Do you have a sibling with autism?

[ambereeree]

I have a two and half year old asd boy and 5 year old nt girl. I feel terribly sad when he ignores or pushes her away especially as she always tells him that she loves him. How was your experience as the nt sibling? Did your siblings play with you and do you have a good relationship now?

@hyperhippo thanks. I hope that there is now more support for families to learn more about autism.

I have a severely autistic elder brother, 2 years between us. Because he required 24 hour 1-1 care there was no possibility of a relationship in the way you perhaps are thinking as one of my parents were with him at all times. It was me learning, even as a baby/toddler how to manage living with someone who is unable to function in the way the majority of people do. I was overly obedient to compensate, and, as a pp said unconsciously did all that I could to not create more worry for my parents. I realised this through counselling as an adult. I suffer from anxiety and other things. I understand that I had a very difficult childhood due to circumstances , but I know that I was, and still am loved as a daughter and sibling and I am very close to my family. I think my parents did an amazing job

Just one thing I wanted to add. In a family with multiple children, both their needs are equal, even if one has ASD. It is very easy to let the NT child compromise continually, and put this down to character. If you look closely at siblings of ASD children they often either work through stress with rebellion or , especially if female, they are too well behaved and too mature for their age. It causes problems in later life

I have adult DD's one has asd. Her sibling is mostly sympathetic but only to a point, we know she missed out on things because of her sisters behaviour and I couldn't work so money was tighter, but they are quite close and she accepts she'll likely be her sisters guardian one day

I have an older sibling - mentally handicapped as well as autistic, developmentally delayed etc. They attended a special school and it was hard to really “play” with them. We just lived alongside each other really. Life growing up was difficult at times. I remember acutely knowing we were a “different” family and I wanted very much to be normal. I felt embarrassed. As they grew older their outbursts and tantrum type behaviour grew more than my parents could manage safely in the family home and they went to live with a foster carer. We still saw them regularly and it was the best thing for the family at that time, but was a huge step for my parents to take and must have been incredibly hard. My parents marriage was hugely affected - it took a great toll on them. My mother was depressed I think. I think like others have said, I learned to keep things inside and not be too much trouble because I knew the burden they were under. I was very obedient, shy, never wanted to do anything wrong etc. I was also quite secretive - I never even told new people I met of that particular sibling and I feel immense guilt as an adult for that. I feel like my parents had a really difficult job to do and they did the best they could. But I feel i would benefit from therapy or something to talk about it because I cry when I talk about aspects of my childhood, as an adult. And as I have become a mum myself it has dredged up all sorts of feelings about my own childhood that I think I should work through.

@movingonup20 it must be so hard to balance both needs. Does your asd daughter live with you?

@rhdlj thanks for sharing

I have three girls (12, 11 and 8) my 11 and 8 year old are both autistic. The youngest is more severely autistic. She can’t talk and has quite complex needs. When my 11 year old was about your son’s age she didn’t play with her older sister despite the small age gap. But they did go through a stage of being very close and are close to a degree but they’re very different in personality. My eldest gets on well with my youngest and plays as much as the youngest will allow.

My husband and his brother barely speak. They’ve very different personalities.

Your son being autistic doesn’t mean they won’t be close as they grow up. Both my autistic children have changed a lot and the middle one is very sociable and yet at 2 she ignored everyone.

I’m sorry to all those with an autistic sibling who felt they missed out. It’s one of the things I worry most for my eldest so we try and ensure she does all the things she wants but I do worry she’ll look back at her childhood hurt that it hasn’t been the way most peoples have.

2.5 years between my (Asperger) brother and I.

We aren’t close. I had to look after him for a while when our parents died in our 20s, but he’s been on his own for a while now and I haven’t really wanted to maintain a relationship apart from Christmas and birthdays.

But that’s because he’s a hateful and unpleasant individual, a bitter twisted mysogonist and homophobe, not because of his autism.

Unfortunately I think his personality makes him a dick but his AS makes him incapable of understanding why he’s being a dick and that his behaviour is inappropriate. A bad combination really.

We disliked each other as children too but that was probably mostly down to our parents very obviously having favourite children which just fostered resentment I think.

Probably not the answer you wanted OP but FWIW by even asking the question you’re doing far better a job at parenting than my parents did so I’m sure your DC will be fine in the long term!

I don't have siblings with autism, but I do have a teenager with autism who was diagnosed at 2.5 and he has a sibling both younger and older than him.

It has had its challenges, my advice in maintaining a good relationship is to make sure your DD knows that she is just as important as her brother, even though he may get more attention at times, she is equally loved and valued.

The DC get on really well (like most siblings), they understand their brother needs and gets more attention at times, they are very protective of him.

Me, I have a sibling with autism.

My parents struggled to parent him. I had to help.

Lost childhood really. Through smiles. Took me into a lost adulthood.

Found myself now.

Have an autistic child myself too.

Limited contact with my sibling. Only in the Carer role still.

@Onlyonewayout thank you. I've already noticed my son is giving me and his grandparents more eye contact and pulling us around to play games or for cuddles over the past two months. Before that he was pretty much in his own world.
I'm trying to encourage him to be more social without forcing it.

