Nearly Normal Aging Family Flips to Dysfunctional

Many “Nearly Normal “families disintegrate before your eyes as their parent need care.

When they visit over mother’s day adult kids realize Mom needs some level of care.They call a s. She holds a family meeting and everyone is on-board until cost is mentioned then one adult sibling thinks you are too expensive, the other thinks Mom can afford it a third says the second was always bully  and wants Mom’s money herself and the family starts a battle royal while Mom deteriorates.

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 usually communicate well 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.  

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 out in Kindle