How to Get Siblings to Do Their Fair Share in Elder Parents Care
Decisions in regards to taking care of aging parents requires effort and organization from the adult children, and it can require even more between the siblings. While it is important to express your viewpoints in decisions regarding elder parent care, being open to the other siblings' ideas and wishes helps getting everyone's views across. Organizing all the siblings to get involved in elder parent care brings on many challenges, but it can also eventually bring families closer together.
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Instructions
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Call a family meeting. Arrange a time to meet with the other siblings to discuss your parents' care, should the need arise. Try to meet in person or through a conference call, if siblings live out-of-town. It's best to involve siblings earlier on, according the Aging Care Website. One adult child usually plays the role of the primary caregiver due to being closer in location to the parents or having more time or resources available. However, planning and including all the siblings in the parents' care helps everyone do their fair share.
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Write down the responsibilities that need to be shared by the siblings. This can bring up old resentments and sibling rivalries; the key is to remain calm and deal with the task on hand. "When you're talking about whether mom should live at home or move into assisted living and the emotional pitch becomes ferocious, it's a clue that we should step back," says Francine Russo, author of "They're Your Parents, Too! How Siblings Can Survive Their Parents' Aging Without Driving Each Other Crazy." Making a list of tasks and remaining objective to the parental care in hand helps diffuse the emotional time bombs that could trigger among siblings.
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Assign and divide up tasks between the siblings. While there are many ways of doing this, Lynne Coon, a specialist in elder parents care, suggests dividing chores by expertise. Coon offers some examples; the adult child who is good at finances may take over legal and financial issues the elder parents face, and a sibling who has knowledge of health issues may make all the medical appointments. Be sure to include siblings who do not live close by. Even if they can't help with day-to-day needs, they can offer financial support, such as hiring a housekeeper to give the primary caretaker a break from daily responsibilities.
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Ask directly for the siblings to get more involved and develop a stronger trust with the siblings. Instead of hinting about your needs, be specific. Opening the line of communication by reporting to other siblings about the parents' progress and disclosing pertinent information like medical bills will keep the other siblings feel included.
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Tips & Warnings
Be aware of old family dynamics and try to move past the roles each family member had growing up. Old family dynamics come back like a boomerang during anxiety-producing conversations about aging or ailing parents, says Brian Carpenter of Washington University in St. Louis, who has studied sibling issues. Although the old roles may help in deciding who does what; don't let it get to a regressive stage.
References
- Photo Credit man/ elderly sitting relaxing on a chair image by L. Shat from Fotolia.com
