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The Ripple Effect: How Neurodivergence Impacts Siblings and Parents’ Role in Supporting Them
Let’s empower all children in neurodiverse families.
I have a confession to make as a mother. I overlooked the needs of my second child to support my autistic child. It took years of fighting with the school district for them to recognize that my firstborn was not only on the spectrum but also had learning differences. While the struggle continues to get her the support she needs in school, I put the needs of my second child on the back burner. I spent hours reteaching the lessons my autistic child should have learned in school. As a result, I paid less attention to the needs of my second child who doesn’t have learning differences.
Most recently I have been struggling with personal and philosophical differences with my partner, which led to a reactionary moment, and as a result, I decided to delegate the caretaking of my autistic child to my partner. At first, I thought I was being a selfish mother for shifting the responsibility to my partner, but then I realized that I had been stuck in the mindset of role-playing. I played the role of homemaker since I was not the primary breadwinner. I quietly fulfilled the role that society expected me to fulfill especially in Indian culture. So what if he was the breadwinner; wasn’t he still the father of my children? As their father, I can still expect him to support me in child-rearing. No one explicitly tells us to play our roles as homemakers or breadwinners; we just blindly follow them for fear of social repercussions or sheer survival.
I didn’t realize how much I was overlooking the needs of my second child until I transferred half of my child-raising responsibilities to my partner. Not only that but I realized that I was sacrificing my mental health to fulfill the sole role of being a homemaker. Suddenly I had opened up time and space to attend to the needs of my second child. I had more energy and time to listen to her stories of games she played with friends at recess. I had time to listen to her infinite knock-knock jokes and enjoy her outpouring of historical and scientific facts she learned from YouTube and other teaching media.
While I was busy helping my autistic child reach her full potential, I was not fully present for my other child in…
