Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

  • Home
  • Products
    • GCM Manual New 5th edition
    • Books
    • Geriatric Care Management – 4th Edition
    • Mom Loves You Best
    • Care Managers
  • Online Classes
    • Recommendations
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Past Webinars
  • Speaking
  • About
    • Recommendations
    • Interviews
  • Blog
    • Aging
    • Geriatric Care Manager
    • Siblings
    • Webinar
  • Contact

Ten Warning Signs That You Are Working With in a Dysfunctional Family

January 16, 2021

Warning Signs of Aging Dysfunctional Family – Contentiouness, Anger, and Cut Off

Do you know the 10  clinical manifestations that you are working with the dysfunctional family, the most challenging job of an aging professional. What you have to know is family system theory and be clinically skilled in entering this treacherous family system – to get care for an older person

1. Contentiousness – Old fights erupt; the siblings and parent get into arguments with one another about an old issue

2. Anger – Siblings and family members express physical anger, emotional abuse, financial abuse

 

 

3. Distancing & cut off – Some siblings or parents have nothing to do with family and may not speak to parents or siblings for long periods of time.

Warning Signs of Aging Dysfunctional Family – Fusion, Denial, Triangulation, Entitlement

4. Fusion – Siblings and family members, such as the mother and eldest daughter, blend into one another, For example, the daughter’s sounds, acts, and has the same prejudices as the mother. . Think of the media’s portrayal of Lindsay Lohan and her mother.

5. Denial – Adult siblings do not see a decline in a parent, do not face reality, and do not take care of the parent if he or she needs care.

6. Triangulation – Tension between two family members or siblings causes one to enlist a third family member or sibling to avoid change For example, two adult sibling object to the cost of care of an aging parent. They gang up on the third adult sibling who thinks the cost of care is reasonable and justified.

7. Sense of Entitlement – Siblings who are accustomed to purchasing services they need not personally solving their own, children’s sibling or parents’ problems. This lack of engagement leaves them, unprepared and unwilling in getting involved in solving family tribulations.

Warning Signs of Aging Dysfunctional Family – Narcissism, Needy Adult Siblings, Substance Abuse and Cut Off

8. Narcissism – One or more siblings has an “it’s all about me” attitude and

other siblings resent this. The self-absorbed sibling either does not participate

9. Needy Adult Siblings – These adult siblings feel starved for affection and often seek affection from professionals and other people in their lives for compensation for the care they didn’t receive as children.

10 . Substance and Other Abuse – The family and siblings have a history of drug, alcohol, and/or child abuse.

If this fits you you and your aging parent needs care may need to contact a geriatric care manager.

Sign Up for My Free January Webinar  

5 Vital Clinical Tools to Help Aging Dysfunctional Families-Post Horrid Holidays- 

             Thursday, January 21, 2021

F

  Give frantic adult children hope when they desperately call after the holiday  

 Join me and learn how to come to the rescue of concierge dysfunctional families who found coal in their stocking.      

Learn how to!

  • Understand the Dysfunctional Aging Family System you must enter to get care for elders
  • Understand 11 Warning Signs You Are Working with Dysfunctional Family
  • Master Vital Clinical Tools you to solve client problems
  • Take Six Steps Professional Must Take to Work with These Difficult Families
  • Get care for aging family members when the dysfunctional family members resist

 SIGN UP NOW

 Find out more in the YouTube for My YouTube, Channel  Geriatric Care 1

 

 

Filed Under: abusive aging parents, adult child physical abuse, Adult children, aging family crisis, aging family system, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, Aging therapist, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family Inquiry, Dysfunctional Family System, elder abuse, elder care manager, elder fiscal abuse, elder mediator, entitled family, estranged siblings, FREE WEBINAR, GCM COACHING SKILLS, geriatric care manager, geriatric care manager start up, midlife siblings, Siblings Tagged With: adult children of borderline narcissistic VIP families, aging family, blaming familiy members, boundaries dysfunctional families, Clinical Tools Dysfunctional Holiday, cut -off, cut-off sibling, dysfunctional aging family, geriatric care manager, help with dysfunctional family, midlife siblings, Narcissistic Personality, sibling, Substance abuse in the elderly

Why Do Adult Children Hate and Love Parents in Aging Dysfunctional Family?

