Alicia Meneses Maples
I am a Glass Child Advocate, Educator, and Speaker
Speaking
Alicia captivates audiences by illuminating the unseen struggles hidden within the Glass Child Sibling experience. Using powerful and inspiring narratives from her own and other adult Glass Children’s lives, Alicia helps your audience discover how to influence the trajectory of mental health for these individuals, creating a lasting impact that extends to future generations. Invite Alicia to your event for a transformative experience that not only educates, but creates meaningful change.
Workshops
Join Alicia in an immersive journey of enlightenment and healing through expertly facilitated workshops, available both in-person and online. She will help your audience navigate the path to resilience and empowerment, equipping participants w the tools they need to break free from the hardships of the past. Embrace the opportunity to host a workshop that sparks lasting positive change for Adult Glass Children and fosters a community dedicated to healing and growth.
Adult Glass Children Resources
Click here for my ever-growing list of resources to help Adult Glass Children.
High-Needs Family Resources for Parents
Click here for a host of resources for Parents of High-Needs Children & Glass Children.
Mental Health Professional Resources
Resources for mental health professionals coming soon. Click here to subscribe.
Tools & Resources
If you are with an organization that supports high-needs families, (for example: government, diagnosis specific, clergy, law enforcement) please contact me for more information and resources.
What is a Glass Child?
A glass child is a person with a high-needs sibling AND experiences various forms of trauma and neglect because their parents are consumed with providing greater than average care, support, and intervention for the high needs sibling.
We are called glass children not because we are fragile. We are called glass children because our needs are unseen; our parents look through us as though we are made of glass.
What is a High-Needs Sibling?
A High-Needs Sibling is an individual who requires greater than average care, supervision, support and/or intervention for any of the following conditions:
- Differently Abled/Developmental Challenges: Physical, Cognitive, Mental, Social, Emotional
- Illness: Chronic, Terminal, Undiagnosed
- Disruptive Behaviors: Aggression (hitting, biting, physical abuse, damaging personal belongings/property), Criminal Activity (truancy, use of illegal drugs, alcohol abuse, destruction of property), Outbursts, Impulsivity
Am I An ADULT Glass Child?
If you grew up with a sibling who had high needs and you didn’t receive help, attention or intervention for your struggles, the way you grew up fits the sibling experience of a “glass child.” This happens when your parents, community and support systems don’t see the emotional challenges you faced because you had a sibling who demanded a lot of attention.
Because your pain and difficulties were unseen, you did not receive important emotional and psychological developmental support in your childhood.
As a result, this neglect can manifest in adulthood through behaviors that may seem puzzling but are rooted in the unmet needs of your childhood.
If you can relate to any of the following, know you are not alone. There is a world of Adult Glass Children and there are support and resources for you.
Persistent Feelings of Unworthiness
The deep-seated belief that you are not deserving of love or success and that your value is directly related to how well you perform and take care of others. Feelings of guilt, shame and failure arise and intensify these feelings of unworthiness when you:
- Find it challenging to meet unrealistic standards of perfection,
- Are unable to consistently make those around you happy or
- When you entertain the idea of living an “life of your own,” independent from your sibling or family.
Attraction to Unhealthy Relationships
It’s simply a matter of programming. At a young age, you were trained that your purpose and value are intertwined with the responsibility of tending to the physical, emotional and even financial demands of your high-needs sibling AND/OR your parents. In other words, your worth = how well you took care of others.
Without intervention, this ingrained training shows up in adulthood as a tendency to be drawn to individuals in need, including those grappling with addiction, co-dependence, narcissism, toxic and abusive behaviors.
Simply put, you are carrying out what you mistakenly internalized as your intended purpose in life.
Codependency
Adult Glass Children often grapple with codependent relationships. Codependence is an excessive reliance on others for your own emotional and psychological needs.
If you learned as a child that your needs and emotions are either less valuable than others (or not valuable at all) and that your worth is rooted in how well you take care of others, being in codependent relationships aligns with your childhood programming.
However, in adulthood, this can lead to an extreme focus on others at the expense of your own well-being. Your relationships might be highly dysfunctional. You might be experiencing elements of manipulation and control. You may also be experiencing a complete loss of your individual identity if you define yourself and your worth primarily through the lens of your relationships.
Spiritual Disconnection
One of the hallmarks of the Glass Child Experience is a feeling of separation from God. As a child…
- When your prayers for help or healing were unanswered, you may have felt unworthy of God’s love or even betrayed by God,
- The spiritual organizations which were supposed to give you support may not have seen your needs, invalidated your needs and/or reinforce the ideology from which you were trying to escape – that it’s your job to take care of everyone around you.
