Positive Sibling Relationships

Parents perception/perceived relationships In a study completed with 172 families that have a child with a disability (CWD), parents were given a survey about what they perceived about their children 's relationship as well as their own personal feelings (Roper et al., 2014). The experiment looked at the burden on the parent and compared it to how the parent believes the children get along, “caregiver burden was negatively correlated with perceptions of positive sibling relationships for mothers (r .27, p .01) and fathers.36, p .001)” (p. 243). For a parent that believed the burden was high, there was significant data that they also thought their children had a more negative relationship. However, when the research was split by disability instead of mother and father, there were significant findings. When multiple disabilities or Down syndrome were present, better sibling relationships were often found. (Roper et al. 2014). In general, when siblings are faced with a disability, …show more content…
Most siblings fight and some of them never have a good relationship. It would be expected that when adding a disability to the mix, relationships would be worse but that is not true. In 2005, research was done, “found that most relationships between children with disabilities and their siblings are positive, nurturing. and satisfying” (Stoneman, 2005, p.341). When growing up, much of the time is spent with just siblings so a positive relationship is important especially when a disability is present. “Siblings of children with disabilities generally report less conflict in their relationships than do comparison siblings” (p.341). This research shows that something within the sibling dynamic changed when a SWD is added to the mix. This change is often then transferred to more positive personality traits in the other siblings. The children often act more mature and have many developmental