Paper Sample on Sibling Struggles: Challenges and Rewards of Having a Sibling with Disability

Although a majority of kids might only face the joyful side of their life endeavors, it is imperative to acknowledge and appreciate that several children who have no indications of intellectual disability, often undergo a series of alternating happy and sad moments, when trying to manage their siblings with disability. This paper will discuss the challenges or rewards that siblings whose siblings have cases of disability face throughout their lifetime.

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To begin with, challenges, research done by Gentry (2019), outlined that children with a disability often get favored by their parents in some conditions. As most of them have incredibly lousy characters such as regular mood changes, parents usually try to impress them with gifts, and most importantly, spending much time with them. That being the case, the siblings of the one with an intellectual disability could suffer from the challenge of being undermined by being given less consideration and attention. As this takes place, the sibling relationship may be barred. As the healthy siblings create lousy connections due to hatred, the sibling with a disability may become stressed, and depressed, because of the hostility from other siblings, or might even get embarrassed more often (Gentry, 2019). Ideally, even the siblings could develop stress and traumatic conditions, because of the same feeling (“A Brief History of the Sibling Movement,” 2017). They may also be tasked with difficulties in providing their peer with required necessities at the childhood stage. However, the results are often different as the siblings grow from childhood to adulthood.

Siblings might be exhausted with ambiguous duties during childhood. Nevertheless, the care and attention offered to the ones with a disability might turn out to be fruitful and pay rewards to the entire family. It is not once, not twice, but on multiple occasions when people with disabilities have emerged as outstanding figures of change not only in society but in their families as well (“Siblings with Special Needs Change Childhood,” 2012). Other siblings can get motivated when their sister or brother with a disability brings benefits to the family, mainly because they involved in several duties in childhood.

Conclusion

In summary, siblings to individuals with a disability are prone to several challenges, such as being ignored by their parents or embarrassed due to difficulties in forming adequate bonding with the peer. However, these challenges can be addressed by having a positive sibling leadership network (SLN), because disability is not an inability (Braddock et al., 2018).

References

Braddock, D., Hemp, R., Rizzolo, M. C., Haffer, L., Tanis, E. S., & Wu, J. (2008). The state of the states in developmental disabilities (Vol. 444). Washington, DC: American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Braddock/publication/305905244_The_State_of_the_States_in_Developmental_Disabilities_2005/links/57a51d4008ae3f45292e5ca9/The-State-of-the-States-in-Developmental-Disabilities-2005.pdf

Siblings with Special Needs Change Childhood. (2012, September 25). NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/2012/09/25/161754564/siblings-with-special-needs-change-childhood

A Brief History of the Sibling Movement. (2017, August 8). Sibling Leadership Network. https://siblingleadership.org/2017/08/16/brief-history-sibling-movement/

Gentry, A. (2019, November 5). The evolution of the sibling perspective. Medium. https://medium.com/@ali.gentry/the-evolution-of-the-sibling-perspective-22a5fe8f733e