Sibling trauma bond

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction, tokoloshe.

www.slideshare.net/martinnarey/adoption-selection-of-evidence-on-sibling-and-the-need-sometimes-to-separate-them-in-their-interests-15729683

Helpful

hi

the issue is not just should some children be placed togther but what to do if maybe they shoudnt have been and you are living with them !
I felt it was like a see saw with my eldest 2 that always one was in trouble and if I managed to sort it the other one took his place ; the good thing was they could not both challenge together as it seemed they knew one of them had to hold it together - I subsequently adopted 2 unrelated children and they could be good together or difficult togther it felt completely different.
The thing that disappointed me was that the children who had lived togther couldnt help each other and at the time I thought they could ; they cant ; they need help to accept the past and be freed from any feeling of responsibility about what went wrong and also that you are now reposnsible for both of them
It also incluides the fact you have only ever had them togther and so the eldest has never had your sole attention - if you can spend tiem with them individually do it - even taking them away seperately - I now have 2 grandsons who remind me of their dad and uncle and recently we just had one to stay at the weekend and it was utterley amazing how much more enjoyable it was and how differently he related to us than when it is a constant competition between the two of them ; if you have anyone who offers help suggest they take one at a time it might help them and you

I did find

Great advice Jet. 

I think this is the problem sometimes when you adopt sibling groups, especially ones with small age gaps like my two (only 10 months). It is sooooo hard giving them 1:1 time and they constantly fight for attention which can be exhausting.

You might like to join in on the "adopting siblings" thread on the Discussion Board Jet, as I think prospective adopters would benefit from hearing your thoughts in advance of choosing whether to adopt two or three.

I do not know much about it and I don't think that much is written about it. This is what I have learned recently:

I think the idea behind a trauma bond is that siblings who have experienced trauma together (like domestic violence and physical/sexual abuse) have a dysfunctional relationship with each other where they often re enact the original trauma. They are often extremely jealous of each other and constantly fight for the adoptive mother's attention. One child may bully and victimize the other. Sometimes there may be sexualized behaviour between them. One may become the scape goat and be blamed for everything. Sometimes they also have such a strong bond that they blank out the adults around them and rely on each other for comfort.

Probably if siblings have not experienced trauma together it would be unlikely that they would be described as having a trauma bond. Although I suppose they could still be reminding each other of the traumatic backgrounds they have each individually experienced and sparking those early fears in each other.

In our case, I do not know if our children, who are full siblings and experienced early trauma together, really do have a trauma bond or not but like your two the level of sibling rivalry, violence and bullying has been off the scale.

Perhaps the sibling rivalry is more an expression of their great need for our undivided attention. They have so many gaps to fill they feel they cannot afford to share us with their siblings - like starving animals wanting all the available food for themselves.

My friends who are foster carers say that the lack of loyalty between foster children who have been together for years is depressing. Siblings and non-siblings alike all display unpleasant enthusiasm for dropping each other in it. Jealousy lives with you day by day, rivalry shadows every move.

Our children arrived with a full fledged trauma bond. We steadfastly did family things together with two massive rivals for years.
By the time they were 11 and 13, we split them up as much as we could. They are much nicer people apart!
I asked for respite care when things got really hard, and none was forthcoming. Now my DD is in care, and it is costing the local authority far, far more. It does, however, come out of a different budget from post adoption support.

If I had known how to buy respite care, I'd have done it. Does anyone here know how to get direct payments to buy respite care? Perhaps that would help Connect4? With only one child in the house, everyone calms down. The only snag is the rebound from the one in respite...