The Forgotten Siblings

The school year has just ended for our family and that means that all of their stuff from school comes home. My wife and I were going through our youngest daughter's journal that was sent home and it was nice to get some insight into what was going on inside her.

There were some neat entries about her times with her brother who has autism. She has been connecting better with him. But there was a sad entry about our daughter with autism who broke her favourite snow globe.

When people think about families with autism, they usually think about the child with autism or the parents that are the caregivers. But what about the siblings? It is not easy to be a brother or sister of someone with autism. Toys get broken. Parents are distracted. Home is hectic.

If churches want to help families with autism, one place to start is to reach out to the siblings. The great thing is that it does not require any special training and in the long run, it also benefits the parents and the sibling with autism.

If you want to learn more, I recommend the book, Siblings of Children With Autism.