Advice for Siblings

For the next several posts I will break down some common concerns and issues that many siblings try to address concluded by recommendations on how to handle them. With the great help, advice and counsel even for me by Henry Ford Behavioral Health Services, Greg Oliver, who is a social worker that has dealt with children and their siblings affected by Autism I hope that you will find my postings helpful.

Challenge #1: "Why won't he play with me?"

It’s not easy having a brother or sister that you can’t play with especially, if you are close in age and don’t have another sibling that will play with you. What is worst is that “play” to one sibling means the total opposite to a sibling that is autistic.

So, what happens when you can’t play with your sibling? Well, our solution is that you find what out what makes your sibling happy and then you can make fun out of it. For example, my brother was obsessed with radio’s and fans. You never saw him too far away from one. What I did to make a game out of his obsessions were singing along to the music on the radio or making noises and talking into the fan after he plugged them in. This way we both enjoyed them and I learned how to play with him. My best advice is to learn how your sibling with autism plays and adapt to it by making it fun for you.