Fifth Warning Signs of the Dysfunctional Family in Aging Family
By | November 6, 2013
- Denial – Adult children do not see decline in parent – don’t face reality.
- They do not take care of parent when they need care, object when you spend money on care and in the dysfunctional family leave the older person in danger
- Adult children are frequently reluctant to recognize or admit early signs of decline in an elderly parent, particularly when the decline involves changes in cognitive functioning. Rather than recognize behavior associated with dementia, for example, the adult daughter or son will often credit the elder’s current behaviors to earlier personality traits, like “ he was always the absent minded professor” when in fact the father has worrisome and dangerous mental decline.
- Denial becomes dysfunctional when the adult child or adult siblings fails to seek necessary treatment or assistance for the elder or allows self-destructive behaviors on the part of the elder to go unchecked. When older parents need assistance in their care, their even the nearly normal adult children may experience a range of emotions including, denial. This is because our present culture reinforces the denial of death, and preparation for it and it’s impact on everyone in the family, to include the older person who will be dying and their adult children who will be assuming their roles as head of the generation.
- But in the dysfunctional family few adult children are willing to assume that lead role Plus many dysfunctional aging families can’t gather together to make plans for the parent because there has been so much cut-off, alcohol or drug abuse or general life long shredded nests and relationships in the family.
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