As difficult as it is to be the parent of an autistic child, it can be just as difficult to have an autistic brother or sister. The “typically developing” siblings of autistic children are, in fact, the furthest from typical. Often, they are wiser and more mature than their age would suggest. And they have to be, given the many challenges they face: parental responsibility; a feeling of isolation from the rest of their family; confusion, fear, anger and embarrassment about their autistic sibling. And on top of all of it, guilt for having these feelings.

As their parents, there’s a lot we can do to help. For starters, we can educate them early on, by explaining their sibling’s disorder. There are often support groups for siblings where they can share their feelings and experiences with other typical children that understand each other. Siblings will commonly have negative feelings — some might never connect or want to connect with their autistic siblings — but the good news is that typical siblings often turn out to be more compassionate and caring than average. Kimberly Wragge       http:www.kimsautismawareness.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 2:59 pm and is filed under The world of Autism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.