in. I take the time to hear out my oldest and let him be angry and have a place to vent. We try to let this happen privately because it's hard for our youngest to hear (especially very angry words) but either way we give him a chance to express it, in any way he needs to. It's one way to achieve balance in our family. We can't forget that our other children have special needs too.
This is an excellent resource and their newsletter is full of great information! They work with families of all disabilities.
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