Is Your Family Resisting Getting Senior Care?
It’s more common then you might think… mom or dad now need senior care but you can’t get it done because your sibling is fiercely resisting all of your efforts. Probably over 50% of the families we see at Senior Home Advocates are stymied because their family members are fighting with each other. The adult children usually haven’t communicated in a long time and are suddenly thrown into a stressful situation that takes true cooperation and family conflict resolution. Many siblings simply can’t accept each other’s ideas…it’s a little bit of “not invented here” syndrome or one sibling is resented because they were the”favored” child or maybe one has been financially mooching off of mom and simply can’t be trusted by the others.
First thing to remember is that nobody is adequately prepared for the challenge of having to arrange for an aging parent’s care. It’s not talked about in our schools, our churches, or our popular media and yet we all have parents! Take comfort in knowing that you’re not the only family resisting getting senior care or going through this; there are millions of others facing the same challenge as you are right now.
Next, seek out help and don’t try to do this alone. You need someone in the middle when siblings are at each other’s throats. You can deal with family conflict and have a positive successful result. Professional case managers have lots of experience in dealing with how to defuse these situations. At Senior Home Advocates we have found that the best technique is to call a family meeting and let the financial facts do the talking. There’s something about having an outside party with facts and figures that makes everybody willing to lower their defenses and listen. We use a simple tool that compares each possible care scenario side by side. By seeing how the finances change for each scenario and how certain government financial benefit programs would work under each possible scenario, families have the information they need to make a joint decision…because with the right information, the right answer becomes fairly obvious.
A family meeting with a professional – acting as a third party creates an environment where a decision can be made “then and there” and witnessed by each other. After that, the case manager plays a critical role in answering questions as the care plan is implemented or the care needs change. In many cases when a well trained care manager is involved, families can actually experience some positive growth in the relationship they have with each other. At Senior Home Advocates we provide you with an initial consultation that is free of charge and will give the whole family a chance to experience how effective our techniques can be in breaking any log jams they might be experiencing. You can arrange for an initial consultation by calling us at (714) 793-0527 and we will set an appointment that is convenient for you.
