Comparison of Quality of Sibling Relationship between Mentally Challenged Children and Normal Siblings across Birth Order and Gender

The present paper examines the difference in the quality of sibling relationship between mentally challenged children and their normal siblings across birth order and gender. Responses of a total of 343 respondents involving one (any) mentally normal elder sibling (n1=122) and one (any) mentally normal younger sibling (n2=71) and (any) parent of the mentally challenged children (n3=150) were analyzed for assessing quality of sibling relationship across birth order. Whereas, responses of a total of 210 respondents involving one (any) mentally normal male sibling (n1=70) and one (any) mentally normal female sibling (n2=70) and (any) parent of the mentally challenged children (n3=70) were analyzed for assessing quality of sibling relationship across gender. Sibling Relationship Scale was administered to assess the quality of sibling relationship between mentally challenged children and their mentally normal siblings. In the present study, analysis across birth order reflected no significant difference on any component of sibling relationship between mentally challenged children and their mentally normal elder or younger sibling. On the contrary, analysis across gender depicted significantly higher overall warmth/ closeness, nurturance and dominance between mentally challenged and mentally normal same-sex siblings than mentally challenged and mentally normal opposite sex siblings. However, no significant gender difference was seen on the components of conflict and rivalry of sibling relationship between mentally challenged children and their mentally normal siblings. Address for correspondence: Dr Ritu Singh Associate Professor Department of Human Development and Family Studies, College of Home Science, G.B.P.U.A.T., Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India E-mail: ritu.singh07@gmail.com INTRODUCTION According to the family systems theory, family is a complex interactive social system in which each experience within family affects every member and components of the system continually change to keep it in balance. Within the family, there are three central subsystems: the spousal, parental, and sibling subsystems. These three subsystems have their own unique features like spousal subsystem provides companionship and loyalty to the married partners; parental subsystem encompasses helping children build and refine their knowledge and skills, as well as their learning expectations, beliefs, goals and coping strategies and sibling subsystem gives the first experience of peer relationship in one’s life, that is, provides fertile arena for comforting, sharing and helping (Hughes et al. 2018). Besides this, theory propounds that individuals can’t be understood as separate entities, but rather in whole as a family since they are enveloped with an emotional bond. Occurrence of any non-normative life event in the family adversely affects family as a unit and consequently interactions amongst members in different subsystems get modified and reorganized to achieve equilibrium between subsystems. Thus, we can say that any unfavorable life event disturbs the balance of family life equation. Birth of a child with mental health deficits is one such non normative life event. Mental challenge is a condition of mental deficiency, a state of incomplete simultaneous development in all domains of development of such a kind and degree that the individual is incapable of adjustments and adaptations to the normal environment in such a way so as to maintain existence independently. Thus, birth of a mentally challenged child demands constant modification of interaction strategies within family subsystems, restructuring of family resources and many more transformations in the family dynamics throughout life span. Foremost, the marital subsystem gets affected with it since the mentally chalEthno Med, 13(4): 198-206 (2019) DOI: 10.31901/24566772.2019/13.04.577 © Kamla-Raj 2019 PRINT: ISSN 0973-5070 ONLINE: ISSN 2456-6772 MENTALLY CHALLENGED ACROSS BIRTH ORDER AND GENDER 199 Ethno Med, 13(4): 198-206 (2019) lenged child triggers a range of emotional responses among spouses concerning the child which may lead to differing opinions among them. Besides this, spouses have to devote exceptionally more time in upbringing of the mentally challenged children which many a times steals away their personal time as husband and wife. It also affects the parent-child relationship between parents and other normal children of the family since parents have to give more care and attention to the special child with the expectation that normal child shall understand this and adjust to the so called differential treatment. Thus, the presence of a mentally challenged child many times is a stress source for family (Jefferson 2007) and affects deeply on siblings’ relationships. The normal sibling may develop atypical patterns of behavior in the presence of mentally challenged sibling for varied reasons, such as, seeking attention of the parents, financial issues due to limited resources, emotional stress, which sometimes may also lead them to disassociate from the sibling. A finding of a 20 year systematic review states that the siblings of children with mental health problems scored in borderline/ clinical range compared to children of general population. Particular areas of functional impairments identified were delinquent behavior, somatic complaints, anxious/ depressed behavior, and social problems (Ma et al. 2017). Studies of Abu-Ajaj (2012) have shown that brothers and sisters of disabled children are at compatibility problems and have low selfesteem than nondisabled children. According to Shivers and Plavnick (2015) youths who recognize their role in their ASD Siblings’ adjustment may develop feelings of warmth, a sense of efficacy, and inclinations for involvement over the longer term. Sibling relationships obtain additional significance in families with children with disabilities, due to advocacy role that siblings take for their brother or sister with special needs (Barr et al. 2008). Barclay and Kolk (2017) reported that the commonly observed pattern that later-borns achieve lower than earlier-born siblings persists. Researchers have tried to explore the impact of presence of disabled children on sibling relationship or on the personality of normal sibling. Upreti and Singh (2016) in their study reported that children irrespective of their degree of mental challenge, who were 3rd or above born were seen to be significantly more adaptive in motor skills, activities of daily living, and prevocational money domains; had better language, reading-writing, number-time and domestic social adaptivity. Volkom et al. (2017) in their study reported that although there was no significant sex difference in how emotionally close respondents felt to their siblings, there was a significant main effect of birth order on perceptions of emotional closeness and that the oldest children felt closer emotionally to their siblings versus youngest children. Gender has been found to play a significant role in the amount of support provided between siblings, with sisters being most likely to provide both emotional and practical support (Wallace 2012). Another study by Soysal (2016) reveals that gender leads to significant differences in life satisfaction, level of loneliness and sibling relationships. However, a study by Tucker et al. (2001) reported that when researchers asked siblings about shared daily activities, children mentioned that older siblings often helped younger siblings with academic and peer challenges. Thus, it can be stated that birth order effects on sibling relationships of children still remains uncertain with the impact of child’s birth order on the sibling relationship of mentally challenged children not being completely revealed. Thus, present study has been taken up with the following objectives: