If you have raised children, you might think that taking
care of children and taking care of parents are vastly different. The
first involves gradually introducing someone to the larger world. The
second, helping someone disengage from the world. With children,
we expect it will take time to care for them. With parents, we are
surprised by how much time it may take.
Also, the challenges seem almost reversed.
Parents of children are badgered not to be "helicopter
parents," hovering over their kids and not allowing them to make
mistakes. But the children of aging parents are told to hover more
---- step up, provide support, offer distraction. Hounded not to be
"helicopter parents" to our kids, we're now challenged to be
"tugboat children" to our parents, steering them through narrowing
waters.
Perhaps the most basic thing we do for both our kids and our
parents, is to keep them safe. For example, it is important to consider
interviewing at the end of their shifts other care-givers who help the family.
Many day-to-day responsibilities involve simply the repetitive tasks of getting
the "patient" dressed, fed, medicated and bathed. But a daily
brief review with care-givers may catch a physical health problem while it can
be easily managed.
However, sometimes protecting parents means not
telling them everything. The single hardest thing for Alzheimer's
care-givers to learn may be that they cannot always be honest with the
patient. When they tell you something you know to be false, your instinct
is to correct them. "Sorry, Mom, Dad has been dead for 20
years." But care-givers learn that the only way to handle these
moments probably is to conform to the patient's understanding of the
world. "Yes, Mom, Dad must have enjoyed that visit with the grand
kids."
Another issue is that both children and older parents need
help managing money. Careful review of a parent's bills may reveal
savings they overlooked because they perpetuated spending habits of earlier
days, which are no longer necessary. Of course, this can also lead to
some awkward conversations, while we gently make the case that they no longer
need to be purchasing certain items. Someone suggested a "financial
driver's license" for older Americans to prove their financial competence.
In effect, one is saying, "You are allowed to drive your own decisions,
Mom and Dad, but only if one of your kids is with you in the car."
Help in managing money often starts in the area of regularly
paying the bills, making timely bank deposits of interest and dividend checks,
and generally keeping complete and accurate checkbook records. It is
normal for aging parents to become forgetful. Care-givers need to find a
way to monitor these important, but routine, tasks without offending the senior
citizen involved ---- a person who probably had successfully managed such
things for decades. Find ways to monitor bank balances without
second-guessing every transaction, and do it regularly. The penalties for
financial "drift" can be painful.
"I'm bored." When I was young, I was
expected to have hobbies and sports, and thus to be able to entertain
myself. Now, parents ask us to entertain them. As people
age, generally their social circles shrink, and while this allows older people
to focus more on those they really care about, it also increases the burden on
their children. Anyone who cares for parents is constantly sending along
recommendations for entertainment, just as we do with kids. "I think
you would like this book." "Should we play a game of
cards?" Happily, these activity suggestions may help. Studies
show that learning new skills, being creative, or even reminiscing, makes
"patients" happier ---- and often makes their care-giver happier,
too.
For some aging parents, various forms of art activities
might become a passion that is discovered only later in life. For seniors
whose worlds are often shrinking, the arts may cause new worlds to open.
Just attempting something creative with an oil, acrylic or watercolor paint
brush, or simply drawing, can bring increased self-esteem and feelings of
accomplishment.
Some seniors have dedicated many decades of their earlier
life to earning a living, and never felt they could afford to explore
non-remunerative creative outlets. Now, they can be encouraged to embrace
new and positive aspects of their personal identity, for fun ---- not worrying
about profit.
One of the most important safety tasks is to fully
understand the instructions of the aging parent's doctor, and then ensure that
those instructions are carried out timely, accurately and fully.
Forgetful, aging parents will forget to take their evening pills, or will eat
foods that disagree with them. However, there are low-key ways to monitor
this. For example, a pill box with compartments for each day (or morning,
noon and night) show immediately if prescribed pills have indeed been taken
while the care-giver may have been otherwise occupied.
Those families and friends who are caring for aging parents
understand the upside-down emotions of taking care of someone who once took
care of them. We may mistakenly think that lives move in only one
direction at a time ---- from dependence to independence and then the
reverse. We might also expect that our parent will move in a single
direction, too ---- eventually from adulthood to childhood. But,
separating these two progressions is wrong. The teaching and learning in
life always move in two directions at once, because all along a great
amount of what parents learn has been taught by their children, whether the
children be youth or adults, and at best the children will be continuously
learning from and engaged with their parents.
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult
Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal
spiritual growth this winter at CPC.
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