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The Ice Storm Cometh Again This Thanksgiving For Aging Parents

November 19, 2018

Kids who grew up in the 70’s will soon have Thanksgiving with their 70 or 80

something aging parents. Will they recall the ” Ice Storm”?

In the film, it is Thanksgiving weekend in the early 70″s and a boyish Tobey Mc Guire returns home from prep school to a Thanksgiving feast that his sister starts with this prayer.

” Dear Lord, thank you for this Thanksgiving holiday. And for all the material possessions we have and enjoy. And for letting us white people kill all the Indians and steal their tribal lands. And stuff us like pigs, even though children in Asia are being napalmed.”

So we begin the descent down the cusp of the 1970’s as the nearly normal family shapeshifts into dysfunctional in Ang Lee’s brilliant film The Ice Storm

Lee’s Thanksgiving classic is the perfect reflection of some family’s plunge into the early 70’s season of hell.

If you’re in your 40’s and grew up with parents gone haywire through 70’s social change, you will remember the ice storm.

Divorce imploded the family, as we knew it. If you were a parent then you may recall, Key Parties, or Nixon Resigning, Deep Throat or hear David Bowie who did the soundtrack to the film.

With Lou Reed you can loop back to his fabulous song of that spins the period Walk on the Wild Side and maybe recall the template for it the entire era the -book, Open Marriage.

Children of this 70’s social tumult may now share another Thanksgiving with aging parents who put them through hell. What will they do when they find they have to care for those same parents who did not care for them?

When they return to Thanksgiving they may call an aging life or geriatric care manager. Are you ready?

5 Steps to Take if Adult Kids Call After Thanksgiving Reporting A StepMonster at the Feast

November 12, 2018

A baby boomer daughter may spend Thanksgiving at her elderly Mom and stepdad’s home. The couple married late in life. If so -the 50’s daughter may join now midlife steps siblings at the celebration but decide the new Mom is a Stepmonster.

What if the elderly remarried couple, who are increasingly frail, have problems that everyone notices?

The turkey’s half cooked, Mom’s beautiful clothes are dirty and she has not been to the hairdresser in what looks like weeks.

Who helps Mom and calls an aging life or geriatric care manager?

Late-life remarriage can bring challenges to these through these newly minted stepparents and stepsiblings. Eldercare is one. If any group of stepsiblings disagrees about money spent Mom’s eldercare or resulting diminished inheritance, there can be hell to pay. Money becomes a big issue with adult siblings on both sides for aging parents who find a new love of their life.

Differing points of view can explode into a battle over money power and legal rights.

If you are an aging life or geriatric care are you ready to face these dilemmas when the adult daughter calls?

Not just remarriage in late life but elderly partners living together are showing up at Thanksgiving dinner. According to Pew Research, that the number of people over 50 who cohabit with a partner rather than marry jumped 75 percent from 2007 to 2016.

In fact the single greatest predictor that a marriage will fail is the presence of children from a previous marriage or relationship. It might surprise us. But the truth is that the divorce rate is 50% higher in remarriages with children than in those without according to a Psychology Today article called Stepmonster

Adult children can sabotage the new older partner when by noticing a decline in the elderly parents and calling a geriatric care manager to evaluate- when they really want the professional to be the bad guy and get rid of the new love or stepmonster.

Here are 5 steps you can take-

I evaluate capacity in the older parent – the elderly parent has a right to choose if they are mentally clear.

Suggest an elder law attorney

Evaluate the adult children’s point of view to tease out the real issues

Suggest a family meeting with a skilled facilitator or mediator

Refer to adult protective services if you suspect a sweetheart scam or undue influence on the part of the adult children

Join me in my new Webinar

5 Ways to Tame the Turbulence of Holiday Meltdown in Aging Families

During the busiest season for care management referrals-

You Will Learn:

How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
How to sell services during intake, to desperate adult child callers
How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
How to use financial forecasting to prepare for growth during the holidays
How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
- Sign Up

Why Does the Nearly Normal Aging Family Melt Down Over the Holidays

November 11, 2018

Many concierge aging families are healthy or a nearly normal family. But discovering they must care for a parent can force them into a tailspin. When the parent figure in the family begins to suffer the losses of aging, a filial crisis occurs.

What’s that-? That is accepting your parent in the here and now. When a Mom or Dad is no longer the north stars they were to the family, midlife adult children need to learn to learn to balance parental love and duty with independence. These midlife kids must create a two-way relationship instead of the parent sending, love, money and nurture only one way. This can throw adult children in a nearly normal family into a parental panic.

Nurturing and care have always been a one-way street – ending with them. Were they selfish – no? That’s what good parents do- nurture their children through all the stages of life. However, this new stage takes a two-way street.

