Siblings get separated for many reasons when they must leave their parents to live with a family member. While most professionals recommend that siblings stay together if they cannot live at home, separation still happens. How can you support your grandchildren’s sibling connections if they cannot all live with you?
Why Sibling Connections Matter
Sibling relationships are often the longest-lasting relationships we have. They can be our secret keepers, partners in mischief, and comfort in chaos. Additionally, for kids who must leave their homes while their parents get back on their feet, the familiarity of their sibling relationship can ease the trauma of leaving. They can maintain connections with the healthy parts of their family’s identity and culture. They could also continue building memories that connect them and inform their identity.
We know that supporting connections between siblings can benefit the kids. However, supporting these connections falls mainly on the adults in their lives. Ask yourself a few questions to help you plan the support of these connections between your relative child and their brothers or sisters:
- Can you manage the effort and the emotional load that connection may require?
- Is communication between siblings even an option?
- Are visits an option? What other contacts can you consider if not visits?
- How close in age are the siblings?
- Did they have a deep bond before the separation?
- Do the siblings currently know that each other exists?
- Are the other child(ren) caregivers willing to collaborate with you for these connections?
Strategies for Maintaining Sibling Connections
Do your best to work with all the adults and be on the same page about how essential this connection is for the kids.
Strategies to Support Sibling Connections
- Keep track of where this child’s siblings are. If your grandchild has a caseworker through the foster system, ask for contact information for your other grandchildren (or their siblings) as soon as possible. Quite often, the earlier the connections start, the more likely they are to continue.
- Encourage communication between the children with phone calls, video chats, emails, or old-fashioned cards and letters in the mail. Make it part of your family’s routine, like “Picture/Letter Time” every Thursday after school or video calls on Wednesday nights before bed. Whatever works, try to help them stay connected and maintain a sense of closeness.
- Maintain regular communication between adults. If you are the first to reach out, explain why you think it is good for the kids to have contact. Ask open-ended questions about how the other caregivers see this working out. Be willing to compromise on a working plan that helps you all get started.
- Try to share photos and life updates regularly, especially if in-person contact is not possible. Consider your relative child’s age and understanding of who their siblings are to them. Give them a voice in what to share, pictures to send, or experiences to share.
- Whenever possible, try to plan sibling visits. You might initiate first calls, texts, invites, etc., but try to become okay with that. You can start with easy invites for a sibling to attend a sports event or your nephew’s school play. Suggest a play date at a park between your families’ homes. If the other caregivers are okay with it, you could invite the sibling(s) for a sleepover. No matter the event, be sure to take plenty of pictures and share them with the kids’ parents or the other caregivers!
- Support the siblings’ shared interests. They may both be good at basketball. Could you get them on the same team? Do they both have an interest in photography? You could offer to pick up a sibling so the kids can take a photography class together. These shared interests and activities create a common ground that makes connecting easier for the kids.
- Expand your definition of family. Consider including this child’s sibling and their family in your family’s events. Invite the sibling to birthday parties, send birthday gifts to the sibling(s), and include them in your holiday traditions and gift exchanges. Intentionally create opportunities to live a more expansive definition of family, so all the kids understand the value of these connections.
- Recognize that having contact might not be in the other child’s best interest. Or contact right now. Or that contact could be in the best interest of one child but not of the other sibling because that child may be processing life and trauma at a different pace. Or the other child’s caregiver (or their parent) is in a different place of understanding or readiness than you are. One of the hardest things you may face is allowing others some grace and time to set what they see as necessary boundaries. No matter, try to always leave the door open for communication between the adults, with room to try later for connection between the kids if things change.
Keep the Connection Between You and Your Relative Child Strong
No matter what level of connection your relative child and their sibling experience right now, remember that your priority is to make sure the child in your home feels safe, secure, and cherished. When they struggle with missing their parents or siblings or have big emotions around the absence of that relationship, remind them they are valued and worthy of loving. When they are enjoying a season of connection with a sibling, celebrate that and praise the great things you see growing between them.
Intentionally nurturing the attachment between you and your grandchild (or nephew or niece) will be an excellent buffer for the ups and downs that naturally occur in the connection between siblings who live separately.