How to Help Avoid a Cat and Dog fight at a Dysfunctional Family Thanksgiving

November 7, 2019

Sparring Cats and Dogs

Especially after some holiday liquid cheer, sour step-parents, angry step-siblings and mid-life adult kids who have grown up in a dysfunctional family can turn into sparring cats and dogs with teeth bared and claws dug in flesh, at Thanksgiving dinner.

Why Their Stocking Full of Coal

The ordinary aging processes are made far tougher when a family has a history of dysfunction. Aging professionals, like geriatric care managers, have their greatest challenges in working with these “difficult” families.

Dysfunctional families are not able to organize themselves

They effectively face gut-wrenching eldercare challenges and crises. These families are under more stress as they move from long-established roles into uncharted territory.

Why Cut-OFF Ruins Holidays

What if they “ cut off” their Dad years ago and now he had a severe stroke- what do they do?? Someone has to take over Mom or Dad’s care and these dysfunctional midlife adult kids are heavy ambivalent or just don’t want to do it. They are caught between “ I love you” and “ I hate you” and it only takes a few drinks and snarky remarks to start a fracas.

Now that the holidays are soon arriving – they have the same attitude about

attending the family Thanksgiving dinner.

So what to do if you are an aging professional, geriatric care manager, nurse care manager- before the holiday to avoid the scene below.

Read Lynn Lynn Hackstaff’s chapter, Difficult Families: Conflict, Dependence, and Mutuality: Care Management with the Difficult Aging Family in Handbook of Geriatric Care Management

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

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How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays

How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
How to sell services 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
Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional Aging Families so the client chooses you

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

November 2, 2019

Do You Have the Clinical Skills to Give Hope to The Dysfunctional Family Calling Desperately On the Holidays –

What does it Take?

1. Do you know the right caseload mix so you have the intense time to handle these very heavy care families?

1. Do you have 5 years of geriatric care management practice, a master’s degree to understand and work with them??
2. Do you have care managers who can work with these complex aging dysfunctional families
3. Do you have the business model to realign your caseload for many of these time-intensive cases?
4. Do you know aging family dynamics or do you have a staff member who does?
5. Can you increase your staff to do this?
6. Do You Know How to do a two call intake and complimentary consultation
7. Do You know how to make the sale to dysfunctional aging clients
8. Are you ready to be fired and have an account receivable problems that come with these cases?
9. Do you know how to answer the challenge the dysfunctional, needy demanding adult children face and the client’s needs at the same time
10. Do you know how to hold an impromptu family Dysfunctional meeting with adult children, over the hectic holiday to plan care for aging parents?
11. Can you work with narcissistic entitled older clients who are very demanding?
12. Can you emotionally handle the demeaning, blaming attitude of narcissistic old and new monied clients

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- How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
- How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
- How to sell services 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
- Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional Aging Families so the client chooses you
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How Storytelling Can Give Elders A Happier Family Thanksgiving

November 1, 2019

Want to increase aging parents and everyone’s enjoyment at Thanksgiving? Try storytelling using Thanksgiving memories.

As an aging professional, you can bring joy to an older person through reminiscence, storytelling, and oral history even elders with dementia

This Thanksgiving ask everyone to tell their favorite story about a Thanksgiving dinner. Start with midlife members to get the idea and then ask again parents to share their story. It will bring extra thanks to Thanksgiving by learning about an elder’s past and giving them the opportunity to share, which sometimes they do not do in the hubbub of family talking.

The “telling ” also means someone documents. That magically gives the elder and a child social interaction and connectedness. Elders vividly recall their past by telling from vignettes in their life – especially life in their 20’s, which sparks the richest recall called the “20’s bump”, according to researchers.

Elders sharing stories means passing on history.

