The "Sibling Syndrome"

Look at how my prince has become  a fine young man..

Zyon has been attending his EIPIC Program and if u want me to comment on his overall acceptance of the program, I would say more or less it did help him.

As he grows, zyon has shown signs of his improvement, but as a mother with the extra spot of emotions, I tend to givr in to him most of the time.. yeah in a way im failing.. but like all the mothers in the world, I love the smile on my baby's face and no  matter how old he gets, he will always be a baby to me. 

However,  I now have another bigger issue, the sibling syndrome.

As u all know I have a baby girl too. A wat u would call "normal" child. She turns 3 this year and have no knowledge of the world, still believes that clouds are made up of cotton and santa claus is real. She doesnt know why her brother refuses to play with her, talk to her and hits her when they try to fight over a toy. I tried explaining and of cos zonya doesn't understand and she resents her brother even though as human, deep in her she still loves and cares for her brother.

Issues among siblings, as a mother I know it can never be prevented and it would mean fights, lots of crying and yelling as well as punishments. But as a mother of a child that has autism and a child that is "normal", fights would seem more than just toy issues,  cryings and yellings would seem to affect everyone and punishments would seem as cruelty. How do i gauge and create the balance? I have no idea. 

Fighting about toys, i emphasize the fact that all toys are to be shared, and the cryings and protestings starts making me wanting to punish the both of them but on what grounds? Its not that Zyon wants to fight but he doesnt know how to manage his "attraction" toward that toy and zonya just wants to claim "whats mine" to herself because the feeling of being neglected that her brother gets all the love and attention. Then comes the crying and yellings where zonya would start crying and zyon starts to have a meltdown due to the stress of him wanting something but doesnt get it. Times like this nobody would quieten down and listen to wat mummy has to say… so i turn to punishment. 

Punishment, the biggest issue i have on hand.

Basically, to put myself in zyon's point of view, he did no wrong, and to punish him for something he would not understand what went wrong is not exactly fair, even if i throw in an hour's long of explanation as to why i do that, i guess even a typical child like zonya at 5 will not be able to understand. And to put myself in Zonya's point of view, she is jealous of all the attention that zyon has and the times where zyon goes "scot free" for the "baby crimes" he does whereas zonya is being stopped. Thus not fair too. To strike the balance of being fair honestly, as mummy im having a huge headache. Cos either way, it doesnt work "that way". 

I actually understood the importance of the "sibling syndrome" years back when i first started researching on autism. However along the way i neglected the fact that it was an issue that i would not be able to run away from and now its time that i face it. Having to be fair, i guess the first step i would do is probably split my weekends to spending time with each of them alone. One day mummy all to each of them , a weekend each. To get to the next level i guess would definitely require me to really plan my strategy. (wipes sweat**)

Let me think on more ways to get the kidlets to overcome this new syndrome and see how well it will work? lol