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Is there ever a definitive time to approach the subject about your parents gradually requiring more help from you they age?
It’s an awkward conversation to be had with your parents. After all they raised you. They were the ones who cared for you when you were sick, taught you to eat, dress, ride a bike and gradually live independently. However, perhaps the time has arrived for you to return the care. I would like to share a couple tips on approaching the subject of helping without sounding like you are trying to take over their lives.
Family Meeting
There’s no easy way of addressing the elephant in the room. It takes a little courage to encourage a discussion with your parents about their future plans. It’s often rare for those aging and losing their capabilities to discuss their future in this way. However, leaving the subject unraveled could result in no future plan at all. As a consequence, stress and panic may ensue in the event that your parents may require immediate care.
You may notice one of your parents needing extra help with specific tasks. Perhaps they’ve fallen and hurt themselves a few times in their home or left the doors and windows regularly unlocked. You could mention these events to ask how they feel about those situations and how you could help to ensure their safety in the future.
What Do Your Parents Want?
Discuss with your folks how they’re feeling and listen with your heart about their feelings on their well being, their living conditions and quality of life as a whole. Do they feel happy living at home independently, or do they sometimes feel like they would like some extra help? Do they need to live in their family home, or would they prefer a ground level apartment with easier mobility and less maintenance? Have they thought about having a carer to visit, or a cleaner to take care of some of the duties they are no longer able to do?
Plan some questions to ask beforehand, this will help you to gather the information you need to know to plan precisely how you can support your aging parents, in a way which they feel is helpful and not intrusive or overbearing.
Talk About Options
Be supportive and open-minded to the wishes of your parents, however, balance this with their current circumstances to discuss their options. For instance, if one of your parents is gradually suffering from dementia, they may wish to live with you. If this is not an option, discuss with them the reasons this will not work. Let they know why you are unable to provide the professional around the clock care. Explain why they would benefit from receiving in a nursing home.
Alternatively, you might like the idea of looking after your parents in your own home. If this is the case you may want to look into hiring caregivers to help you out.
In other circumstances, you or your parents may feel that a nursing home could be a good option to relieve them of daily duties they are no longer able to keep up with while living independently. Such as cleaning their own home, self-care and paying for a multitude of bills to different companies each month.
The primary concern of choosing a nursing home as a potential option is the worry over whether an aging family member will receive a high standard of care, free from neglect. If you think a family member in a nursing home is being mistreated preview https://www.gbw.law/personal-injury/nursing-home-abuse/ for information.
It is important to raise the subject about helping your parents sensitively. They may be filled with grief at the thought of leaving their family home, or feel that their pride has been damaged if you mention that you think they are no longer able to look after themselves adequately.
Talking about this subject may be difficult to begin with, however you can find comfort in finding out what kind of help your parents would like from you now or in the future, so that you can organize and plan your life to help them as they get older and less able to do things themselves.