@AcornPaw thank you for sharing. Do you mind my asking about aspergers? With my son I noticed the speech delay, hyperactivity and repetitive hand flapping when excited or visual stimming. Do aspergers people also do stimming or sensory seeking or is your condition mostly a disinterest in socialising?

@iwonder777 that's exactly what I don't want happening for my daughter. I'm already thinking about the future so that she will never be the forced carer.

@DorothyWasRightTho I could have written your post, bar the counselling. I love my brother (we are now our late twenties) but I still feel a mixture of resentment, frustration and guilt (mainly the guilt) that he can't help the way he is. Sending un-Mumsnetty love!

I do op, both in our 40s now. We have always had a love-hate relationship. He is the funniest person to watch something with. If he finds something funny he’ll watch that tiny clip over and over again, laughing harder and harder.
He is an obsessive genius with some things, like birds, which has its good points. He loves to share his knowledge and has made a fantastic teacher to my children. As a child though it meant everything was tailored to his interests. Days outs/holidays/TV viewing all had to be organised to support birdwatching (in silence). He was also very violent towards me and I would regularly get jumped on, tied up, beaten etc.
I have grown up with mental health problems as a result, but I would never ever blame him. My parents never supported me when they could see me being hurt, they very much put his needs first and even when I was old enough to tell them I didn’t feel as important, they brushed it off.
I went off the rails as a teen and hated all of them, as a young woman I supported him through his own crisis (very suicidal) and we became closer.
I still struggle with the dynamics between our parents, his family and my family but the biggest factor in that is our mum.

My middle daughter is autistic (Aspergers). Strangely the three of them got on quite well as young children despite her challenging behaviour and the fact that she clearly preferred her Sylvanians to them and insisted on watching The Dark Crystal film over and over again! As they got older the other two began to resent the fact that she needed so much from me and because I had become a single parent with no support it was really hard. Now they are young adults (20,19,16) dd1 and dd3 find dd2 difficult since they are into socialising, clothes etc and she would rather go to the zoo and watch the hippos for hours. She also has no tact when commenting on their Instgram photos! However, if anyone was to treat her badly her sisters would make sure they regretted it.

PS. dd2 passed all her GCSEs and A levels and is just completing a business apprenticeship where she has done very well and been offered a permanent job with the company.

My parents tolerated a lot from my brother to me.

We were unsupervised a lot and he did things which we all laughed off, like burning my hair.

It was taken for granted that I would be long suffering and I was.

I didn't and don't blame my parents but he domineered our childhood. I became compliant so as not to hurt my parents more.

I wonder what I might have been like otherwise.

Now I have an autistic child myself I try to do my best but empathise massively re my parents struggles .

@iwonder777 and @IHateCoronavirus the possible violence is what scares me the most. I'll be in my 50s when he becomes a teenager and I hear so much about children with autism lashing out at parents and siblings it worries me.

My parents weren't very diligent - please don't worry.

I've an autistic teen and he's fine x

My 9 year old has ASD and another genetic condition and has an 11 month old sibling.

They have an odd relationship. My 9 year old generally seems scared of the baby, I think becuase he is unpredictable. The 11 month old loves his older brother and tries to follow him everywhere. His brother spends most of his time trying to run away. He often calls our for 'baby help' when the 11 month old is trying to climb up his leg etc and is unsure how to deal with it himself.

The 9 year old is however very sensory seeking and loves it if he is chased by me holding the baby and then gets tickles. He also tries to include rhe baby is a positive way when he is making up songs or stories. Although it is early days I feel fairly optimistic for their future relationship as my 9 year old is gentle and emphatic and likes others around him but just struggles to engage with them.

Mine also weren’t diligent, it just got passed off as roughhousing as it was solely directed at me.
Try not to worry, the fact that you are here asking these questions shows that you are 100% more aware of any imbalances than they were/are.

weepingwillow22 DN was very suspicious of my youngest when he was a baby. Now DN is 11 and my DS is 4 they are the best of friends. It is lovely to see them together.

@ambereeree ds was diagnosed with moderate autism, learning difficulties, speech disorder and extreme challenging behaviour at age two and a half. Like your son he was obsessed with numbers and letters and learnt the alphabet at eighteen months after I showed it him twice. He could read before he was three but because he couldn't speak I only knew when he used his magnetic letters to spell words.
He and his brother used to play beat the calculator, one of them would put numbers in a calculator and the other had to add them up faster than the calculator. Ds could manipulate three digit numbers in his head aged five. I often used to shout out lists of numbers for him to add up to entertain him.
Ds hurt all of us, some needed stitches, others had chipped bones and we all (other than youngest dd) have scars. He eventually learned to talk age seven and the behaviour got better from then. Dd was born soon after he was eight and he has never hurt anyone since then. Dd doesn't recognise the stories we tell of ds when small because he has always been calm quiet and gentle around dd.
He changed a lot, he got 8 GCSE's and 3 B techs (A level equivalents) so the learning difficulties were wrong it was more that he couldn't speak and he complied with nothing when he was assessed. He is kind and thoughtful with a wicked sense of humour, loves football and formula one. He's nothing like the boy I feared he might be tbh.