sibling experiment!

I have always wished we could have had some 'sibling therapy/theraplay' as one of the issues at the heart of many of the challenges we face is their sibling trauma bond. It has been the cause of much of the violence and upset over the last nearly 5 years. It still is.


I have never done any life story work or read any adoption related books/stories with both of them, only separately. Today I  got them in what I hoped was 'a good place' and read them 'Nutmeg gets adopted' - I was expecting at best, one or both to walk off and refuse to listen, at worst something more difficult. Anyway, they both listened , its quite a wordy story but pretty to the point. After finishing it they both wanted to hear the next story in the series. I was so pleased as I believe part of shifting the power of the trauma bond is to help them to share/make sence of their history together, supervised by  a safe person to allow them to understand what happened to them both so that a trauma bond can slowly over their life time move to something less destructive.


I am sure there will be fall out tomorrow or even over the weekend, but I feel so strongly that if they can begin to share their history and I can help them to negotiate its dark spaces they might in the future be able to gain some support from each other. I am perhaps foolishly idealistic...….but I feel that adopted siblings have little help with their relationship....which is......sad. Anyway we shall see!

As expected wobbles and anxiety have surfaced, Peewit has become contrary and rude, and see-sawing between apparently not needing me at all to becoming hysterical over the smallest hurt. Lapwing clingy and anxious and old food habits re emerging. I expected it, but have decided to continue with a few very small 'joint' pieces of work over the weeks ahead. I honestly cant imagine if I don't do this how they will ever be able to 'talk to each other' about their early lives or even accept that they do 'share' a bond, not just a trauma bond...but a survivors bond. The fact that there seems to be little 'therapy' available to help siblings is so sad, as many of us have siblings and are pretty much left on our own to 'manage' them/ come up with strategies for keeping everyone safe, together at home. It's good to know that people here understand that it is not just the normal sibling rivalry and squabbles, it is so deep rooted and so potentially damaging, and can have such a devastating effect on family life.

We have some excellent therapists who have worked individually with each child plus me, but no one in our area seems to be qualified or perhaps experienced enough with working with siblings. I did have an offer for some family therapy from one practitioner but when she  went into what we would have to do it seemed completely inappropriate for our two children.  Our therapist who is brilliant  did herself admit that working with siblings is not an area which is well covered.


If anyone has had experience where therapy with siblings has helped I would love to hear about it!