Hi All,
sharing the details of another presentation I have attended recently. Below are the details of the session:
Topic – Ensuring the mental health of the siblings of children with DDS
Date – 21st June 2022 3:00 pm to 3:30 pm IST
Mode of Presentation – Online Webinar
Speaker – Smt.Niranjana, Clinical Psychologist, NIEPMD.
This session was organized by NIEPMD ( National Institute of Empowerment of Persons with Multiple Disabilities)
Below are the points shared in the presentation:
Sibling refers to the brother/sister (Yonger or elder) of a child.
The age difference/gap between the siblings will mostly be between 2-5 years, in some exceptional cases it may be above 5 years. When the age gap between the siblings are less than 5 years, it means that together they all fall under the category of children.
All children have a psychological needs. The psychological needs are classified as emotional needs and Cognitive needs.
Until the children grow up as adults the emotional needs will never be stable, it is still in the formation or fragile stage. So they learn by exploration and experiences.
If the special needs child has a younger sibling who is neurotypical, it is common for parents to let the younger one to perform as many tasks by themselves without any assistance from the parents, as most of the parents time are required to take care of the children with special needs.
Tasks like dressing, feeding are often not performed by parents as the neurotypical child is capable of taking care of themselves. This cause a psychological distress to the child as the child who is doing age appropriate things are being ignored and not getting the same level of attention from the parents. Such instances happen knowingly or unknowingly, but when realized kindly ensure that proper steps are taken care to balance the time spent between the children. Like you can feed the younger child once/twice a week, help them in dressing more frequently etc.. , so that the sibling does not feel being neglected by parents.
By letting the neurotypical child to perform things by themselves as much as possible, may result in a positive and/or negative impact. From positive perspective, the sibling has began performing the duties and routines from the young age independently as a result he/she will have higher abilities, better skills, rapid development etc.. From negative perspective, the sibling will feel that the Parents are ignoring her/him, they only love the special needs child. It could become an emotional trauma caused due to neglect.
As parents you have to be extremely conscious and aware of how you spend time with the children. You actions, words, behaviors must resemble things which will make the child feel positive.
Research indicates that siblings of special needs children has emotional and behavioral problems.
Emotional disturbances may be exhibited as :
Children not listening fully to the parents, disrespecting the parents or elders, irritating others, they are always in a rush, restlessness, does things due to impulsivity, does not hear the commands given to them, but at the same time they have amazing capabilities as well, like strong memory, drawing skills, photograph memory, observational skills etc. When the child is capable of much more but all other issues surrounding him is unable to express his/her capabilities, we can label it as an Emotional issue.
Behavioral disturbances may be exhibited as:
Breaking things that belongs to elders, throwing things that belongs to elders, telling lies, etc…
They will also exhibit issues in their social peer group, as they may not be proficient in expressing what they thought. Inability to express their needs, they may appear scared, extremely quiet, never talks at all, etc..
For kids above 10 years, will often feel like they are in stress or facing pressure. We can expect academic difficulties in their performance, writing skills, memory skills, etc. They believe to have a lower self esteem and does poor self evaluation by comparing with the best, resulting in an inferiority complex.
For kids nearing adolescence 13 to 18 years of age, they will have lower self esteem, they feel life is not fair to them, feeling depressed or anxiety all the time. They will be in a sorrow mode, will not initiate things by themselves.
On a positive note, these kids will be able to adjust according to situation, sacrifice, helping others, they are quick to do things which the special needs child is unable to do, empathy improves, enhances communication skills, resilience develops, etc..
From a future perspective, on a positive side, the siblings of the special needs child will become extremely successful by their hard work as they are used to it from the childhood. On a negative side, there may be financial struggles in the family, the sibling may not capitalize on the opportunities that are presented to them.
Our duty as parents or elders of the family, we should develop the awareness on the positives and negatives that can happen among the children. How we talk, How we behave, How we express ourselves, How we action etc.. all are going to influence the children. So we should tune ourselves to be more positive to have a positive impact on the children.
Prevention is better than cure. With children only indirect approach works, direct investigation or interrogation never helps in resolving the issue or the children will never open up to others.
Personal Feedback:
Of all the speakers of NIEPMD, Niranjana speaks more from her experiences with Parents is what i have observed. Her talks are very crisp to the point, takes her time in explaining in detail so parents understand the message. In this topic, it is true that parents focus on the special needs children more and leave behind the sibling, it is not done knowingly, but the child does not know that. It is essential for the parents to make the sibling understand that the needs of the Neurotypical and neurodiverse are different, hence the attention is given more to the other child. Also to make it up, we have to do something extra or set aside dedicated quality time with the sibling to avoid any emotional trauma. Parenting has become more challenging than it has ever been, if as parents we do not educate ourselves with children psychology, the price we may have to pay will be huge…
Regards,
Saranya and karthik
Karthiksaranyaparents@gmail.com
Autism Spectrum Disorder - Personal Experiences (Chennai Family) 