Being the Not Disabled One

Too much attention? Or too less?

A few months ago me and my wife went on a lecture. It was about brothers and sisters to disabled kids. Swedish author and psychologist Christina Renlund spoke for almost two ours about familys she´d helped. Very often the brother or sister to the disabled had understood, at an really early moment, that something was odd. Something dad or mom was holding back. Something you could sense, see and experience. But yet, everything else seemed normal at the same time.

The danger not to speak about the disease with the sibblings could be that he or she starts to have delusions. It´s not rare that small children, being so self centered in their view at the world, starts to blame themselves. "It was because I kissed my little sister that she got blind" and thoughts of that kind.

So we started to talk to A. Tried to explain. "You know, some of the kids at kindergarten have brown eyes. Some have blue. Or green. It´s the same thing with V. He has a barin that works slower. And that´s nobodys fault, it´s just the way it is."

I know my wife had a great talk with him about something going wrong when V "was in the belly". And that we we´re very sad at first. But not anymore. Now we´re so happy and found of V - as happy as any parents could ever be.
When A heard that, he looked quite serious, almost grave. Then he cuddled up in her knee and just sat there for minutes.

Yes I know kid. It takes time to melt.

Today I told him to play some simple games on the internet. I hadn´t the time to help both him and V at the same time. So many times now. So many times when V shouts and we all have to help him first, pay him the most attention, get him what he needs before we can satisfy anyone else.

Who´s standing in who´s shadow?

So I sat down with A at last. Remebering the lecture, to pay attention to the Not Disabled One. We played a couple of levels on the Lego-site. And we had some fun going to bed. Hide and seek with V is getting more and more fun, now when he knows that we expect him to look for us...

It was a good lecture. But boy - there´s so many things we´ll have to learn. So many things we hadn´t the slightest idea of before V.

It´s relly a different journey now.