The Declaration of Independence states “that all men are created equal.” Alas, there is no way for this statement to be true in any society. There will always be differences that keep people from being equal and autistic children are no different. People always say you shouldn’t favor one of your children over another, however treating them differently isn’t always favoring. It just may seem like it, and no where is that more evident than for families with one or more children on the autism spectrum.
When One Sibling Has Autism When Another Doesn’t
Many times we have to treat our children on the autism spectrum differently than other neurotypical children. Many autistic children learn at a slower pace or cannot handle tasks that other children their own age, or even younger, can. This can create friction in a home. Many times the neurotypical child can feel like they are doing more than their fair share of chores, have higher expectations on them, or that their parents like their sibling better because they spend more time working with them.
Our middle son went through this. His father and I took him aside and explained to him that his brother doesn’t understand things as well as he did and couldn’t handle the hard tasks like he could. He felt like he had more chores and his brother didn’t have to do anything.
In order to help him see that his brother was helping out and doing chores, we created chore lists for each of them and listed all the chores that each one did and what day they did them. The chores were balanced. Neither one was doing more than the other, they were just different. Printing out the lists helped show that each was doing their fair share.
Explaining Why One Sibling Can Do Something That Another Cannot
Sometimes one sibling is more physically or mentally able to do something than his brother or sister. One will ask why can they drive while I can’t or why does he get velcro shoes while I tie mine?
We dealt with this recently when our middle son got his learner’s permit and started learning how to drive. Our oldest son asked, “when do I get to drive?” Our oldest would never pass the test to get his learner’s permit and even if somehow he could he is too easily distracted. If he saw a squirrel on the side of the road he would turn his whole body and the steering wheel toward the squirrel and run off the road.
Sadly he will never get to the point where he can drive. I told him that he is not ready to drive yet. Usually telling him he is not ready to do something is enough to get him to move past the question and he asks something different. Thankfully this was one of those times.
I hate telling our kids that they can’t do something. I want them to focus on the things they can do and work toward achievable goals. If a child hears they can’t do something enough times, they start to think they can’t do anything and that is something we never want for our kids.
Working Toward Family Harmony
Balance is the key is an autism family. Trying to spend equal time with the kids, and your spouse. Making sure that everyone participates in the household chores. Doing family events that each one likes. You may not be able to do an event that everyone likes, so we like to do something that one likes and then the next time we do something another likes and alternate. This way everyone gets to watch something they like, eat something they like or go somewhere they like. Try to be as equal as possible and make sure each kid as well as mom and dad get turns.
It takes effort to make sure that everyone feels important and is getting their fair share, but we try to make a conscious effort to spend as much time as possible with each of our children both individually and as a group. In the end it makes for a happy and supportive family unit.
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