nearly normal family Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

Thanksgiving Blog- Steal It for Your Social Media

November 24, 2019

Spread The Word About Your Services Before Thanksgiving

ADULT CHILDREN DESPERATE AFTER THANKSGIVING PAINTS PARENTAL DECLINE

If you use social media to spread the word about your services before the holidays, you should have a blog. One giant target is adult children who need help for their older family members.

So you can steal this blog below and share it on social media in the next few days.

Whether you use Constant Contact , Survey Monkey , Word Press or have a blog attached to your website, this is a good time to give potential adult child customers a short marketing touch about your services

Since the family – both nearly normal and the dysfunctional version gather on Thanksgiving and during the holiday season, this blog is a gateway step towards thinking about how their family might organize care for a loved one or if they need a care manager to guide them through the whole wrenching process.

Steal the blog below

“The Thanksgiving is around the corner what better time to talk about the family. Will you be celebrating the holiday with a nearly normal or dysfunctional family?

The normal aging family can have their own own problems. Leading up to Thanksgiving adult children can struggle when their aging Mom is not able to cook that turkey and be the high priestess of the family ritual and rituals to come. An aging Mom or Dad’s decline can be confusing, even for families that are close-knit, well-integrated, and highly functioning.

But for the dysfunctional aging family, a disabled Mom’s need for care can be overwhelming and even destructive. This kind of family the family is marked by strained relationships and unresolved conflict. They not only do not want to take over rituals or cook the Thanksgiving turkey, but they will also attend the annual family ritual and make a scene or, more likely, never show up at all.

Over Thanksgiving, you should watch the way your family interacts and try to assess what kind of family you have. This is a stepping stone to a way to work together as a team ( or not) as a parent decline. You can also call ( PUT YOUR COMPANY NAME WEBSITE) to help you both assess your family and make plans with the family about Mom’s aging and decline.”

Add A Newsletter

Make changes if you want but get started with social media and newsletter like Tasha Beauchamp’s great care management newsletter ASAP but take advantage of the highest volume of calls you will get all year if you direct family to your business.

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

December 9, 2018

Granddaughter hugging grandmother while making a cake together in the kitchen

Many 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

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Why Does the Concierge Nearly Normal Family Melt Down Over the Holidays ?

December 16, 2017

Many concierge aging families are healthy or a nearly normal family. But discovering they must care for a parent can force them into 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.

What’s a Filial Crisis in the Nearly Normal Family?

September 7, 2017

In the nearly normal aging family when the parent figure in family ages and begins to suffer the losses of getting old. Then the filial crisis occurs. What’s that-? The midlife adult children need to learn to learn to balance love and duty to their aging parents with independence. These midlife children must create a two-way relationship instead of the parent sending, love, money and be nurturing only one way. This throws adult children in a nearly normal family into a tailspin. It has 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 streetaby

Baby boomer children, are shocked and baffled when their now aging parents are no longer that John Wayne father figure who can root out every bad guy depending only on his gun and horse. When their Dad or Mom need to ask for support following to loss of health in old age, their adult children are thrown into crisis. This crisis has been labeled a filial crisis by pioneering social worker Margaret Blenkner. Blenkner, a breaker of new ground in the social sciences was the first director of the Benjamin Rose Institute in Cleveland and introduced the concept of the filial crisis. This crisis, she theorized, happened when the adult child realized that their parents were not invulnerable. Like the Twin towers crumbling after America ‘s 911, these adult children saw their impregnable parents start to disintegrate and with it the supportive bulwarks f After a life time of seeing their parents as the indomitable during their often indulged, financial, economic and emotional support, even in their children mid-life.

This filial crisis is, in essence, a new developmental phase in life, the loss of your parent’s independence and their dependence on you.

The healthy family is also thrown off balance by this shock to the system. The person who took the lead role on the family stage has not shown up or forgets their lines.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 family is thrown off balance.

Professionals Check out my book Care Managers Working With the Aging Family , with its chapter Loss Dependence, “Filial Maturity and Homeostasis in the Aging Family“, Leonie Nowitz and Cathy Cress, Jones and Bartlett, to learn more about a Filial Crisis in the Nearly Normal Aging Family

When Does the Nearly Normal Family Morph to Dysfunctional?

October 3, 2015

Nearly normal families of all types are close-knit, well integrated, highly functioning, and sufficiently resilient. Aging nearly normal families are the same. Aging family members can communicate well enough. They accept differences of opinion as an inevitable, normal part of decision making or, in some cases, as opportunities to expand their individual thinking, thereby enabling them to make better-informed decisions. They lock arms they encounter a crisis.

However, when they face the crisis of their aging parent needing care, healthy aging family’s become dysfunctional. Never expecting this, although they were already involved, they are stunned by the crisis and forced into action. Adult Children are caught in the vise grip of an elder’s deterioration, or supporting a progressively disabled older relative. These baby boomers can be confronted by the exhausting overload of long-distance care. This, never-before-experienced stress forces them to work as part of a team to help the older person. They are usually a team but this new life transition is not welcomed like the birth of a baby or a wedding. They know how to move from the role of a Mom to a grandmother. But facing a role of a parent to their parent leave them in terrifying uncharted territory with no GPS.

Read the new chapter on care managers working with the nearly normal family in an aging crisis. Get the new Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition now– or out in Kindle on Amazon in November (to keep up with technology)

When Does the Nearly Normal Family Morph to Dysfunctional?

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