Supporting siblings in a neurodiverse household
I don’t claim to have all of the answers, I’ve been pretty much winging it my entire parenting journey but what I can do is share our experience in the hope that it provides some relief or hope to others reading this blog.
Our household is made up of myself (Mum), and three boys, now 18 (neurotypical), 16 (PDA) and 9 (ASD), but in the early days it was just the older two who are 17 months apart. I look back on those days and thankfully now it feels like a long long time ago. It wasn’t an easy time all. Almost right from when we first started experiencing challenging behaviours with N around 15 months old, the sibling relationship was incredibly hard to manage. I am not sure whether this was exacerbated by the fact they were both boys or that they were close in age, but what I do know is that they were both ultra competitive over EVERYTHING!!! Even who would walk through the front door first would be a catalyst for all hell breaking loose. Other examples of triggers were, who would sit where at the table, who would sit in the front of the car, who would use the bathroom first, who wanted which colour pencil first for colouring. It really was every imaginable circumstance that would have the potential to turn into sibling war. I kept getting told that sibling rivalry and fighting was normal, but this really felt much much more than that. When the fighting kicked off it escalated out of all control and N would NEVER back down and didn’t have the self control not to take things too far in order to “win”. It got to the point where I couldn’t leave them alone together and had to take one of them with me upstairs when I wanted to use the bathroom. Life was very much about keeping them separate as much as possible to keep everyone safe, which as a single parent was really tricky to do.
I always tried to parent them the same but as they got slightly older, and the world of PDA entered our lives it became more and more apparent that they needed quite different parenting styles. My eldest neurotypical son seemed to do well with structure, routine, boundaries and consequences, but as we know those things work terribly with PDA. My PDA parenting approaches, felt very unfair to my eldest as to him it looked like N was getting away with everything, whilst he was still expected for the most part to carry on as normal. I felt terribly guilty as it was hard to explain to someone so young why we had to make allowances for N. What I did do was try to make extra time and give a few extra privileges to my eldest and always tried to make sure he knew I appreciated him. I acknowledged the unfairness of it all, but explained that this is just how it is, and sometimes in life things don’t feel fair. I also tried to explain things from N’s perspective in terms of the extra challenges he had in life due to PDA, and tried to compare how if it showed as a physical disability would he be more inclined to show compassion and that just because he can’t see the disability doesn’t mean it’s not there. He did still find it really difficult in practical terms to accept but I do think that underneath he did understand. He just didn’t like it, which is ok. One of the things he could see clearly though was how, by us all being more understanding and me parenting a different way, the violence and aggression subsided and day to day life became a little bit easier for everyone.
My youngest son came into the world when my eldest was 8 and N was just turning 7. Things at that point were still pretty volatile, but both the older two had a lot of love for their baby brother. There were no sibling issues between N and the baby, as the baby posed no threat, challenge or competition to him. He had always loved younger children and he took great joy in helping me to look after him, cuddle and feed him. Some difficulties have come into play as my youngest got older, due to the more grown up interaction between them over certain things (which seat in the car - again!), which as a toddler or baby he would never have had a say in, and also due to my youngest also being autistic and being pretty rigid and inflexible. However due to the large age gap these kind of problems are fairly minimal. The biggest issue now is that although N’s meltdowns are rare when they do happen they are loud, and verbally aggressive which J really struggles with. I have to try and support them both, and try to help them to understand how despite them both being autistic, they are still very different and express their emotions differently.
Interestingly the older two now and for the past few years have very little negative interaction. They don’t do much together and have different interests, and different groups of friends, and because they are both fairly independent, and independent of each other they rarely clash, and when they do share conversations and experiences they tend to get on well and have a good time.
The things I have found most helpful in supporting the boys is making sure they have their own bedrooms and creating space between them. Friends who the siblings can play with or hang out with that are separate to their brothers. It creates a little respite. We found it helpful sending the older two to different schools, again so they could have their own space and friendship groups. A supportive school and ensuring the sibling’s school is fully aware of the situation at home. Talking and explaining and acknowledging feelings. Keeping siblings separate as much as possible especially when unsupervised. There are also sibling support groups available, but my eldest son did not want to access these, however I do know they are extremely beneficial for many families.
If you are interested in some of the resources available to families including siblings, please take a look at the Resources page here.