Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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How Storytelling at Thanksgiving Can Give Elders A Happier Family Holiday

November 22, 2022

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

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

This Thanksgiving, if you really do travel to a family home or grandma’s house, travel safely  If not make the safest choice, stay home and  use Zoom and include your elderly

 

parent. You can do oral history for elders if they can use a computer or have a family member or friend who visits often and who lives nearby and is in their bubble serve and share Thanksgiving dinner at their home and use zoom with them to see other family members on the holiday.

Share Your Thanksgiving Story

If you are at a family member’s holiday dinner and use reminiscence for elders by asking 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 stories.

Oral history for elders 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 stories 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 storytelling 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 parent’s life before. My 10 grandchildren have grown up with their now 80-year-old grandfather. telling them exciting stories of when he was a California Highway patrolman. So a dual dose of a higher quality of life for 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.

Story Telling at Thanksgiving  with Story Worth

Another great idea to capture reminiscence for elders is giving them StoryWorth. 

 

My daughter sent this gift to her Dad and both he and I love it. Each week  StoryWorth sends a question to my husband that prompts him to write about his past. He writes his reminiscence out longhand and I easily use the dictation on my phone and email his story to Story Worth.

At the end of the year, my daughter will order a bound book of all the stories- a whole collection of memories, an oral history of an elder father that she might never think to ask and will be saved for her and her children to pass on family history. I will order a copy for all her three siblings. Equally important, my husband, really enjoyed writing about his past and the prompts have brought many vivid memories back to him.

Sweet grandmother holding a beautifully cooked turkey dinner.

 

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8 Steps to Take to Avoid Midlife Sibling Mayhem on Thanksgiving

November 12, 2020

Ritual Celebrations  + COVID Turn Into Kick- Boxing

Celebrations, (like Thanksgiving coming up) Hanukah, Christmas

 

Father’s – any holiday— can be a nightmare with adult siblings and the dysfunctional family. You have to show up, yet you prepare for the daggers or uppercuts – either wielded by you as a sibling.

 Tips to Save the Holidays

1) It is a holiday event, not a family meeting. If you want to talk about personal issues, make a date to get together with your angry sister/brother.

2) Remember that it is Thanksgiving and not all about you. Keep a positive attitude for the sake of your aging parent if they are there, your own kids your nieces and nephews, and your adult siblings.

4)Have a family meeting to discuss COVID restrictions and the best way to stay safe,

 

which might mean a zoom meal Do not exclude in the decision. Again to build a team effort.

5) Call ahead and arrange to split the bill if you order individual meals from a  restaurant due to COVID – ahead of time- again team effort and no embarrassing credit card bargaining at the table that only brings on more fights.

 

6) Keep your alcohol in check. You can’t control anyone else but you can control and even change yourself. We all say things we may regret with lots of nervous drinking.

 

7) Check out in-person family meeting tools and some free online meeting tools so if you have an aging parent you can arrange care between siblings with online after the holiday get meeting- not in midst of holiday visit.

8) Hire an aging life care manager to facilitate a family meeting.

SIGN UP FOR MY FREE WEBINAR

 

8 Ways to Tame the Turmoil of the Holidays & Twindemic in the Aging Family

 Learn how!

  • How to sell services to the desperate Aging Family during the holiday surge
  • How to give hope to frantic children who call when their aging parent strugglingwith Loneliness and isolation on the holidays
  • How to help the Aging Family make holiday visits remotely or safely in person
  • How to counsel the Aging Family to track aging decline &Twindemic risk in loved ones
  • How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
  • How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
  • How to use financial forecasting to prepare for business growth during the holidays

Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional family or do COVID Coaching of Aging Families so the client chooses you

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS Thursday, December 3, 2020, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Sign Up Now

 

 

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

 

 

Filed Under: Adult children, ADULT SIBling, Aging, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, ALCA COVID-19 Crisis, ALCA Disaster Plan, Coronavirus safety elders, COVID & HOLIDAY SEASON, Cut Off, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday Sibling Rivalry, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Remote Thanksgiving Family Visit, SIBLING, sibling rivalry, Sibling Strife Holidays, Sibling Strife Thanksgiving, THANKSGIVING BLOG, Thanksgiving Parent crisis, Thanksgiving Safe Visits to Grandma, Thanksgving visits during COVID Tagged With: check list for holiday visit, COVID Safety Precautionss, COVID THANKSGIVING VISIT, danger signs for holiday visit, dysfunctional family on the holiday, Holiday COVID Celebration, Holiday Crisis For Aging Family, Holiday sibling rivalry, Holidays with midlife siblings

What Types Concierge Clients Can Afford Paid Care Besides Donald Trump On the Holidays?