January 11, 2021

ed6855aa32d877d7fc1ef9ee757e0f17-98.jpg

The aging dysfunctional family takes an expert to tackle because violence can break out at any time. In the film version of Tracy Letts  August in Osage County. Julia Roberts (the eldest daughter) attacks Meryl Streep (the pill-popping aging mother) at a ritual family gathering- the elder Dad’s funeral after he commits suicide.

 In the dysfunctional family, there have been symptoms of problems such as alcohol abuse, drug abuse, child abuse, or emotional abuse, like the demeaning mother the character Meryl Streep plays in August in Osage County. These dysfunctions usually create barriers to nurturing and this affects everyone in the family system.

The family system is also marked by ambivalence and all adults and children live in a love-hate relationship with other family members. (Julia Roberts character and all the daughter both love and revile their mother ).

 As systems resist change, it is even more difficult for members of the dysfunctional family to move to make changes when their parent needs care, like Meryl Streep does in August in Osage County. Julia Roberts and none of the daughters will care for their despised mother.

 The nearly normal system is shaken to its core by the parent being dependent. However, a care manager can guide the family members into reorganizing their family roles when the parent can no longer act as head of the family, while acknowledging the shift and changes they need to make both emotionally and practically. 

The members of the dysfunctional family who may have experienced a lack of nurturing by their parent and have no role model of caring. They are angry and resentful at caring for the parent, and thus will find it difficult to provide the practical and emotional care that their aging parent needs. The challenge to the adult child of the dysfunctional family is how to meet the dependency needs of the here and now old-old parent when the parent did not meet them dependency needs as a child.  That is why they need a highly experienced Geriatric Care Manager who can work with dysfunctional aging families.

 The challenge to the care manager is to bring the adult child of the dysfunctional family into the here and now and see their parents for who they are- an aging dependent person, flawed and imperfect, but a human being who needs their love, support and nurturing.

 

 

Sign Up for My Free January Webinar  

             Thursday, January 21, 2021

  Give frantic adult children hope when they desperately call after the holiday  

 Join me and learn how to come to the rescue of concierge dysfunctional families who found coal in their stocking.      

Learn how to!

  • Understand the Dysfunctional Aging Family System you must enter to get care for elders
  • Understand 11 Warning Signs You Are Working with Dysfunctional Family
  • Master Vital Clinical Tools you to solve client problems
  • Take Six Steps Professional Must Take to Work with These Difficult Families
  • Get care for aging family members when the dysfunctional family members resist

 SIGN UP NOW

 

 

Find out more on my YouTube Channel:  Geriatric Care 1 

 

 

 

Filed Under: adult child physical abuse, adult emotional abuse, Aging, aging family crisis, aging family system, aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging Mother, Aging therapist, Blog, Dysfunctional Aging Familu, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, Dysfunctional Family Inquiry, Dysfunctional Family System, estranged siblings, Families, fiscal abuse, Fiscal Elder Abuse, GCM Webinar, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Long Distance Care, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, POST HOLIDAY CALLS, Siblings, Sign Up Dysfunctional Aging Family, Webinar, Webinar ALCA GCM Tagged With: aging dysfunctional family, aging life and geriatric care management, aging life care management, aging life care manager, aging parent, aging parent crisis, care manager, caregiver assessment, case manager, Clinical Tools Dysfunctional Holiday, dysfunctional aging family, geriatric care manager, Holidays with midlife siblings, nurse care manager, Tools with Dysfunctional families, Violence Dysfunctional Family, Working With Dysfunctional family

Please Elvis – We had a Blue Christmas

December 26, 2020

Dys-fam90264_CH22_FIG02.jpg

      

A Blue Christmas or Hannakka is what the dysfunctional family always has. Elvis gets them. He sings it for this joyless broken-hearted –yet furious- family. They have a blue holiday filled with memories of ruined, -maybe drunken- giftless pain while most holiday songs warble their celebration should be white.


