When you can’t live up to your aging parents’ expectations, these tips can help.
In an ideal world, we could manage to perfectly compartmentalize our caregiving duties, staying with a routine that met your aging parents’ expectations, while allowing enough time to take care of our assortment of other responsibilities. But needless to say, life doesn’t follow our desired script, and conflicting needs are frequent when caring for an aging parent. Many older adults resist the need for help, while others may come to depend too heavily on an adult child, leading to unfulfilled expectations and ultimately disappointment for both parties.
Hired Hands Homecare’s aging care professionals provide the following tips to help clarify expectations and communicate successfully:
- Focus on empathy. As opposed to pulling away from an older loved one whose expectations seem unrealistic, stop and empathize. Think through the difficulties your parent is facing, and exactly how it might feel to be in his or her shoes. Then communicate your sincere concern and desire to help.
- Permit each other to be heard. Start a conversation with your senior loved one, inviting them to convey how it feels to be in need of care, and what kind of care is needed. Ascertain what the senior’s objectives are, and then share your personal expectations and limitations in being able to completely meet their needs.
- Compromise to get to a solution. Finding a resolution that works well for both of you may be much less difficult than you might think. For instance, if your loved one expects assistance with transportation in accordance with a certain schedule several times per week, perhaps you can provide that assistance one day, while enlisting the help of others to cover additional days. This allows for enhanced socialization for the senior plus the healthy life balance you need.
Hired Hands Homecare, the top provider of Napa Valley support services and care in the surrounding areas, is here to partner with family caregivers with highly skilled, carefully matched care experts who are passionate about making life the very best it can be for seniors.
Working with Hired Hands Homecare enables adult children to make sure their aging parents are well cared for all of the time, whether by filling in with respite care where needed, through around-the-clock live-in care, or a variety of solutions in between. Just some of the many ways we are able to help include:
• Safe, accompanied transportation
• Running errands
• Planning and preparing healthy meals
• Keeping the home clean and neat
• Offering friendly companionship to brighten each day
• Creative and highly specialized care for people who have dementia
• And much more
Contact us online or call (866) 940-4343 to share the challenges you are facing, and to let us share how we can help.
Thank you for writing such a thoughtful post on a topic that I think is very relatable to many people. I appreciate your insights on how to navigate the difficult situation of not living up to our aging parents’ expectations.
It can be tough to reconcile our own goals and aspirations with those of our parents, especially as they age and become more reliant on us. I completely agree with your suggestion to have an open and honest conversation with them, where we can express our own feelings and goals while also showing empathy and understanding for their perspective.