Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

Do You Need Wonder Woman To Help The Dysfunctional Aging Family?

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Once you have seen the drama in the aging dysfunctional family and know  each adult child’s role plus the conflict it causes– then what do you do next ? You become Wonder Woman   ( or man? )

You use your extensive aging life- geriatric care manager tool box  to realign the roles to get care for the aging client. Here’s three steps:

Superhero task 1

The Aging Life or geriatric care manager must identify existing power dynamics within the family, redefine responsibilities to achieve generational maturity, and realign roles and tasks for each family member.

Superheroine task 2

The Aging Life or GCM should encourage a new two-way nurturing relationship between the adult child and the parent that may not have previously existed.

Superhero/heroine task 3

At the same time, the Aging Life or  GCM must enable the adult child as caregiver to set limits that are appropriate to a mature relationship.

 

The GCM emboldens the adult child to identify and remove himself or herself from triangulated, fused, or other destructive family patterns.

This is not for the faint of heart . It is for a highly skilled and educated care manager and successful practioneer- in others words Wonder Woman.

More Ruinous Roles in the Dysfunctional Aging Family

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During the holiday season, dysfunctional families with gather and one of the adult siblings call may as a care manager . The Martyr below will object, the escapee may ignore the problem as they already fled from the family.If they hire you the meddler will try to sabotage your care plan. Check out these dysfunctional family roles before the call.

The Martyr has an innate need to nurture the older adult, even when this comes at the expense of the Martyr or the older adult. The Martyr’s seemingly endless devotion can sometimes interfere with an appropriate care plan. Most commonly, he or she will insist on carrying out the older adult’s wish to remain at home beyond the point that is safe or appropriate. Despite complaints of exhaustion, the Martyr will avoid opportunities for respite. He or she may be motivated by guilt or other unresolved issues underlying the relationship. 

The Escapee is typically an adult child who lives far away and has withdrawn or is entirely absent during a family crisis. Involved family members will resent the Escapee, particularly when there is a history of family conflict. The Escapee may withdraw from family problems in self-defense and resist being drawn back into a stressful relationship with siblings. 

The Meddler will interfere with an established care plan in an attempt to wrest control away from other family members, to compete with siblings, or to assert dominance within the family. The Meddler needs to be involved in every decision made and is overly involved with details. The Meddler will have frequent contact with the care manager to change or challenge recommendations.  

The older adult, of course, is the central figure in the drama of the so-called difficult family. The care manager must assess the older adult’s own role . That’s why the care manager must take a ” Whole Family ” approach with these hard to manage clans.

 

 

What Ruinous Roles in The Aging Dysfunctional Family Make Them Reject Care?

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During the holiday season the aging family under the most stress are dysfunctional families. There never was a ritual they did not ruin. If they must face care of an aging parent at the same time they may explode and call a care manager  for help.

So when they phone in the throes of an older adult crisis, the care manager needs to recognize familiar roles and characteristics that individual family members play.

The “preserver” will resist your help, the “victim” is none too happy as well and the “manager” just may be  very delighted, as someone else will deal with the aging parental mess. What are these roles?

The preserver is more comfortable with the status quo and resists getting help for the older adult. He or she is content if the older adult remains overly dependent on the family without access to appropriate external help or services. 

The victim perceives the older adult’s problems as a direct threat to his or her own needs or self-interest. The victim will see his or her own emotional needs as more important than the older adult’s needs. He or she will frequently contact the older adult or the care manager, but the purpose of the contact will involve seeking attention for his or her own problems. 

The manager tends to be calm, organized, and analytical during a crisis but is unable to provide emotional support to the older adult or to other family members. Often, the Manager lives at a distance, which can cause tension with family members who are more directly involved in daily care. 

More Ruinous Roles tomorrow.

Danger Sign on Holidays with Siblings and Aging Parents

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It’s almost Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah. Do you have aging parent issues -yet you have a brother or sister that hardly speak. You may see that sibling on the coming  holiday gathering then largely ignore him or her.

But you and your sibling may have some nasty parental surprises on the holidays to prompt you to rethink sibling cut off.

If you suspect your holiday visit to aging relatives could have some scary scenes, here are some red flags to put in a check list and share with your midlife siblings before the holiday call.

Perhaps  your older parents have piles of junk mail, dirty clothes, unwrapped gifts when Mom used to shine through her color coordinated presents. All are cause for the sibling 911 alarm- then action.

You can use this list to assess your parents or older family members during the holidays and compare notes on a post holiday conference call. If all midlife siblings have the same criteria, it makes easier to agree what to do and what to flag as family New Year’s resolutions. But- if you and a siblings are at war- it makes that conference call much harder.

Below is a list of red flags . If you see any red signals on Thanksgiving, Hanukkah or face them on Christmas- now is the time to do something about it. Use this is a checklist of some worrisome signs you may have seen.

Alarm Bells List for Visiting Long Distance Relatives During the Holidays

Unpaid bills

Missed appointments

Clutter in a home that was once always neat

Weight loss

Memory loss, change in short-term memory

Poor grooming by a person who was once meticulous

Getting lost

Wandering

Refusing to go with friends on outings or to religious services

refusing any suggestion or conversely agreeing to everything with-out consideration

Mood swings, getting angry when normally easy going

Refusing to go to medical providers

Not taking care of activities of daily living: cooking, bathing, dressing, housekeeping, etc.

Entering contests, credit card maxed out on shopping channels

When the midlife adult children return from the holidays , the family can have a family meeting alone or with an the aging professional and look at the problems on everyone’s the list, agree on the top red flags and start helping the long distance family.

 

Don’t wait till you and your midlife siblings are shocked out of sleep by late-night calls from brothers and sisters , frantically telling them of a crisis with aging Mom or Dad. Don’t force yourself and the other adult children to book last minute, high-cost flights, and gather in scary, sterile hospital rooms with brothers and sisters they have not really communicated in years.

Call an aging life or geriatric care manager for help 

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