Sibling Relationships: What Parents Need to Know
Struggling to meet the needs of each of your children? It’s not just you.
Sibling relationships can be challenging at the best of times, and the situation can be so much harder if one or more of those siblings is living with mental illness.
Growing up with a sibling with mental illness is hard. Ditto for being the sibling who has the mental illness. And if you’re the parent of these children, you may feel stretched to the max, trying to ensure that everyone’s needs are met when—reality check—there’s only so much of you to go around.
And that’s why we decided to write this article: to share some of what we’ve been learning from other parents about supporting healthy sibling relationships.
Here’s what they want you to know.
Tips for supporting healthy sibling relationships
Growing up with a mentally ill sibling can be really challenging
Growing up with a mentally ill sibling can have a major impact on a young child. Here’s what that can look and feel like.
It can be traumatic. You may witness scenes of aggression or be on the receiving end of physical violence. Sometimes these incidents occur when you are too young to understand why this is happening.
It can be stressful. Not only do you spend a lot of time worrying about your sibling and your parents: you might also often feel like you need to walk on eggshells to minimize conflict within the family.
It can force you to grow up fast. You might have to take on more responsibility within the family than is typical for a child your age, simply because your parents are exhausted and overloaded.
It can trigger a lot of emotions, including resentment and guilt. You might resent the fact that your sibling needs so much attention—and, at the same time, you might feel guilty for feeling that way.
It can have an impact on your own mental health. Because you’re carrying such a heavy load emotionally, you might find yourself experiencing mental health challenges as well.
It’s important to note that growing up with a mentally ill sibling isn’t only about struggle: it can also give you the opportunity to develop some important strengths. Witnessing another person’s struggles and learning what you can to support that person can give you an opportunity to practice compassion and empathy, a skill you can then draw upon for the rest of your life.
It can be challenging for the child with the mental illness, too
The child who is living with a mental illness may be experiencing a mix of emotions as well:
- They may be experiencing feelings of guilt and shame.
- They may be struggling with feelings of self-worth, particularly if they are somehow given the message that they are the one who is “the problem.”
- They may be feeling isolated or lonely, even within the family, either because they feel different from or because they lack a sense of connection with their sibling(s).
- They may resent the fact that their sibling(s) aren’t struggling to the same extent that they are.
- They may be grateful for the support and caring shown to them by their sibling(s).
It can feel overwhelming to you, as a parent or caregiver
The needs of the mentally ill child, particularly in times of crisis, can place an extraordinary demand on parents. You may find yourself struggling to find the time and energy required to meet the needs of that child, let alone your other child or children. You may feel like there simply isn’t enough of you to go around. Odds are, that’s true.
And the situation can be even more challenging if you have multiple family members trying to manage multiple diagnoses. In this case, you’re not just dealing with multiple challenges: you’re also dealing with the impact of all those challenges interacting with one another. It can feel completely overwhelming at times.
What other parents want you to know about supporting healthy sibling relationships
The first step to making things better for your family and your children is to acknowledge just how difficult things are. The challenge you face as a family is to learn how to live well in the wake of your child or youth’s diagnosis—and to find a way to meet everyone else’s needs at the same time. It won’t always be possible to do so. There may be times when you feel like you’re barely treading water or even sinking, particularly during times of crisis.
All that said, there are ways to make a difficult situation feel a little more manageable. Here are some strategies that have worked for other parents.
Avoid treating the child with the mental illness as “the problem” and insist that other people do the same. Remind mental health clinicians and others who are working with your family of the importance of recognizing your entire family as the client, as opposed to overemphasizing the mental illness of a particular child. You want to avoid stigmatizing that child by treating them as “the problem”; and you want to highlight the needs of siblings and other family members. A family is an ecosystem. If one family member is struggling to a significant degree, odds are other family members are struggling, too. They deserve access to treatment and support as well.
Figure out what other kinds of support would be most helpful to your family right now.
And then look for ways to tap into that support.
- Maybe your other children would benefit from peer support—the opportunity to connect with other siblings of mentally ill kids who are trying to figure out how to live happy, healthy lives, even while their sibling is going through times of struggle. A practical way to make this happen is by tapping into support for yourself as a parent—and then looking for opportunities to join forces with the other parents in the group to connect the siblings with one another.
- Maybe your family would benefit from respite care, so that you can take a break from an otherwise overwhelming situation. Because government-funded respite care is in chronically short supply, you may need to think about asking family members and friends if they can help to support your family in this way.
- Or maybe you need help developing a safety plan—a concrete action plan for responding to times of crisis in a way that ensures that everyone in the family feels safe. Or maybe you simply need more support and understanding from other people, along with offers of practical support. Having a neighbour offer to take one of your other children to an extra-curricular activity can be a huge help if one of your other children is needing a lot of attention right now.
Take advantage of those times when your family is no longer in crisis mode. When a particular child is in crisis, you may have little choice but to invest a huge amount of time and energy in parenting that child. But once the crisis subsides, seize the moment. Look for opportunities to reallocate attention to the other children in the family and to take really good care of yourself, too. You’ve been through a lot!
This article is written by Ann Douglas and is based on input from a group of parent volunteers with Parents for Children’s Mental Health. Their contributions are both acknowledged and deeply appreciated.
You Don’t Have to Do This Alone.
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