The healthy nearly normal family is also thrown off balance by a shock to the system- someone has to replace the Queen or King bee. The person who took the lead role on the family stage has not shown up or forgets their lines. On the holidays they don’t decorate the Christmas tree, forget the words to the blessing on Chanukah, the recipe for Latkes or their famous Christmas sugar cookies.

Now the adult kids must make the Christmas cookies, Latkes, lead the Chanukah prayers or host Christmas. Many are reluctant to step up to the plate, take over the work of a ritual- be the head of the family

At this giant pause in family play, the family system, even in the normal family must face the loss of control in the system because the parents or parent figures usually have that control. When they can no longer manage on their own, or function as the main gear or guide that moves the family system forward, even the normal spins out of control.

Join me in my new Webinar

5 Ways to Tame the Turbulence of Holiday Meltdown in Aging Families

During the busiest season for care management referrals-

You Will Learn:

How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
How to sell services during intake, to desperate adult child callers
How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
How to use financial forecasting to prepare for growth during the holidays
How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holiday

BY THE AUTHOR OF HANDBOOK OF GERIATRIC CARE MANAGEMENT

Do Holidays Open the Sibling Wound Mom Loved You Best –Treated With Lots of Alcohol?

November 9, 2018

Holidays can sometimes trigger old brother or sister hurts that never healed. Joy to the World can turn into something from Black Sabbath. Perhaps an adult child avoids midlife siblings and family Thanksgiving because there’s “bad blood” from childhood. Maybe they steer clear of Mom’s holiday dinner so you can skip seeing sisters and brothers who gouged childhood wounds. The scar has built up over decades and if they attend they dive for the alcohol which is plentiful in these ritual celebrations. What can result is nasty sibling fights over the past not Mom and Dad needing care.

Maybe there just was not enough love your rickety family nest, making siblings scramble for the few caring crumbs. Kid brothers could have slugged other siblings behind Mom’s back. Maybe a sister got the new prom dress when younger girls did Goodwill or the hand me down.

Divorce often shattered families leaving you with two houses, two beds, two sets of parents, and stepsiblings who fought for parent’s diminished love. No matter what the grievance story – holidays are when they might want to think about forgiveness because all hands are needed on deck when parents are failing with age.

The season of not so much joy brings calls to care managers from desperate adult children noticing melting down parent’s who are fixture in the family. They call a GCM for advice and the main task is often to make a family sibling team that was not a team 30 years ago.

Need help in creating that team?

Join me in my new free Webinar

5 Ways to Tame the Turbulence of Holiday Meltdown in Aging Families

During the busiest season for care management referrals-

You Will Learn:

How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
How to sell services during intake, to desperate adult child callers
How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos among siblings
How to use financial forecasting to prepare for growth during the holidays
How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
- Sign Up

Take This Test -Can You Take A Dysfunctional Family Case Over the Holidays ?

November 8, 2018

Do You Have the Clinical Skills to Give Hope to The Dysfunctional Family Calling Desperately On the Holidays – What does it Take?

Do you know the right caseload mix so you have the intense time to handle these very heavy care families?
Do you have 5 years of geriatric care management practice, a master’s degree to understand and work with them???
Do you have the business model to realign your caseload for both light & Heavy cases?
Can you increase your staff to do it?
Do you know aging family dynamics or do you have a staff member who does?
Do you have care managers who can work with complex aging dysfunctional families?
Do You Know How to do a two call intake and complimentary consultation
Do You know how to make the sale to dysfunctional aging clients
Are you ready to be fired and have an account receivable problems that come with these cases?
Do you know how to answer the challenge the adult children face and the client’s needs at the same time
Do you know how to hold an impromptu family Dysfunctional meeting with adult children, over the hectic holiday to plan care for aging parents?
Do you understand the executive function loss that older woman experience when trying to plan a holiday ritual dinner that fails, upsetting their adult children?
Can you work with narcissistic entitled older clients who are very demanding
Can you take the demeaning, blaming attitude of narcissistic old and new monied clients
Do you know how to avoid the VIP Syndrome with Concierge Rich and Famous Dysfunctional Family To Learn More Clinical Skills Before the HolidaysJoin me in my new Free Webinar 5 Ways to Tame the Turbulence of Holiday Meltdown in Aging Families During the busiest season for care management referrals-
You Will Learn:
- How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
- How to sell services during intake, to desperate adult child callers
- How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
- How to use financial forecasting to prepare for growth during the holidays
- How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
  - Sign Up

The Ice Storm Cometh Again This Thanksgiving For Aging Parents

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