Identity
Sometimes children that have a brother or sister with a learning disability get described in relation to their sibling, or take roles in the family to support the sibling.
Just as the role ‘mum’ or ‘dad’ can become all consuming, so can the role ‘sister’ or ‘brother’. It can be helpful to support siblings of people with a learning disability to think about who they are, without it being in relation to anyone else. Working through these resources together can help your child learn about you, and you
about them.
Sit with your child and make a poster called ‘all about me’. Encourage
them to draw or write about things they enjoy doing, qualities about
themselves they like or others compliment them on, what they’re good at
and what they find hard, and what some of their favourite things are
(colour, food, lesson, friends etc.) Below you can see an example of one
of these posters, and you can print out your own person to draw on. If you like a bit more structure, then there are ideas online.
This can be a conversation, arts and crafts activity or physical game.
Invite your child to talk about, draw, or write about their favourite things.
For a game you could make two areas, one for likes and dislikes. Ask
your child to run to the area that represents how they feel about each
topic/activity/colour etc. This can be more fun with a few people.
This requires a sharpie and a set of Jenga blocks. Sit with your child and
think together about what you might want to know about each other.
Write questions on each of the Jenga blocks. Next time you play Jenga,
whoever pulls the piece gets to ask the question on the block to a
person of their choice. Questions could be “pizza or pasta?” or could be
“tell me about a time when you were sad?” Ask the questions that you
and your child want to know.
