Autism and siblings

Hyman Katz, Dad & Music Developer, shares advice for parents on how they can juggle supporting their child with autism and also their other children in order to ensure they get along and both feel loved
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Autism and siblings

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One of the challenges that my family faces is I have two children, and my son Julian is 20 and my daughter's 13, both so different and so unique. Sometimes what I've experienced is that parents who have a special needs child tends to put so much investment and resources into that child that the other children will feel a little resentful or a little neglected. You actually see it a lot. And with my daughter, she really, really does not like her brother. She'd be the first to admit it; it kind of breaks my heart. I really keep hoping that it's developmental, but I've been telling myself that since she was 10. And he embarrasses her, and I get it. Julian is, he's odd. He has loud outbursts. And he does voice acting and acts in his head and scripts things. And as he started getting older, he started to find her girlfriends kind of cute, but didn't know how to express it so he kind of would stalk them around the house. And it's terribly embarrassing for her and I really feel for her. It is a challenge to make my daughter feel that there's not favoritism for Julian because he can do certain things, get away with certain things because of his autism and she can't. So it's a challenge; it's a constant juggling act. And the way that I've tried to deal with it is to hope that we're modeling compassionate behavior, tolerance, acceptance, love, and also to remind her how fortunate she really is, that she has all of her facilities and that there's things that Julian will never be able to do that she can do. And over time, we're really hoping that she'll develop a love. And if not, that happens with siblings sometimes too, in typical relationships.

Hyman Katz, Dad & Music Developer, shares advice for parents on how they can juggle supporting their child with autism and also their other children in order to ensure they get along and both feel loved

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Hyman Katz

Dad & Music Developer

Hyman Katz is happily married and the father of a 21-year old autistic son and a 14 year-old daughter. Hyman works in the music business as a brand and content developer.

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