So much attention is focused on the children with disabilities in a family unit that hardly anyone, including the parents, think about the siblings. The siblings who are primarily “healthy” and have no disabilities, but they do now because they are forever tethered to their sibling with a disability.
Friends look at them differently, teachers know them by their association with their special needs brother of sister, parents can hardly attend to their needs because so much energy and focus is on the special needs sibling.
These siblings can also become a secondary caretaker of the special needs brothers and sisters and not by choice. This is called “parentification”. It is when a child is forced to take on the role of an adult. Their sense of autonomy slips away, and they find themselves giving up hanging out with their friends, doing extracurricular activities, going on overnight sleepovers and field trips because they must caretake for their siblings. They begin to resent their special needs siblings and the worn-out primary caretakers, the parent(s).
We need to recognize this dilemma as society, as parents of special needs kids and the school communities will continue to see this family dynamic play out to the peril of these siblings. Adjust our thinking and our behavior towards these beautiful souls who did not ask for this role in the family but were born into it.
This recitation is from the diary of an older sister of a pair of younger twins who both have special needs. She is 16 years old. We shall call her “Anna”.
Anna writes,
“Growing up with my brothers is hard and frustrating. I remember I used to resent them a lot because they would always be in the center of everything good and bad. I remember writing how much I disliked them and how much I disliked myself for feeling like that.
I was angry about how much pain and stress they caused my parents. I’ve had to learn how to grow up faster to help my parents. I’ve also become the ‘therapist’ in the family. I would see my parents cry, (my mom mostly). And I felt like I should step up and help my parents, so I started to help care for them.
But at the same time, I was giving up my time and childhood. Now that I am 16, I still like childish things because I didn’t get to watch those kid shows or do things like that. It really affected my head when I was younger. I went to lots of therapists because of my mental health and then we would just stop going every time I went; we would just drop it and the boys ‘needs would just take over.
I’m doing better now, but I still feel drained at times.”
