No, Janni, we are not talking about accepting horrible behaviour! Nobody has suggested that! But how would you feel if you had been gutted by a sister's illness and you were then told you should feel grateful because it wasn't you? Happy? The only person who could feel grateful under the circumstances would be a selfish little monster! Any normal person would feel guilty- and very angry with the person who made the suggestion. I've noticed that you don't tell Emily that she should be grateful because it's her child being ill and not her. Why not?
Unless you have lived through the reality of having a disaster like this strike your family, I do think it is very difficult to understand quite how much it affects everybody. (a bit like childless people having pronounced views on parenting).
Believe me- I have lived with a similar situation for 4 years. And I can assure I do not encourage my children to behave badly. But I do understand that there are times when they behave more badly (more angrily) than they otherwise would because they are upset and frightened. And you know what? They also have to put up with me being more angry than before because I am frightened. It cuts both ways! We ask more of siblings of sick children, they have to put with things that normal children don't. And seeing the way the situation affects their parents is not the least of it. I know there have been lots of times when I have lost it with my children, not because their behaviour was especially bad at the time, but because I was frustrated with all the fear and pain. I also have close friends where the mum has terminal cancer, and they are having the same issues with anger and resentment, despite being an incredibly close and loving family. Should I trot round and tell the children how lucky they are that it's their mum dying and not them?
I think Emily is doing a brilliant job parenting under very difficult circumstances, and it's totally unhelpful to try to discuss it as if it were a normal case of modern parenting.
Emily, I wouldn't feel guilty about having let Danni have her moment of glory. Just explain to Stephi what the reasoning was behind it: that Danni needed a bit of encouragement at that particular moment of time. Say what you said to us, that she took it badly. Point out that the novelty of her condition will soon die down. Danni won't be having an assembly every week about how brave she: eventually this will all
become normality. Tell Stephi that you are still struggling to get to grips with this, but that that won't last forever, either; that eventually you'll all get used to it, including Danni. The time will come when she doesn't need constant propping up.
I know the first time my dd turned up at school in a wheelchair, she got a lot of attention, but now the chair is just part of the furniture, nobody thinks about it. The children who were only interested in her as an invalid have lost interest long ago and she has to make friends in the usual way, by being one. Now, diabetes, though scary at first, is much less visible than a wheelchair.