And when those blue snowflakes start falling
That’s when those blue memories start calling
You’ll be doin’ all right with your Christmas of white
But I’ll have a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas

             You can’t be Elvis but here are some more steps a geriatric care manager can transform these families after they call on the holiday.

 

 

           

                        Identify intergenerational roles and conflicts: The GCM must ” get” existing power dynamics within the family, redefine responsibilities to move to generational maturity, and realign roles and tasks for each family member.

 

The GCM should encourage a new two-way nurturing relationship between the adult child and the aging parent that never existed. At the same time, the GCM must enable the adult child as a caregiver to set limits that are appropriate to a mature relationship  (a very hard redo) The GCM shapeshifts the adult child to identify and remove himself or herself from triangulated, fused, or other destructive family patterns that blue, blue Christmas

 

Sign Up for My Free January Webinar  

5 Vital Clinical Tools to Help Aging Dysfunctional Families-Post Horrid Holidays- 

             Thursday, January 21, 2021

  Give frantic adult children hope when they desperately call after the holiday  

 Join me and learn how to come to the rescue of concierge dysfunctional families who found coal in their stocking.      

Learn how to!

  • Understand the Dysfunctional Aging Family System you must enter to get care for elders
  • Understand 11 Warning Signs You Are Working with Dysfunctional Family
  • Master Vital Clinical Tools, you to solve client problems
  • Take Six Steps Professional Must Take to Work with These Difficult Families
  • Get care for aging family members when the dysfunctional family members resist

    SIGN UP NOW

Find out more in the YouTube for My YouTube, Channel  Geriatric Care 1

 

 

Filed Under: abusive aging parents, Aging, Aging Families and Disaster, Aging Family, aging family crisis, aging family system, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, Blog, borderline client, Borderline narcissistic family, Cut Off, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, Dysfunctional Family System, entitled family, estranged elder parents and adult kids, estranged siblings, Families, fiscal abuse, Fiscal Elder Abuse, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, intergenerational conflict, nurse advocate, nurse care manager Tagged With: adult child, aging family dynamics, Blue Christmas, boundary in aging families, Clinical Tools for Aging Family, destructive family pattern, Dysfuctional Family system, dysfunctional family roles, fusion, geriatric care manager, older parents refusing care, triangulated aging family system, Triangulation

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

December 18, 2020

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 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
  1. SIGN UP FOR MY WEBINAR To Find Out Clinical Tools to

  2. Work With These 

  3. Families 

  4.  

      Sign Up for My January Webinar  

     Working with Aging Dysfunctional Families- January and February-Long Day’s Journey into Night- 

                 Thursday, January 21, 2021

      Give frantic adult children hope when they desperately call after the holiday   Join me and learn how to come to the rescue of concierge dysfunctional  families who found coal in their stocking.      Learn how to:family-charis1-226x300.jpg Understand the Dysfunctional Aging Family System you must enter to get care for elders   Understand 11 Warning Signs You Are Working with Dysfunctional Family    Master the 5 Clinical Tools – you need – to solve these problems with your clients   Learn Six Steps Professional Must Take to Work with These Difficult Families    

     

     

     

    Find out more in the YouTube for My YouTube, Channel  Geriatric Care 1

    t
  1.  

