This research digest relates to an article by Boucher & Derome (2008), entitled “The freedom to be and to dream of brothers and sisters of children with myopathy: a research”.
This research digest aims to explain 3 psychological strategies to cope with disability used by brothers and sisters of sick children.
When a child is sick, the whole family is upset. Parents must try to maintain an enveloping emotional climate, a setting for the whole family even when they are not serene about their child’s illness. The risk is that this envelope will be affected by the child’s illness and therefore all the siblings will suffer from this latent insecurity. Children often become aware of the vulnerability of their parents and then engage in more or less conscious strategies to deal with this situation.
First, some children seek to consolidate the family unit. They commit themselves to a solidarity pact to face adversity. They adopt blameless attitudes, they are flawless and they show a total self-control. They do everything to appear like a perfect family, or at least like the others, to repel/ block external attacks. Cohesion and family solidarity allow the siblings to go in safety, they are reassured, they have established their own setting for the family.
For other children, family protection must be done alone. They take care of their family by remaining discreet, by isolating themselves, by causing as little problem as possible to keep cohesion intact. This is an internal strategy. They suppress their own apprehensions so as not to worry their parents.
These first two strategies position the child as the one who can reunite the family. Their common goal is to contain conflict and maintain balance by avoiding emotional spillovers. The main issue is if they experience failure or disillusionment, the risk of collapse can be significant. They may feel responsible for their brothers’ and sisters’ disability, or feeling helpless, useless, which can cause significant damage to the child’s self-esteem.
Finally, the latest strategy is more common among adolescents, who have a sibling with a disability. It is characterized by revolt and flight. These adolescents may express violent rejection to their parents, who are unable to provide him with a sense of security. They often want to flee home to get away from the physical and mental burden of being the brother or sister of a child with a disability. Also flee the guilt of being healthy when the brother or sister is not. Flee what the disability, called in psychoanalysis «anguish of death» sends back to him. But it can lead to other feelings of guilt such as abandoning your brother/sister and family when they need support.