Preparing Yourself to Talk to Your Siblings About Your Parent's Care

If you have made the decision to be a family caregiver for your aging parent due to challenges or limitations they have begun to experience, you are going to need all the help you can get. Even if it seems their needs are only mild now, it is likely they will experience a greater needs and challenges as the years progress, putting you in the position of needing to fulfill further responsibilities to maintain their health and well-being. Having help from the beginning of the care journey helps to relieve the pressure on you, ease your stress, and also improve the care your parent receives. Involving your siblings in your care is a great way to reduce the responsibilities you must handle, and also to give your parent more time with their children, which supports better mental and emotional health. 

Whether you are at the beginning of your care journey or you are dealing with greater challenges and need help, if you want to get your siblings involved in your parent's care, you will need to prepare yourself to talk to them about the situation. Approaching this issue openly, honestly, and clearly is an important step in getting them involved so they can offer the most benefit to your parent.

Use these tips to prepare yourself to talk to your siblings about your parent's care:

• Write out what you want to say. Even if you don't read this out word-for-word, writing down what you want to discuss with them gives you the opportunity to clearly think the situation through. Writing things down has been shown to make you more confident in what you've thought, and less likely to forget things.
• Decide how much help you need. Honestly evaluate the types of issues your parent faces, and your ability to handle those issues. This will let you go into the conversation able to say what your parent needs, what you can do, and what needs to be filled from there. This structure makes it easier for your siblings to understand the situation, and to determine their involvement.
• Come up with alternatives. Your siblings may not be able to be directly involved with your parent's care, or may only be able to invest a small amount of time due to their distance, or their own challenges. Come up with alternatives to offer them so they are still helpful. This can include helping to pay for elder care, ordering and paying for groceries online, or being a regular source of transportation for a certain task.

Elder care can be a tremendous resource for you as a family caregiver. Whether you are caring for your elderly loved one completely on your own, in conjunction with your siblings, or have another care team, including an elderly home care services provider can all her a wide variety of benefits. Due to the highly customized nature of elder care, you can feel confident your senior is going to have access to the exact type of care, support, and assistance they need to manage their individual challenges and limitations. This means they can pursue an active and independent lifestyle, while also staying safe and healthy in their own home. This type of care can be a fantastic way to ease stress when clashing with siblings about your parents care, if you live at a distance from your aging parent and are not able to be with them as often as you would like, or if you simply believe they would benefit from more diversified care.

IF YOU OR AN AGING LOVED ONE ARE CONSIDERING HIRING IN-HOME ELDER CARE IN BROOKFIELD, IL, PLEASE CONTACT THE CARING STAFF AT BRIGHTSTAR CARE LA GRANGE. CALL TODAY: 708-551-2500.