My son was diagnosed at 10. He's 12 now. If his parents can manage it, I highly recommend the pump. Now it's just one "shot" every three days. Giving insulin is as easy as using a pager now. He climbs trees, swims, rides his bike and raises hell like every other pre-teen boy. He eats when he wants to, as much as he wants to instead of when the clock tells him he has to.
Also, I suggest his parents look into Benfotiamine. It's a synthetic vitamin B-1 that prevents the complications that come with diabetes. It costs about $20 a month. My kid's a Brittle Diabetic and it brought his A1C down from 12 to 7.6 after only 2 months. I know one father who brought his son's A1C down to 4.6 in less than 6 months.
In another year or two MiniMed will have their continuous glucose monitor approved for children and most insurance companies will pay a large part of it. It's set up like the pump, with a set you change every 3-5 days and takes readings every 5 minutes. It alarms if the kid goes too high or low and the user can personalize the settings. It was just approved for adults a few months ago.
Diabetes is never a good thing, but I have to say that it's better to be a diabetic now than in any time in history. Just 50 years ago it was a death sentence. Now its a serious, expensive, pain in the @$$. But you can live with it.
PS: It takes about a year for parents to stop the serious grieving. They'll never fully accept it, but they will learn to live with it. Everything gets better with time.
The hardest part is not feeling pity for the kid and that's the worst thing that anyone can do. I thought I was being tough, but I let my kid get away with waaay too much. Now I'm reigning in a kid who thinks he can slide because he's a diabetic. It's important to treat him just as he's always been treated. If he gets a whap on the butt for mouthing off, then he needs to get a whap when he mouths off. If he has chores he's always had to do, he still has to do his chores. If he goes low then treat the low, allow him 15-20 minutes to recover, retest to make sure he's back where he should be, then make him finish his job. It sounds harsh, but parents need to nurse their broken hearts on their own time.
And that's my sermon for the day! ;-)
I'll pass this on to his Mom, my SIL. She's a doctor, so I'm sure she's up on this stuff, but you never know. Thanks!