Mishka Sibert, founder at Happy Autism, INGO helping autism families create happy life & healthy life, registered in Slovakia
Mishka Sibert is a Founder of Happy Autism, an advocate for autism and autism siblings, an international speaker, and a Certified Life Coach registered in the American Union of NLP. Mishka created Happy Autism with her autistic non-verbal brother Samko, who is nine years younger than her. Their work was praised by the Hollywood actors Ben Affleck & Anna Kendrick and featured in American Forbes and in the national Slovak media. She spoke at autism events for global companies like ADP and Adobe.Mishka was born in Slovakia and studied at the University of Westminster in London, UK. She wrote and published internationally praised book about sibling relationship on journey with autism.
Presentation at the ABA International Conference 2022.
Experiences & mental health support for siblings of children with autism
Abstract
Struggles and experiences of siblings of children with autism are often overlooked and unseen and siblings face even higher pressure to “cope” and be the „healthy” child that needs to hold a lot of emotions inside that they struggle to process. This turns them to so called “glass children” whose needs you see through. This often leads to emotional neglect trauma and mental health issues that show up in childhood and adulthood. Separation, unhealed wounds, psychosomatic symptoms of unexpressed emotions, burnout and resentment are common in a relationship dynamic and mental health of siblings when they are not supported. | researched this topic from the published resources as well as my own through qualitative research of interviewing adult siblings from all around the world. | will also share my own experiences since there is a lot of similarity between that and the research I’ve collected. My goal is to raise awareness and provide the solutions, resources and highlight the support needed for the siblings since many siblings take on caretaking role as children and later in adulthood when their parents are not able to. Healthy sibling relationship is the key to higher independence, inclusion and wellbeing of a child with autism and | will present the key tools to creating such healthy dynamic.