I think this kind of "study" is kind of ridiculous. Families vary so much. I know people who have children with severe disabilities. And the other children in the family don't have any anger toward the child with the disability. No more than the regular feelings kids have towards siblings. I think it really goes back to the parents. If you have crappy parents...then maybe the chance of stuff like that is going to be great. But it's insane to me to lump all families together like that. It serves absolutely no purpose, for one thing. And like I said...families are so different. The ones I know all see their children as blessings. Even the siblings feel the same. They are typically very protective of the sibling with a disability as well.
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This research was carried many years ago but it was undertaken by senior researchers in the sociology department of a decent British university, not anecdotal and personal experience. I learned about it when it was the subject of a 15 minute interview on BBC Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme,
Today.
Its findings included that:
* Many parents, especially mothers, are in denial about the impact of a seriously disabled child on the rest of their children.
* Having a seriously disabled child is very commonly a cause of the father walking out, leaving an even more stressed mother to cope with the situation.
* The other children typically have far poorer life chances, such as:
- Not being able to go on holiday like their friends because there are (or at least were at that time) far fewer facilities able to accommodate the disabled child
- Holidays and even ordinary days out being cancelled at the last minute because of health crises affecting the disabled child.
- Parents pulling out of attending school plays and sports days at the last minute ditto, disappointing children who had put in huge amounts of work for the event.
- Parents having neither the time nor energy to help the other children with school work.
- The other children having to sacrifice their own childhood and teenage years to having to help care for the disabled child instead of having their own lives, friends etc.
While other, earlier, studies had concentrated on interviewing the mothers these difficulties were glossed over or denied. By interviewing adult children who had grown up with a severely disabled sibling, this study uncovered what those earlier ones had not, ie that there was significant widespread anger and resentment expressed by the interviewees towards the disabled sibling. Not by all, by a long shot, but alarmingly many of them admitted that at times they had wanted to harm or even kill the disabled child, and a few admitted they had actually harmed him or her, such as slapping, pinching or hair pulling. Most of them felt that they had not had the carefree childhood and adolescence their friends had had. Many expressed fear that any independence they established as adults was expected to be temporary and that they were expected to give up their lives later on to look after their sibling when their mother no longer could.
Why is this relevant? Because there were other children in Aleah's household.
Could a 13 year old have been capable of putting a pillow over Aleah's face and leaning on it? Yes, of course. As the British study revealed, many children in the sister's situation do have periods of wanting to harm their seriously disabled sibling so it is not impossible that she could have done so. A young teenager, with the impaired impulse control of someone of her age, is probably just as likely to "snap" and take it out on the disabled child as the mother is.
A number of posters on this thread have commented on the fishy behaviour of Aleah's mother, suggesting that she knows more than she is letting on. What if what she knows is that one of her children killed one of the others? Is her behaviour not consistent with trying to cover up something like that?
In cases like this it's normal these days to look at the parents or other adults in the household and most posters have understandably raised questions about the mother and her current boyfriend. Based on memories of that earlier study I immediately started to wonder about the other children.
