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siblings
| Mon, 04-21-2008 - 4:59pm |
I just stumbled on this article from Time last December, about siblings of autistics, and I thought it was really good.
| Mon, 04-21-2008 - 4:59pm |
I just stumbled on this article from Time last December, about siblings of autistics, and I thought it was really good.
Hmmm. I have two very competitive, impatient NT kids (11yo ds & 4yo dd) who love to push the buttons of their AS siblings (13yo dd & 9yo ds) and periodically deliberately torment them. Once in awhile I see my NT's be gentle and sweet, but mostly not. We're constantly working on it. The past two years have seen a slight improvement between the boys but only because of 9yo AS ds maturing a little rather than the 11yo NT ds maturing!
Our NT daughter, Natalie, is 11 yrs old and she is a wonderful, patient big sister. I think part of it is her personality and part of it is the fact that she is almost 6 yrs older than our youngest, Lily, who has an asd. She is a great example to Lily of how to play with toys and how to use your imagination. They still have the normal sibling squabbles. But, for the most part Natalie is more patient with Lily than she is with anyone else. She gets sad sometimes about Lily not showing her much affection, but she is learning to accept it better lately. We have told Natalie in the past that she has been Lily's best "therapist". I know we are very blessed to have an older NT child who is such a special big sister.
Amy
I remember fighting a lot with my younger sister and know how to push her buttons, and I definately see that in the 9 year old Aspie and his 5 year old NT brother - they both look for weaknesses in the other to exploit, and for DS2 a lot of that is definately the Aspie's difficulty with teasing and rule-transgression. But the NT 5 year old is incredibly insightful and thoughtful about other people generally (he brings me flowers when I am ill and told me once that 'If you accidentally do something naughty and say sorry before the teacher gets mad you don't get into trouble' and I just thought - there are a lot of adults who could do with learning that!!!) and he will try to accommodate everyone, including his annoying 2 year old NT sister's tantrums. I can foresee him going far with people skills as he gets older, and
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Interesting.
Honestly, all three of our