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
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