Graffiti Wall: A Free Sibshops Activity
From the June 2004 Disabilities newsletter.
 Sharing feelings can be a difficult task, especially when it comes to conflicting ways that many siblings of children with special needs feel about their brothers and sisters. Nonetheless, such sharing is essential to the emotional and mental well-being of siblings. The exercise below allows siblings an opportunity to express how their brothers and sisters can make them feel.
Materials: A long sheet of butcher paper, markers, and crayons
Graffiti Wall provides participants with a chance to express and discuss a wide range of feelings that they may have toward their brothers, sisters, and parents in a novel way. To prepare, line a long wall (e.g., a hallway) with butcher paper and make vertical lines with a marker to create columns 2 feet wide. At the top of each column, print, in large letters, a word from the array of ambivalent feelings your participants may have for their brothers and sisters, for example, proud, angry, left out, inspired, embarrassed, and confused. Leave two columns blank. The number of columns you have will depend, in part, on the number of participants in your Sibshop: You should have at least one column for every two participants, with a minimum of eight columns.
In an area of room away from the wall, ask participants to close their eyes and think of their brother or sister for a while, perhaps 30-45 seconds. Then, with their eyes still closed, ask them to volunteer a feeling word that describes how they feel when they think about their sibling. After this have them open their eyes. Explain to the group that most brothers and sisters have mixed feelings about their siblings, regardless of whether they have special needs or not. Tell the group that, in Graffiti Wall, they will have a chance to express this mixed bag of feelings in a new way.
Hand the participants one felt-tip pen each (preferably each a different color) and lead them to the wall that you have prepared. Review the feelings listed on the wall, noting that these are feelings that brothers and sisters sometimes have about one another. Ask if they have any other feelings that should go into the two blank columns. Explain that they are to choose a column and in that column write about or illustrate a time when they had that feeling about their sibling with special needs. For participants who have poor writing skills, facilitators can help by serving as scribes. After participants have finished one column, they are free to move to another column and contribute an additional story or picture. At the end, review the stories and pictures in each column with the group.
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