Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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5 Steps to Avoid Midlife Step Sibling Fireworks on Fourth of July

July 3, 2019

 

Do You Expect Acid Reflux at 4th of July Barbecue From Step Sibling?

Are your midlife step siblings or half siblings coming July 4th barbecue? Maybe you expect acid reflux from the hot sauce that parental divorce dribbles on family celebrations.

Rituals like July 4th events are the glue that bond family life. They patch up family and sibling disputes and give us the architecture of a year full of celebrations marking family history.

But the tidal wave of divorce among baby boomers and Generation X brings step siblings with old grudges, half siblings who lost family love, ½ their rooms, and gained a shredded family nest. Now the family does not know who it’s members really are and rituals like labor day – can turn into a nightmare.

 Avoid the Drama of Step Siblings to Help Your Aging Parents

Aging parents, who may be at the labor day event, don’t need the drama and will need all of you to be a family team when they need care as they decline.family-fight-300x223.jpg

Here are some tips to include everyone including step siblings and half siblings

 

1.Ask everyone to bring a dish. That is the beginning of building a family team- to share care of aging parent care

2.Don’t make this a family meeting where old sibling grudges get hashed out. Celebrations are just that. If someone pushes you button, keep that angry response to yourself and maybe arrange a future family meeting.




3.Makes an effort to includes step and half siblings and glue that jagged bond. Create activities that everyone can join -– blood, step, or half siblings.

 

4. Find out what everyone likes to do. If they are step kids or step siblings make sure you have fun things to do ahead of time that they enjoy. Step siblings who may feel like third wheels in your clan. If they have a difficult time blend Reach out to make them part of the group. Understand their reluctance to join. Do Not make them feel like Cinderella. Bring them up to the top floor of the castle. 

5. If none of this work and you face or are deep into aging parent care Family meetings can be planned post labor day with a geriatric care manager or a mediator’s help.

6. Find a geriatric care manager near you at Aging Life Care Association web site. Just put in your zip code and come up with a great care manager. Find an elder mediator

 

Filed Under: 4th of july, Adult children, Aging, aging family crisis, aging life business Tagged With: adult sibling conflict, celebrations with siblings, cut-off sibling, estranged midlife sibling, half-sibling, irate siblings, sibling rivalry, step sibling, step sibling family meeting

How Can You Improve Your Midlife Sibling Relationship Post Labor Day

September 5, 2017

 

 

Did you spend Labor Day with midlife and care of your aging parents came up. Did you wake with a horrible hangover- either from too much booze or just amplified emotional tension that turns you inside out next morning.

Perhaps it involved arguments over aging parent care? If dealing with your siblings gives you a royal headache, the tension may have been made worse by the conflagration of alcohol and /or age old rifts between you and your siblings that started in childhood.

It may be time to look into the roots of your family script before your parents do need care or if they need care now.

Did your step, half or blood sibling do something long ago that’s still a weeping wound in your mind? Does it keep you apart or in each other’s faces –  – especially awkward- during a holiday gathering when families were flocking together consuming mounds of barbecue & pot luck food and sharing old stories or recent family news

If the main villain in the family tragedy is a sibling or step sibling or half sibling – here’s a post-Labor Day quiz to see if you need help from someone like a geriatric care manager 

.

Find out if have a sibling “ I Hate You Story”. Maybe you did not think you needed this test few weeks ago. Post Labor Day – if you know you need the test now- here it is.

Take the test below.

1. Have you told your sibling story more than once to the same person?

2.  Do you play the sibling events more than two times in a day in your mind?

3. Do you find yourself speaking to the sibling who hurt you even when the person is not there?

4. Have you made a commitment to yourself to tell the sibling story without being upset then found yourself agitated anyway?

5. Is the sibling who hurt you a central character in your story?

6. When you tell your sibling story does it remind you of other painful things that happened to you?

7. Does the sibling story focus primarily on your pain and what you lost?

8. In your sibling story is there a villain?

9. Have you made a commitment not to tell the sibling story again and then broken your vow?

10. Do you look for other people with similar sibling problems to tell your story to?

11. Has your sibling story stayed the same over time?

12. Have you checked the details of your sibling story for accuracy?

If you answer yes to five or more the questions, there is a good chance you have a sibling I Hate You “ story. To end brother or sister blood step or half sibling blood feud and make peace makes forgiveness as a  gift to you.

Try a change of season resolution and welcome autumn by taking the – a step towards sibling forgiveness and parent care with the help of a geriatric care manager to hopefully make the next holiday, sometimes the dreaded Thanksgiving with siblings will be spent hangover free with the parent care issue resolved

Professionals Check out my book Care Manager’s Working With the Aging Family , with it’s chapter Working With Adult Aging Siblings Jones and Bartlett, to learn more about working with feuding midlife siblings.

