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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not to totally hijack OP’s thread, but does anyone have a kid with SNs who ended up becoming close with their sibling at one point? I have 2 elementary school boys, the youngest (1st grade) has pretty severe ADHD and mild ASD that cause a lot of admittedly annoying behaviors that drive my 3rd grader nuts. I try to teach my older DS to have empathy for his brother’s struggles, but I think he’s still too young to fully get why his brother is different.

I’m holding out hope with therapies and possibly meds we can stabilize the younger one and our boys will eventually become closer, but maybe that is just a fantasy? They have such very different personalities and energy so I just don’t know. [/quote]

Not my kids, but I was the older sibling in this situation. I would say yes, of course he needs empathy, but I would also give the older one opportunities to be independent from the younger sibling and kind of do their own thing when needed. Also, one on one time with you. It's a LOT to deal with that goes beyond a sibling relationship with two NT kids. For even the best of parents, I think there is a tendency towards, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" and while you just might be trying to stabilize the younger to get them up to par, it's still attention the older is not receiving and that can cause resentment. It's hard to develop a close relationship with someone who can go from fun playing to a breakdown in the blink of an eye or some other really annoying behaviors. If they can tolerate together time and the older may be be mature enough to separate and find their own thing to do while you handle the younger one, I think that's fine.

My sibling is stabilized and a pretty delightful person generally, but still has moments. As you said, very different personalities and energies. As adults, we like hanging out together with our families, there are no major issues, and we genuinely enjoy each others company, but the idea of being best friends or picking up the phone to call the younger for life advice is anathema to me. We love each other, but the on the phone 3x a day sibling relationship is probably  not in the cards. I consider this to be a pretty good overall result![/quote]

Thank you for this perspective. We do try to make sure the older one gets to do his own thing a lot (he has his own set of friends, we sign them up for different summer camps, he’s involved in travel soccer, etc.). But we could get better about 1:1 time. It feels like the time we spend with him is usually shuttling him to an activity and I’m going to look into building more 1:1 downtime like going out to lunch together or something.

I’m glad to hear you have a decent relationship with your sibling and can hang out around family. When I found out I was having a second boy, just 2 years apart I had all these fantasies of them being good friends, best man in each other’s weddings, etc., but maybe I need more realistic goals like just being amicable adults who respect each other.[/quote]

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