Home Instead Senior Care Addresses: "Family Won't Help With Mom? 6 Strategies to Help Reduce the Drama"

Family Won't Help with Mom?
6 Strategies to Reduce the Drama

Chances are you spend a good deal of your life planning for the future. You plan your career path. You plan for retirement. But you may never have planned on becoming a family caregiver.

If you’re like many children of senior parents, you became a caregiver in small increments, over the course of time. Maybe it began by providing transportation after Dad gave up the car keys or by making phone calls to the insurance company to straighten out a health claim. As time went on, those favors likely became more frequent and you found yourself providing more and more care until you realized you were spending a significant portion of your free time taking care of Mom and Dad—perhaps much more time than your siblings spent pitching in.

Few people become family caregivers by sitting down with the whole family and creating a plan that covers the who, what, when, where and how of caregiving.

Unfortunately, this lack of planning can lead to family drama and sibling resentment. In discussions within the Caregiver Stress Facebook community, caregivers frequently express frustration over their inability to get other family members to help with Mom or Dad’s care. They often say they feel they became the primary caregiver by default and now shoulder the burden alone.

If you count yourself in that group—or if you want to avoid the sibling squabbles that can arise over family caregiving—take heart. It is possible, to a certain extent, to begin the caregiving conversation over again. These six tips can help you step back from any existing family drama over caregiving and create a plan to help you all move forward in harmony.

1. Start planning well in advance, if possible

It is never too late (or too early) to start the conversation. Even if you are well into the caregiving journey, you can access planning aids to help you move forward with more help from your siblings.

The 50/50 Rule® program, developed by Home Instead Senior Care®, offers resources for developing senior care plans that involve all of the aging family member’s children. Try to have your first conversations on this subject when the eldest sibling turns 40 years old, and continue to talk about how to share the caregiving before your parent even needs it. This way, no one sibling will “back in to” the caregiving role without the support of other family members. 

2. Look at the big picture ~ For some families, the caregiving conversation begins with details: “I can’t possibly help take care of Mom because all of my kids are enrolled in extracurricular activities,” or “I live five hours away, and I’m not sacrificing my vacation time to fly in and take care of Dad.”

Instead of starting the caregiving conversation by diving into the details of everyone’s life, try taking a step back to look at the bigger picture. What types of support does your loved one need right now? What types of care will he or she require in the future? Once you have identified your loved one’s needs, then you can begin a conversation that gets into the details of which sibling can provide which types of support.

3. Take the emotions out of the conversation as much as possible

Siblings share an intimate personal history that sometimes includes baggage: hard feelings, old hurts. Try to set these emotions aside and deal matter-of-factly with your parent’s needs in the moment—and going forward. Keep the focus on achieving goals, not on your family dynamics. When you approach the topic of shared caregiving from a perspective of “here’s what Mom and Dad need, now how can we all provide it?”, the conversation may go more smoothly.

If you find it impossible to have these conversations without tempers flaring, consider hiring a mediator. These professionals can help bring everyone to a resolution without the hurt feelings that may accompany a do-it-yourself approach.

4. Match caregiving tasks with each person’s talents and abilities

Your older brother may balk at helping with caregiving if he is expected to bathe and toilet your mother. Your petite younger sister may not be willing to wrestle Dad’s walker into the car in order to drive him to appointments. Instead of insisting each sibling provide the same types of care, try to match tasks with each person’s abilities and interests. Perhaps your sister who lives far away would be willing to pay Mom’s bills and deal with other financial issues. Or maybe your brother who lives nearby would be happy to take Dad to his doctor appointments. There are many ways to divvy up the caregiving pie.

5. Accept that one person may always provide a disproportionate amount of care

You can’t force your siblings to help. That’s a simple truth. And even when you do get family members to commit to help with caregiving, you still may find you provide a disproportionate amount of that care. Try to come to terms with the fact that this is normal in most family caregiving situations. Acceptance may be easier in the long run than constantly feeling resentful.

If you feel undervalued for the amount of care you provide, try investigating ways to get paid for family caregiving. According to AARP, there are a number of methods that allow your parent to compensate you for the help you provide, including direct payment and tapping a long-term care insurance policy. Even if your loved one can’t afford to pay you much, sometimes receiving a token payment can help you feel valued.

6. Take care of your own emotional needs ~ High stress, isolation and depression are real dangers of caregiving, especially if you add in family conflict over caregiving issues. Although it can be hard to find time for self-care, be sure to make your own needs a priority. Even five minutes alone in the fresh air, or half an hour with a good book, can help you feel refreshed and recharged. If possible, hire a professional caregiver occasionally so you can get some time to focus on yourself.

Visit us online @ http://www.caregiverstress.com/

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Home Instead Senior Care ~ How to Pull Off Sunday Dinners as a Family

Easy Ways to Pull Off Sunday Dinners as a Family

June 2, 2015

Sunday dinner used to be a time when the entire family—and sometimes the extended family—gathered to talk, to laugh and to share the family lore and the day-to-day details of each others’ lives. Sometimes the “little things” about dining together—the emotional connection and casual conversation—are more important than the meal itself.

