It Isn't Fair!: Siblings of Children with Disabilities

Parenting is always a vital and challenging task. Even more vital and challenging is the task of parenting a child with a disability. When there is more than one child in the family, all parents want to share their time, energy, and love with all their children--and all siblings sometimes wonder if they are being treated fairly. When one child in a family has a disability, all this becomes more complex. Parents and sisters and brothers often feel that for them, It isn't fair.

Selected and compiled from two decades of The Exceptional Parent magazine, It Isn't Fair! reveals first-hand the myriad feelings of normal brothers and sisters at all stages as they grapple with caretaking, frustration, powerlessness, jealousy, guilt, and worry about their special siblings. Breaking the wall of silence that deference has imposed on their experiences, here are the siblings of the child with autism, the child injured at birth, the child institutionalized after many years at home. Parents offer their own experiences and perspectives on their children, and they illustrate the importance of sharing information within the family. The editors also include professional commentary.

STANLEY D. KLEIN is Co-Founder and Publisher of Exceptional Parent magazine, a Professor of Psychology at the New England College of Optometry, and a Research Associate in Medicine (General Pediatrics) at Children's Hospital in Boston. He is the author of Psychological Testing of Children: A Consumer's Guide (1977) and co-editor (with Maxwell Schleifer), of The Disabled Child and the Family (1985).

MAXWELL J. SCHLEIFER is Co-Founder and Publisher of Exceptional Parent magazine, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a Visiting Professor at the Smith College School of Social Work. He is co-editor (with Stanley Klein) of The Disabled Child and the Family (1985).