Siblings of Children with Autism by Sandra L. Harris

Siblings of Children with Autism,
A Guide for Families

Author: Sandra L. Harris, Ph.D.
Published by: Woodbine House 1994

Reviewed by
Linda Wanfried

Many families who have one or more children with autism also have one or more typically developing children. This raises the parenting bar to a greater degree of difficulty. (ha, ha!) Sometimes I feel like holding up a big number 10 when my daughter is patient with her brother. "She nailed the landing on the triple toe loop - oops I mean she played catch in the yard for 10 minutes without screaming at him in frustration and despair! Great job!"

In the first few years after the diagnosis, many families focus most of their resources of time and attention on the child with autism, giving very little to everybody else in the family. That can set the stage for unhappy feelings, misunderstandings, anger and frustration for the sisters and brothers of our autistic children. Often husbands and wives are stressed beyond belief and don't take care of themselves or each other. Family units function happily and well for only some (small?) part of the time.

This book describes the challenges that families face and has many useful strategies to help us take care of each other better. In our family it used to be ,"If only I can get him to stop screaming then we can all be happy"., which focused all attention on you-know-who. Then it was ,"We can't wait for him to get it together we all want to be happy now!", which focused on everybody else standing up for their rights. We stumbled toward family happiness, struggling blindly along. If I had read this book years ago, maybe we wouldn't have stumbled as much. I know I would have felt better knowing that other families were experiencing similar things.

This book is useful because it gives specific steps about what to do. For instance, siblings need appropriate information and facts about autism and why their sibling acts the way he does. The information needs to be delivered at the level of the sibling hearing it. Not too much too early.

The author compares telling about autism to telling about sex education. The answer to "Where do babies come from?" is different for a young child than it is for a 9-12 year old or an older adolescent.

There is a chapter called "Let's Talk - helping children share their thoughts and feelings". Very specific suggestions and advice are given for how to help your kids open up and share feelings. When they are able to do this you may find that they need more information about their sibling or autism in general. Taking the time to really listen to their fears, feelings and concerns is so important. There are tips about how to really listen, too. ( I found these very useful!)

Another chapter is "The balancing act: Finding time for family, work and yourself". As we know, this is so hard! There are some helpful ideas here, but to tell the truth, most of us are familiar with the suggestions offered.

The final chapter is "Children at play: Helping children play together". This introduces the idea that it is a process that takes time, but the siblings can be shown how to play well together. It tells you how to do this. The book also explains that building these fun interactive experiences into their lives helps to create a loving connection between our children . That will set the stage for a lifetime of caring about each other.

I think this book is great. It's easy to read and full of good information.