Why Intergenerational Dining?

The hectic pace of life today may make it feel impossible to bring the family together for dinner. But sharing meals together can benefit all generations within a family. Children get to hear their family’s oral history directly from the older generations, and seniors enjoy the companionship, which may lead to real health benefits, such as improved nutrition.

Home Instead, Inc., franchisor of the Home Instead Senior Care® network, recently conducted research among North Americans with seniors living nearby. The Sunday Dinner Pledge survey revealed:

• 61% believe their senior relatives eat better when they dine with other family members
• 92% feel eating with multigenerational family members is a good way to reconnect
• 87% believe sharing sit-down meals with senior relatives help their loved one deal with loneliness

Start with a Simple Commitment

As a busy caregiver, you might be thinking, “where am I going to find time to plan a big family dinner?” If you feel this way, you’re not alone.

While nearly 90 percent of respondents to the Sunday Dinner Pledge survey said they would like to share sit-down dinners with their senior loved ones once a month, about half of them said conflicting schedules and lack of time prevented them from doing this. Can you relate?

Consider this: when you prioritize something in your life, you tend to find the time to get it done. And that can include regular meals with your senior loved one.

To help make family mealtime a priority in your life, sign the Sunday Dinner PledgeSM . When you do, you not only will feel committed to making family dinners happen regularly, but the Home Instead Senior Care Foundation® will donate $1 for each pledge (up to a total of $20,000 in the U.S.) to the Meals on Wheels America program.

Create an Easy Menu Plan

To make it more feasible to plan and cook an intergenerational meal on a regular basis, start by choosing an easy menu plan. This may include favorite family recipes that can be made ahead of time, or new recipes with a limited ingredient list.

If you need recipe ideas that will please all of your family members, try theSunday Dinner Planner. In three quick steps, you can choose a main ingredient, review a selection of recipes and add one to your planner. Then you can get the planner emailed to you for printing and reference.

Use Activities to Foster Interactions

Once you get into the Sunday dinner routine, you may find conversation doesn’t flow as easily as it did in the beginning. Everyone runs out of interesting family news from time to time. When this happens, you can refer to this list of conversation starters for the dinner table, or plan an after-dinner activity to engage the whole family.

The Sunday Dinner Planner includes suggestions like family movie night and hobbies. You can add these to your planner in the same way you added recipes.

Involve Senior Loved Ones in Meal Planning

And speaking of activities, be sure to include your senior loved ones in the planning and meal preparations as much as possible. They may enjoy the renewed sense of purpose they get from participating as much as the meal itself.

In advance of the meal, consult your senior family member about food preferences. Does she have a particular recipe she’d like you to cook? Would she like to assemble and bring a dish of her own? When you empower your senior loved one to contribute, you give her a real sense of satisfaction.

Dine Together on Sunday—or Any Day

By taking the Sunday Dinner Pledge, you’re committing to sharing a monthly meal with your senior loved ones. You don’t have to do it on Sundays. Pick a day that works well for your schedule.

No matter which day you choose to dine with your senior family member, your whole family will benefit from this sociable interaction.

After all, who better to describe the distinctive smell of trout cooking over a smoky campfire than Grandpa himself?

For more family meal planning resources, check out the Sunday Dinner Pledgeprogram on CaregiverStress.com.

Caregiver Stress? Education for the Family Caregiver

When it comes to defining the extent of the volume of  caregivers, former first lady Rosalyn Carter said it best:  “There are only four kinds of people in the world –  those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers and those who will need caregivers.”

Caregiving can be a very rewarding and bonding experience – but it can be very stressful. According to a recent study conducted by Home Instead Senior Care network, 31% of family caregivers admit they'd like more help, and 25% actually resent other family members who don't help out more. The stress gets worse if the caregiver has other important and pressing responsibilities, such as a job, children to care for, a busy social life, or some distance to travel to care for their elderly relative.

Caregiving can be particularly hard for a spouse, especially when the care recipient requires around-the-clock assistance. It can even become dangerous if the spousal caregiver has his or her own health issues to deal with, because those problems can be made worse by the stress of caregiving and the lack of attention to the caregiver’s own needs.

You can’t ignore the needs of the person you are caring for, but there are a number of ways to make sure you remain as stress-free and healthy as possible during the process. In this workshop, we’ll discuss the extent of the caregiver stress problem and give you some signs to look for that show you might be suffering from stress yourself. We’ll also look specifically at the challenges of dealing with patients who have Alzheimer’s or other dementia. Then, we’ll give you some tips and ideas about how you can ease your stress level and protect your health.

Click here to obtain our full Caregiver Stress Pamphlet on "Education the Family Caregiver"

Visit Home Instead Senior Care online for additional information @ http://www.homeinstead.com/newsletters/Pages/eNewsletterEditions.aspx