Sign Up for My Free January Webinar on Dysfunctional Aging Family

January 14, 2021

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

Thursday, January 21, 2021

2:00 3:20 Pacific Standard Time

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 only 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

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

January 11, 2021

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

Does The Dysfunctional Aging Family Need Mediation Post The Holidays ?

January 4, 2021

If your clients ‘holiday visit from their family was miserable and you are care manager to the aging parents, a family meeting between the adult sisters and brothers and a mediatory might be needed this January. This will help you decide if you need a mediator or you can be a facilitator at the family meeting. Care Managers can do facilitation but you need very advanced training to be a mediator.

a. Compatible. Does their family generally present as a unit and lock arms together in a crisis? Do you usually work as a team?

b. Fragmented: Is their family unable to work together as a unit? Do their family members and siblings contact friends and outside professionals with their problems, while failing to confide in each other? Do family members ask other family and other

siblings, friends, and outside professionals to keep conversations secret from certain relatives? Is there a cache of family secrets that some family members do not tell others or share? Do kin pit one another against each other when trouble arises? Instead of locking arms in a crisis, does their family point fingers and blame each other?

c. Is their family productive or non-productive?

1.Productive: Are the family members able to respond to the suggestions of friends or professionals and take necessary action to create change in the family?

2.Nonproductive: Are any family members unable to mobilize when help is really needed? Do any siblings or other kin feel powerless to act? Is “victim” a term you would use for some family members and or siblings? Do family members ignore the ideas friends or professionals who are trying to transform the sibling/ family dynamics

d. Is their family stable or fragile?

1.. Stable – When family members have disagreements, do they find a way to solve their problems? Does the family have long-standing relationships and respect the differences in each other?

2. Fragile: Is there a history of emotional cut-offs or distancing on the part of one or more family members? Is there a pattern of generational divorce, remarriage?

Each family is different but if this family scores 2 out of three you should investigate bringing in a mediator