As an adult, you may experience feelings of betrayal and confusion around who God is in your life and whether or not He cares about you. As a result, you may withdraw from the spiritual community, find it difficult to pray and/or reject your spiritual traditions/upbringing. This can lead to further isolation, estrangement and disconnection.
Addiction, Self-Harm and Suicidal Ideation
If an Adult Glass Child has not received intervention, they are swimming in a psychological pool of untreated trauma, abuse, neglect, persistent feelings of unworthiness, unhealthy adult relationships and spiritual disconnectedness. This often leads to struggles with addiction, self-harm and suicidal ideation.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, please dial 988 if you are in the United States. Outside of the United States, please call your available suicide hotline or law enforcement for immediate help. You are not alone.
What it’s like to be a ‘glass child’
Alicia Meneses Maples refers to herself as an adult “glass child,” the sibling of a person with a mental or physical disability. She didn’t coin the phrase, but a TEDx talk she gave in 2011 helped to define it, and the term has circulated on social media ever since. READ THE ARTICLE
What is a Glass Child?
Alicia Meneses Maples and other experts share what it means to be a glass child, plus how caregivers can better understand their unique needs. Because of the severity of mental health struggles that glass children can endure, Maples is a strong advocate for siblings like herself to have access to professional support and intervention. READ THE ARTICLE
Alicia’s TEDx Talk on Recognizing Glass Children
Having lost one brother to the world of autism and another to a terminal illness, Alicia Maples never knew a normal childhood. Expected to always put on a brave face, Alicia played the role of good girl on the outside. One the inside, however, she was dying. In this heart-wrenching talk, Alicia tells parents of children with special needs — and their surrounding community — to stop looking through the siblings of children with special needs. WATCH THE TALK
Let’s Spread the Healing
Keynotes
Alicia captivates audiences by illuminating the unseen struggles hidden within the Glass Child Sibling experience.
Using powerful and inspiring narratives from her own and other adult Glass Children’s lives, Alicia helps your audience discover how to influence the trajectory of mental health for these individuals, creating a lasting impact that extends to future generations.
Invite Alicia to your event for a transformative experience that not only educates, but creates meaningful change.
Workshops
Step into a journey of discovery as Alicia delves deeply into the world of glass children, utilizing a blend of cutting-edge technological tools and hands-on somatic exercises. Through experiential learning, participants gain invaluable insights into the intricate web of neglect and trauma that shapes the glass child’s journey from childhood into adulthood.
Participants find solace in shared experiences and discover new pathways to healing.
Prepare to be moved, inspired, and empowered. Alicia’s workshops have been hailed as “life-changing,” “mind-blowing,” and “ground-breaking.”
Consulting
Alicia specializes in guiding support organizations and mental health professionals towards a deeper understanding of the nuanced experiences of glass children.
By shedding light on these hidden narratives, Alicia empowers your team to develop more inclusive and effective strategies for supporting the entire family unit, especially glass children, fostering holistic healing and growth.
Interviews
What better podcast guest could you have than the person who popularized the term “Glass Children” through her TEDx talk?
Alicia is a leading authority in the glass child experience and appears in 40+ online articles.
Together, we can amplify the voices of glass children, empower glass children, and pave the way for generational change.
Alicia is on a Mission
Alicia Meneses Maples is an entrepreneur and business consultant who gave a gripping TEDx talk where she shared her inspirational story of trauma and survival, having lost her parents’ time and attention to the care of one brother with profound Autism and another brother to terminal illness.
Alicia has been interviewed by NBC News Daily, CNN.com, Care.com and her TEDx talk has been cited in over 40 articles for her expertise in glass children. Alicia works internationally delivering keynotes and facilitating conferences for mental health professionals, diagnosis specific organizations and the medical community.
“My mission is to raise global awareness of the profound mental health needs of this overlooked and unseen population, advocate for them and help governments and organizations strengthen/create programs to support their needs.”
The TEDx Talk Impact: Testimonials
“This is by far the best TEDx Talk I’ve seen. Thank you for sharing your story. Your imagery and descriptions bear such great power.”
“The first time I watched this I started crying so hard I had to walk away and finish it later. My brother is autistic (among other health problems). My parents forbade me to talk about my brother outside of home for our own privacy, but now that I am an adult, I see that it is better to spread the word. Thank you, Alicia..”