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, care manager, case manager, Clinical Tools Dysfunctional families, Concierge Senior, Dysfunctional Aging Familu, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, elder care manager, estranged siblings, Families, Filial Crisis, FREE WEBINAR, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Long Distance Care, Narcissistic Personality, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life for elders, sibling rivalry, Sibling Strife Christmas, Sibling Strife Holidays, Siblings, Spoiled Holiday Rituals, Therapist Specializing in Aging, Webinar Tagged With: aging dysfunctional family, aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent, aging parent care, care management, care manager, case manager, dysfunctional family, geriatric care manager, nurse care manager

Dysfunctional Family Holiday Mayhem – Mom Can’t 4 Manage the Ritual any Longer

December 4, 2020

What is the Normal Family vs Dysfunctional?

The normal family is the hand grenade compared to the nuclear bomb of the dysfunctional family. When both are faced with a filial crisis with an aging parent being dependent and the adult child needs to take over they cower or explode.

Dysfunctional families have many characteristics.

They lack the ability to resolve conflicts and have frequent psycho-social blockages that prevent the family from growing emotionally. They fail miserably at moving through all family stages and orchestrating family rituals.

Most life transitions in the family, like birth, adolescence, and marriage have been very difficult to make, marked by a lack of support from the parents. Every holiday might have been drunkenly ruined. The parental figures are usually not in charge, nurturing, or able to establish establishes clear rules. They have never created an excel spreadsheet on tasks to do to orchestrate a holiday. Like a disease spreading down generations, they never knew how themselves, as their parents wrecked the holidays too.

Bad or just NO Family Leader

There are murky roles for everyone in the dysfunctional family with the chief role of the parent characterized by a lack of leadership of the family and the ability to nurture the children. Mom rarely became the high priestess on Hanukkah or Christmas, the family members generally do not believe the parent is there for them and can be depended upon. The dysfunctional family is colored by bloody strained relationships and unresolved conflicts and drunken ruined Christmas memories

Dysfunction Families Inspiration For Great Literature

is the inspiration for great literature. O’Neil’s wrenching plays A Long Day’s Journey into Night”  ed6855aa32d877d7fc1ef9ee757e0f17-98.jpgportrays the most miserable of dysfunctional families. Alcohol, secrets that have been kept by all for generations splatter the pages of this great play like it does in all the ruined holiday’s children of dysfunctional families recall with horror.  Prince of Tides a tale of a southern dysfunctional family gives us timelier glimpses of a family whose center can never hold together and whose blood oozes all over everyone from one generation to the next. Award-winning plays and films, like Tracey Letts August in Osage County about a ruined ritual funeral from hell when Julia Roberts tries to beat up drug-addled, drunk presiding mother Meryl Streep.

Burnt Latkes or the Christmas cookies-inflame the family

When Mom does not make the very small things she was able to pull off like the latkes or the Christmas cookies-  she always made every Hanukkah and Christmas, or burns them to a crisp- someone else has got to be the cook, and resentments skyrocket – tempers flare – and the torch just might never get passed.

Someone must take over the holiday rituals

The family is again thrown into crisis. That means someone must take over and the dysfunctional family has no model or spreadsheet to pull off the holidays while caring for a parent who did not care for them.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, Blog, Dementia & Holidays, Dysfunctional Aging Familu, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, elder abuse, estranged siblings, Families, Filial Crisis, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday Sibling Rivalry, Nearly Normal Aging Family, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, parent care, Sibling Strife Holidays, Spoiled Holiday Rituals Tagged With: aging dysfunctional family, aging life and geriatric care management, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, alzheimers & holidays, care manager, case manager, dysfunctional family on the holiday, geriatric care manager, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holidays Crisis in aging family, holidays rituals, Long Days Journey Into Night, nurse care manager

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Contact

Use the form on the
Contact page to email Cathy.

Email

Connect with Cathy

Get Cathy’s “10 Critical Success Steps to a Profitable Aging Life or GCM Business”

  • Home
  • GCM Manual New 5th edition
  • Books »
  • Services »
  • About
  • Recommendations
  • Blog »
  • Contact

Copyright © 2012–2021 CressGCMConsult & Cathy Cress - Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management | Site Designed by Kissa's Kreations