Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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How Storytelling Can Give Elders A Happier Family Thanksgiving

November 21, 2020

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

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

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 this 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, ask 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 story. It 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

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 this 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 parents’ 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 BeccaJulia-94.jpghigher 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.

StoryWorth For Thanksgiving

Another great idea to capture reminiscence when elders are safely sheltering in place is giving them StoryWorth. 

Last Christmas my daughter, sent this gift to my 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 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, who has been sheltering in place since March with me, really enjoys writing about his past and the prompts have brought many vivid memories back to him.

SIGN UP FOR MY 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

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, Coronavirus safety elders, COVID & HOLIDAY SEASON, Covid 19 Webinar, Dementia Activities, elder care manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Oral History, Quality of Life, Quality of Life and Reminicance, Quality of Life and Thanksgiving, Quality of Life for elders, Quality of Life with Dementia, Reminiscence Therapy, Remote Thanksgiving Family Visit, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Parent crisis, Thanksgiving Safe Visits to Grandma, Thanksgving visits during COVID, Therapist Specializing in Aging, Webinar Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent, aging parent care, aging technology, ancrestory.com, assessing for quality of life, care manager, care plan, care plan interventions, case manager, family caregivers, Family Caregivers using technology, genealogy, geriatric care management, geriatric care manager, geritaric care manager, grandfather, grandmothers, grandparents, increasing quality of life, LCSW, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, oral history, oral history and quality of life, oral history and You Tube, parent care, Quality of Life, quality of life assessment, reminicence and elder, reminisicsence technology, story telling elders, storytelling and elders, technology for caregivers, You Tube, You Tube and storytelling

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