Sibling of a square peg

As I mentioned in my introductory post, my little square peg has an older brother who doesn’t have autism. I have spent a lot of time worrying how having a sibling with special needs will affect him. Will he be embarrassed because his brother is different? Will he think that his younger brother gets all the attention? How will he cope when his brother has a meltdown in a public place? Will he feel that he is responsible for him? All of these worries go through my mind all the time.

So what can we do about this? Well, I’m not saying I have all the answers but this is what I think and do at the moment. My eldest son Matthew is actually a super cyclist and is currently the under 10 South West Cyclocross champion. So we take him all over the South West to compete in races. Daddy also loves to buy him lots of posh bikes and he has won lots of medals and trophies. So he does get a lot of positive attention from us.

They were both in the same primary school, but now my square peg (Edward) is in a different school. I feel that this may have taken some of the pressure off Matthew. The whole school knew Edward and everyone would give him lots of attention and fuss. He was a bit like the school pet! At sports day, the entire school was chanting ‘Edward, Edward, Edward’ when he lined up for his race. Matthew became known as “Edward’s brother.” He would sometimes ask why does Edward have to be different? I said it is ok to be different and Edward certainly couldn’t give a monkey’s that he’s different from everyone else.

At home though, Matthew does like to wind Edward up by taking a toy from him or wrestling him to the ground until he screams. This is somewhat stressful for me when we are trying to get ready for work and school in the morning. I have started giving Matthew marble rewards if he get’s himself dressed, eats breakfast and gets his coat, shoes and socks on without making Edward scream. Each marble equates to 20p and the plan is at the end of the month we will total up the marbles and take Matthew to buy something. This is working most of the time….

However, getting Edward ready in the morning…well that’s a different post altogether….

It is difficult for siblings of square pegs but I think as parents, as long as you give them positive attention, try to spend quality time with them individually and talk to them about how they feel about living with a square peg then life should turn out ok.

Twins, Tantrums and Cold Coffee