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, care manager, Care Plan, Dysfunctional aging family, elder care manager, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Siblings Tagged With: aging family, aging parent crisis, blood sibling, Cain and Abel, celebrations with siblings, elder care crisis, favorite sibling, geriatric care manager, geriatric care managers, half-sibling, Labor Day, manning the barbecue, midlife sibling crisis, midlife sibling team, Mom Loves You Bes Forgiving and Forging Sibling Relationships, sibling, siblings fighting, step sibling, victim, villian

5 Steps To Include Step Siblings and Half Siblings in Holiday Gatherings

December 20, 2016

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Are your midlife stepsiblings or half siblings going to be at the coming Hanukkah or Christmas ? Maybe you expect acid reflux from the hot sauce that parental divorce dribbles on family celebrations.

 Rituals like Hanukkah or Christmas events are the glue that bond family life. They patch up family and sibling disputes and give us the architecture of a year full of celebrations marking family history. Rituals are the touchstones for rites and family passages and keep us gathering over and over again to celebrate and observe those landmarks. Rituals also give form to every day we spend and are the counterpoints of the turning clock when the family can gather and talk, share and gossip.

 But the tidal wave of divorce among baby boomers and Generation X brought step siblings with old grudges, half siblings who lost family love, ½ their rooms, and gained a shredded family nest. Now the family does not know who it’s members really are and rituals like Hanukkah or Christmas – can turn into a nightmare.

 This is true especially for aging parents, who may be at the Hanukkah or Christmas event, don’t need the drama and will need all of you to be a family team when they need care as they decline.

Here are some tips to include everyone including step siblings and half siblings

 

  1. Call everyone ahead of time. Invite them and ask everyone to bring a dish. That is the beginning of building a family team- sharing
  2. Don’t make this a family meeting where old sibling grudges get hashed out. Celebrations are just that. If someone pushes you button, keep that angry response to yourself and maybe arrange a future family meeting.
  3. Schedule a Family meetings can be planned post Hanukkah or Christmas with a Aging Life Care Manager or a mediator’s help.
  4. Reinvent your Hanukkah or Christmas get-together through a new twist that really makes an effort to includes step and half siblings and glue that jagged bond. Create activities that everyone can join -– blood, step, or half siblings.

 

  1. Check ahead and find out what everyone likes to do. If they are step kids or stepsiblings make sure you have fun things to do ahead of time that they enjoy. Make sure everyone is an included, especially new member of the family like young stepsiblings who may feel like third wheels in your clan. If they have a difficult time blending (most do) – reach out to make them part of the group. Understand their reluctance to join an existing blood family where they have bloody history or a nasty Cinderella nightmare tale. Bring them up to the top floor of the castle.

Gathering for ritual occasions like Hanukkah or Christmas or any holidays, allows you to spend time together as a family and gives kids their siblings the tools to solve problems, negotiate and compromise and learn the skills of working together as a group.

 

Ritual gatherings with step half and blood siblings can build those bonds, so future sibling, ” I Hate You stories”, are not created in the here and now whether siblings are is half, blood, or step.

Check out my book Mom Loves You Best for more tips on sibling inclusion.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Blog, Dysfunctional Aging Familu, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, Siblings Tagged With: adult siblings, aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, extended family, geriatric care manager, half siblings, half-sibling, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, sibling estragement, sibling family meeting, step sibling

Red Flag # 11 for a Family meeting – Blended Adult Siblings Alienation

September 30, 2013

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Red Flag # 11 for a Family meeting – Blended Family Siblings’ Alienation – Multiple stepsiblings, half siblings, adopted or blood siblings would like to move beyond their estrangement prompted by a long ago parental divorce and remarriage of parents and form a team to help their aging parents and step parents.

 

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: blended family, geriatric care manager, half-sibling, step sibling

Solve Adult Sibling Problems Cathy Cress on WHBC Radio Tomorrow

February 10, 2013

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Tomorrow morning I will be on radio show Wriggling in the Middle , 8 AM EST ,speaking with Dr. Merle Griff and DeLores Pressley Wriggling In The Middle hosts  on how adult sibling relationships affect the caregiving process in the aging family. This is especially important when an older person needs care or home modification.

Tune in

 

Radio- Wriggling In The Middle

News Talk 1480

WHBC Radio in Canton, OH.

the show is broadcasted live from WHBC.

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: adult sibling, aging family, aging parent crisis, blaming familiy members, Care Managers Working with the Aging Family, crisis with aging parents, geriatric care manager, geriatric care managers, half sibing family meeting, half-sibling, inheritance, midlife sibling team, Mom Loves You Best Forgiving and Forging Sibling Relationships, role of youngest siblings, sibling family dynamics, sibling teamwork, siblings and caregiving, step siblings

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