Paper short abstract:

The paper explores how children and adolescents are involved or not in their sibling's illness. Five forms of sibling relationships are higlighted based on a qualitativ research entitled "Age transitions and chronic disease, asthma and type 1 diabetes in 12-21 year olds in France".

Paper long abstract:

The paper explores how children and adolescents are involved or not in their sibling's illness. Indeed, in contemporary French family socialization, a tension exists between a demand for individualization of each member of the siblings (De Singly 2016), and the management of a collective marked by a desire for solidarity and for sharing a territory of intimacy (Favart 2003). When a chronic disease appears in a sibling, this tension is more acute and the place of the brothers and sisters in the management of the disease is uncertain. In the light of the work of Bluebond-Langner (1996), the aim is to reexamine the sibling relationship in the face of a child's illness. The paper si based on a qualitative research carried out in East of France from 2017 to 2021 with 90 adolescents and young adult of 12-21 years old. The paper will focus 12-18 adolescents years old.

Five forms of sibling relationships are highlighted : the invisibility of the siblings, the rivalries and inequalities, distancing the patient from siblings, the mutual aid between brothers and sisters with the same chronic disease. This research not only provides new data on sibling relationships in french adolescence, but also allows us to rethink how the crisis like an illness may reveal children's and adolescent competences that are invisible on a daily basis.