November 1, 2020

 Types of aging families who can afford care management

Families who can afford geriatric care management and home care  long term can do so because they have the financial resources, which are usually over a million dollars in assets.. Part of this is drawn from Claudia Fine and Nick Newcombe excellent chapter ” Entitlement in the Aging Family”, Care Managers Working With the Aging Family, Jones and Bartlett) 

Narcissistic-Entitled Families:

Entitlement in these families usually develops from a specific kind of “not good enough parenting” in which the parents themselves have struggled with personality disorders, most typically, in this type of family, narcissistic borderline personality  ( example President Trump)They struggled with a borderline personality that went undiagnosed or was formally diagnosed and untreated. The narcissistic or borderline parent essentially does not experience the child/children as separate and discreet from themselves and, moreover, uses the child/children to serve parental needs.  This parent-child relationship is characterized by severe boundary issues in which seduction and abandonment are ever-present dynamics and where emotional unpredictability and instability are constant.  ( Fine and Newcombe- Entitlement in the Aging Family, Care Managers Working With the Aging Family)

 

 Rich and Famous-Entitled Families:

These families are identified by the parents’ socioeconomic, financial and political prominence.  ( example President Reagan)They are families in which all basic needs, services, resources and creature comforts are obtained via income, assets, abundant discretionary cash flow and/or come from the political position, station or power.  Once again, the entitlement of the family is passed from the parent to the child who in turn brings these behaviors and actions to the caregiving milieu and care management relationship.  In this category, the entitlement arises out of a family that is accustomed to purchasing everything.  They look to paid others to meet their needs (as opposed to families who must themselves find and orchestrate ways to meet basic and complex needs themselves or with the help of the extra-familial system).  Often these families have household staff, i.e., nannies, butlers, drivers, private pilots, cooks, and maids.  They may have available to the business and family lawyers and accountants, as well as, teams of medical professionals and concierge physicians.  Consequently, in almost all situations they are uninvolved in processes, especially those that are difficult, stressful and time-consuming.  ( Fine and Newcombe- Entitlement in the Aging Family, Care Managers Working With the Aging Family)

 

Well-heeled seniors,affluentseniors.jpg

According to the New York Times, may be middle-class retirees who buy shoes from Payless but have a defined pension can afford care at home when they need it and private care management. They rode the post-war economy, held jobs long term and through that defined pension (no 401K) face a very healthy financial picture in aging.  They worked for city, county, state government are teachers, truck drivers, social workers or were union members in all trades. They had a career at Xerox, IBM, Campbell Soup and big Fortune 500 companies.

 

Professionals- Physician, Attorneys, CPAs

This group made a very healthy living during the late 20th Century, probably had a defined pension and have very lucrative investments that allow them to afford home care and care management. They usually come from nearly iStock_000063346301_Medium-1.jpgnormal families and have been well parented although you will find a mixture of dysfunctional aging families. Their adult children tend to be supportive of their parents, although again you will find a mixture of dysfunctional families in this category.

If you are in any of these families, how will you spend the coming holidays with them- and will you spend the future COVID-ridden Holidays with them. If you are a geriatric care manager or geriatric therapist, what will you advise your clients do during this star crossed holiday on ice.?

SIGN UP FOR MY NEW FREE WEBINAR

 

8 Ways to Tame the Turmoil of the Holidays & Twindemic in the Aging Family

 Learn how!

  • How to sell services to the desperate Aging Family during the holiday surge
  • How to give hope to frantic children who call when their aging parent struggling with Loneliness and isolation on the holidays
  • How to help the Aging Family make holiday visits remotely or safely in person
  • How to counsel the Aging Family to track aging decline &Twindemic risk in loved ones
  • How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
  • How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
  • How to use financial forecasting to prepare for business growth during the holidays

Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional family or do COVID Coaching of Aging Families so the client chooses you

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS Thursday, December 3, 2020, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Sign Up Now

 

 

 Blog: https://www.cathycress.com/blog/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Gerontologist/Cathy-Cress-MSW-633836950007072/

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Email: cressgcm@got.net

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, ALCA & Skilled Nursing Facility, Blog, Concierge aging clients, Concierge Client, concierge clients, Concierge Senior, COVID & HOLIDAY SEASON, Covid 19 Webinar, Covid Holiday Remote Visit, COVID Webinar, Covid-19 and GCM SERVICES, COVID-19 Webinar, elder care manager, Families, Geriatric Assessment, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, high end clients, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday season, Holiday Sibling Rivalry, Holidays, HolidaySeason and COVID, home care, Long Distance Care, Long distance caregiver, Narcissistic Personality, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Remote Thanksgiving Family Visit, Webinar Tagged With: Aging Concierge client, aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, Certified Senior Advisors, Concierge Care Manager, Covid, COVID & Holiday Season, COVID VIRTUAL CHRISTMAS VISIT, COVID VIRTUAL HANN, COVID VIRTUAL THANKSGIVING VISIT, Covid-19 Telehealth, COVIF VIRTUAL THANKSGIVING VISIT, Entitled, Entitled Family, geriatric care manager, Holiday COVID Celebration, Narcissistic Personality, nurse advocates, nurse care manager, Rich and Famous, Virtual COVID Holiday Celebration, well heeled seniors

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