Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

Ten Warning Signs That You Are Working With in a Dysfunctional Family

Warning Signs of Aging Dysfunctional Family – Contentiouness, Anger, and Cut Off

Do you know the 10  clinical manifestations that you are working with the dysfunctional family, the most challenging job of an aging professional. What you have to know is family system theory and be clinically skilled in entering this treacherous family system – to get care for an older person

1. Contentiousness – Old fights erupt; the siblings and parent get into arguments with one another about an old issue

2. Anger – Siblings and family members express physical anger, emotional abuse, financial abuse

 

 

3. Distancing & cut off – Some siblings or parents have nothing to do with family and may not speak to parents or siblings for long periods of time.

Warning Signs of Aging Dysfunctional Family – Fusion, Denial, Triangulation, Entitlement

4. Fusion – Siblings and family members, such as the mother and eldest daughter, blend into one another, For example, the daughter’s sounds, acts, and has the same prejudices as the mother. . Think of the media’s portrayal of Lindsay Lohan and her mother.

5. Denial – Adult siblings do not see a decline in a parent, do not face reality, and do not take care of the parent if he or she needs care.

6. Triangulation – Tension between two family members or siblings causes one to enlist a third family member or sibling to avoid change For example, two adult sibling object to the cost of care of an aging parent. They gang up on the third adult sibling who thinks the cost of care is reasonable and justified.

7. Sense of Entitlement – Siblings who are accustomed to purchasing services they need not personally solving their own, children’s sibling or parents’ problems. This lack of engagement leaves them, unprepared and unwilling in getting involved in solving family tribulations.

Warning Signs of Aging Dysfunctional Family – Narcissism, Needy Adult Siblings, Substance Abuse and Cut Off

8. Narcissism – One or more siblings has an “it’s all about me” attitude and

other siblings resent this. The self-absorbed sibling either does not participate

9. Needy Adult Siblings – These adult siblings feel starved for affection and often seek affection from professionals and other people in their lives for compensation for the care they didn’t receive as children.

10 . Substance and Other Abuse – The family and siblings have a history of drug, alcohol, and/or child abuse.

If this fits you you and your aging parent needs care may need to contact a geriatric care manager.

Sign Up for My Free January Webinar  

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

             Thursday, January 21, 2021

F

  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

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

 

 

Sign Up for My Free January Webinar on Dysfunctional Aging Family

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

More Ruinous Roles in the Dysfunctional Aging Family

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During the holiday season, dysfunctional families with gather and one of the adult siblings call may as a care manager . The Martyr below will object, the escapee may ignore the problem as they already fled from the family.If they hire you the meddler will try to sabotage your care plan. Check out these dysfunctional family roles before the call.

The Martyr has an innate need to nurture the older adult, even when this comes at the expense of the Martyr or the older adult. The Martyr’s seemingly endless devotion can sometimes interfere with an appropriate care plan. Most commonly, he or she will insist on carrying out the older adult’s wish to remain at home beyond the point that is safe or appropriate. Despite complaints of exhaustion, the Martyr will avoid opportunities for respite. He or she may be motivated by guilt or other unresolved issues underlying the relationship. 

The Escapee is typically an adult child who lives far away and has withdrawn or is entirely absent during a family crisis. Involved family members will resent the Escapee, particularly when there is a history of family conflict. The Escapee may withdraw from family problems in self-defense and resist being drawn back into a stressful relationship with siblings. 

The Meddler will interfere with an established care plan in an attempt to wrest control away from other family members, to compete with siblings, or to assert dominance within the family. The Meddler needs to be involved in every decision made and is overly involved with details. The Meddler will have frequent contact with the care manager to change or challenge recommendations.  

The older adult, of course, is the central figure in the drama of the so-called difficult family. The care manager must assess the older adult’s own role . That’s why the care manager must take a ” Whole Family ” approach with these hard to manage clans.

 

 

What Ruinous Roles in The Aging Dysfunctional Family Make Them Reject Care?

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During the holiday season the aging family under the most stress are dysfunctional families. There never was a ritual they did not ruin. If they must face care of an aging parent at the same time they may explode and call a care manager  for help.

So when they phone in the throes of an older adult crisis, the care manager needs to recognize familiar roles and characteristics that individual family members play.

The “preserver” will resist your help, the “victim” is none too happy as well and the “manager” just may be  very delighted, as someone else will deal with the aging parental mess. What are these roles?

The preserver is more comfortable with the status quo and resists getting help for the older adult. He or she is content if the older adult remains overly dependent on the family without access to appropriate external help or services. 

The victim perceives the older adult’s problems as a direct threat to his or her own needs or self-interest. The victim will see his or her own emotional needs as more important than the older adult’s needs. He or she will frequently contact the older adult or the care manager, but the purpose of the contact will involve seeking attention for his or her own problems. 

The manager tends to be calm, organized, and analytical during a crisis but is unable to provide emotional support to the older adult or to other family members. Often, the Manager lives at a distance, which can cause tension with family members who are more directly involved in daily care. 

More Ruinous Roles tomorrow.

6 Question Dysfunctional Family Test – Can You Handle It

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During this coming holiday season aging professionals, including geriatric care managers are bound to have inquiries from dysfunctional families. Should you take the case?

Before engaging the dysfunctional family, the care manager or aging professional must want and be ready to work with the very difficult to serve. Ask these questions of yourself.

1.Are you prepared to withstand for the emotional drain of working with families who are demanding, needy and devaluing?

2.Do you have the available time and can scale back the caseload or increase your staff in order to accommodate the intensive time commitment and hours that these families require.

3.Can you factor into your business plan the high-risk nature of these families as fee-for-service clients, including a wide fluctuation in billing?

4.Can you offer the increased need for business support services and more tightly managed business practices to meet these clients’ overwhelming needs for structure and predictability.

5.Can you put up with a higher rate of termination and accounts receivable issues?

6.Do you or one of the staff have at least 5 years of practice and the credentials to work with difficult families including and LCSW, MFT, mediation and extensive work with family dynamics, family therapy and mediating.

If you are prepared for these changes in your practice, for the inherent increase of the work intruding on your personal time and the potential for your greatest challenge, then consider accepting them when they stream miserably in over the holidays.

Learn more about what you can do for long distance families and give them hope when they call desperately call this holiday.

Sign up for my free webinar

Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family- 5 Care Manager Steps to Tame the Turbulence

 

Wednesday, November 18  @11am Pacific Time

 

 

 

 

 

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