The power of connection with other siblings is very real!  Even if you're just at work in the break room, you never know who will benefit from hearing you share your story.  Know that there are lots of us special needs siblings out there who feel your pain, sorrow, happiness, and joy.  There's a lot out there to feel, and there's a lot to be shared.  Hear Danica's story in episode 19.

In this episode we talk about:

• How Charlene and Danica got connected through Eddie’s podcast! (Scroll down for a link to his show)

• About Danica’s family and brother with autism

• Connecting with other siblings at different stages of life and birth order

• Being stared at by other people when we talk about sibling topics

• Watching younger kids who are siblings and remembering the feelings

• Hidden abilities that we have as siblings that only kick in due to our siblings with disabilities

• Danica’s career trajectory - and figuring out separation 

• The revolving door of our involvement in our sibling’s lives for as much as we do or don’t want to be involved

• Being 1 of 2 verses being 1 of more than 2 siblings

• Conservatorship, when it kicks in and how it is intertwined with our daily lives

• Moving away from our core family

• Danica’s experience with her brother moving into his group home

• About Danica’s parents starting and running their own group home 

• All sorts of confusing and complicated feelings about our sibling’s housing situations 

• Everything is a trade off and wanting some sort of normalcy 

• Feelings towards our typical siblings vs out siblings with disabilities 

• Different experiences we have due to birth order and meeting other oldest special needs siblings

• Danica’s encouragement to fellow siblings

Links:

• Doing The Best We Can with Eddie Kaufholz: https://eddiekaufholz.com/

• The episode that Charlene got to be on with Eddie: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/doing-the-best-we-can/episodes/Issue-XXX---A-Mind-at-Work-w-Charlene-e23edao/a-a9p85fb

• Read the issue of the newsletter The Special Needs Sibling Podcast was featured on: https://eddiekaufholz.com/archive/issue-xxx-a-mind-at-work

More Info:

• Check out the blog and contact Charlene here: https://thespecialneedssiblingpodcast.com/

• Get episode updates directly to your inbox: https://www.thespecialneedssiblingpodcast.com/newsletter

• Support the podcast on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/thespecialneedssiblingpodcast

Music by:

• AlexGrohl from Pixabay

• QubeSounds from Pixabay