So try this at Thanksgiving and it becomes intergenerational. The older person is given a chance to give the larger picture of their life and family history to children and grandchildren or extended family, who may not have heard all the details of their grandparent’s or parents’ life before. So a dual dose of quality of the older person of both the older person and the aging family is increased through oral history and reminiscence

Capture Your Families Past Before It Is Gone

Many midlife adults now do ancestry and regret that they did not ask questions of older family members when they were alive. Capture that past now on this family holiday. An aging professional or a geriatric care manager can suggest family or friends record the Thanksgiving story as oral history using technology like an i Phone or i Pad.

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

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS NOVEMBER 21, 2019 FROM 2 PM – 3 PM PST

Learn how!

How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
How to sell services 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
Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional Aging Families so the client choose you

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Ten Warning Signs of a Dysfunctional Family- Warning Sign Number Three

October 31, 2019

What is scarier than Halloween?

Happy Halloween –Kids and adults have fun being scary on Halloween. The Dysfunctional Aging Family is really scary. What is the third sign that you as an aging professional or geriatric care manager are working with an aging family- Cut off

Distancing & cut off- are pulling away and having nothing to do with family or an individual in your family.

You find adult children who have not spoken to parents or siblings for years.

Angela Jolie’s Cut-off With Her Dad

The celebrity feud and cut off between actress Angela Jolie and her Dad actor John Voigt is a well-publicized example of this.

What prompted reconciliation? Helping grandchildren- is one goal that professionals working with aging families can follow. Among the reasons, according to the press, that Jolie- Pit reconciled with her Dad was her children’s need for a grandparent . She learned that your children just have a very different version of a relationship with your parents than you do.

Assessing the Aging Family for Cut-off

When you assess the aging family as a professional you look at several signs for dysfunction. Has the family been stable over time? Is there a history of emotional cut-offs or distance on the part of one or more family members? Is there a pattern of divorce, remarriage, or other disruptions in relationships that change the balance within the family system if you look at a family and they have a history of fragility rather than stability, that a red flag that they are a dysfunctional aging family.

If there a history of emotional cut-offs or distance on the part of one or more family member or a pattern of divorce, remarriage, or other disruptions in relationships that change the balance within the family system- you are working with a difficult aging family

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How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
How to sell services 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

Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional Aging Families and get the client to sign up with you

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What are the 7 Steps to a Successful Concierge Client Inquiry Call on Coming Holidays ?

October 28, 2019

How Not to Lose a New Client at an Inquiry

An inquiry is the most critical point in opening or losing a case. A successful inquiry means taking successful steps to increase your aging life or geriatric care management business.

The Desperate Calls You will Get

Over the Holidays you will get many desperate calls from adult children visiting their family and discovering- unwrapped gifts, a disheveled Mom – trouble they may not have known about if they lived long-distance or just saw Mom infrequently. Here are steps to success over the holiday inquiry or any call about your services

Take These Steps to Convert Inquiry to New Client

1. You must assure the caller that your geriatric care management services can be counted on to thoroughly assess the elderly person’s and family caregiver’s situation at the intake, determine the level of care and level of GCM monitoring to sell your services.
2. You sell these services by convincing the caller that you offer a highly personalized and compassionate approach to the family and older clients. This breaks down to gaining client and family trust that your GCM services are the very best path leading them the care they desperately need, led by a professional guide they can count on.

3. You persuade them that they will get unbeatable customer appreciation, you will exceed their customer expectations, ensure the quality of life for the older client and offer a concierge driven service.
4. You explain how your hands on professional staff can make families relieved and happy because they understand they save precious time and overwhelming stress by using professional GCM’s.
5. You show them you can access all community services and resource options they could not find alone and are now available to them through your services.

6. In this one sometimes short call, you show potential new clients how your concierge care management service will solve their problems through -you the GCM being there for them every step of the way.
7. You persuade them that by scheduling the next step, a free complimentary consultation call, you will help them make sound decisions based on reality and assessment.

The GCM sells all of this through a free complimentary consultation done by a compassionate and highly skilled professional the director of the agency

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