Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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With Omicron Make a Plan If Aging Parents Can’t Spend Holidays With You

December 20, 2021

HOLIDAY GATHERING WITH AGING PARENTS NOT SAFE

The CDC has warned again in yet another holiday season – 2021 to be very cautious about traveling on the holidays to keep yourself and your elderly relatives safe with the new variant of Omicron spreading so quickly.

Dr . Anthony Fauci has some very excellent advice about safe holiday gatherings with the specter of Omicron spreading so quickly over our celebrations.

 

The hygienic shield protecting from virus

What is your short-term plan? Since the crisis with Omicron and its spread soaring through colleges, football games, restaurants, and schools are closing has come down in the last week,  what will you do about your holiday travel plans to family.

How are you going to get there? Why are we asking people to sacrifice distancing? If you have considered all the warnings of science and the CDC and if getting everyone tested with a home testing kit is not an option,  and you need to cancel seeing older relatives or family with immune problems -consider the advice of a noted scientist below. 

 

Last Holiday season Dr. Michael Osterholm, Disease Expert U of Minnesota,  had warned against  gathering in person with elderly family members on theHolidays
“We need somebody to start to articulate,  a story to use. ‘If  we don’t have that storytelling going on right now, that’s every bit as important as the science itself,”

 

NEED LONG TERM PLAN STARTING NOW

So adult children need to start making a new COVID-19 Omicron spreading so quickly travel plan. What will you say to their aging parents to convey they do not want to infect or even expose them to covid-19 so you cannot celebrate the holidays together? They cannot come to your home for the festivities; you cannot go to theirs.

This change in plans takes, as Osterholm suggested

creating a story and learning how to tell stories if you do not already know.

HOW TO TELL A STORY 

Vaile Wright, senior director for health care innovation at the American Psychological Association. suggests creating the story,beginning by explaining how much you care about your family “I feel it’s in my family’s best interests to be more strict, so we’re not going to travel for Christmas.” This type of language, she said, makes the other person less defensive, since it doesn’t come across as “You aren’t doing the right thing so I can’t come to visit.”

Sign Up for My Free  January Webinar

 

 

 

11 Clinical Steps to Work with Dysfunctional Families-Post Holidays –

Thursday, January 21

 

Give frantic adult children hope when they desperately call after the holiday

SIGN UP  

and learn how to come to the rescue of concierge dysfunctional families who found coal in their stockings.

 

 

 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 the 5 Clinical Tools – you need – to solve these problems with your clients

Learn Six Steps Professional Must Take to Work with These Difficult Families

 

Sign -Up Now 

Even if you cannot make the date, sign up you get a recording the next day

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, Coronavirus safety elders, CORONAVIRUS Stay at Home Plan, COVID & HOLIDAY SEASON, Covid Holiday Remote Visit, COVID Webinar, COVID-19 Webinar, Families, FREE WEBINAR, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday season, HolidaySeason and COVID, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, TELEHEALTH HOLIDAY PLAN, Telehealth with GCM, ZOOM CHRISTMAS, ZOOM HANUKKAH, ZOOM THANKSGVING Tagged With: aging family, aging life and geraitric care manager, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, COVID & Christmas, COVID & Holidays, COVID & Seasonal Flu, COVID VIRTUAL CHRISTMAS VISIT, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday COVID Celebration, HOLIDAY VISIT TO FAMILY PLAN, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

Make a Plan to Help Aging Parents Cannot Celebrate Holidays Together

December 16, 2020

HOLIDAY GATHERING WITH AGING PARENTS NOT SAFE

Dr. Michael Osterholm, Disease Expert U of Minnesota has warned against  gathering in person with elder family members on the Holidays
“We need somebody to start to articulate, ‘What is our long-term plan? How are we going to get there? Why are we asking people to sacrifice distancing? Why are we telling

people if you really love your family, you won’t go home for Christmas and end up infecting mom or dad or grandpa and grandma.’ We don’t have that storytelling going on right now, and that’s every bit as important as the science itself,”

 

NEED LONG TERM PLAN STARTING NOW

So adult children need to start making a long-term plan. What are they going to say to their aging parents to convey they do not want to infect or even expose them to covid-19 so you cannot celebrate the holidays together? They cannot come to your home for the festivities and grandma and grandpa cannot go to theirs.

This takes, as Osterholm suggested

creating a story and learning how to tell stories if you do not already know.

HOW TO TELL A STORY 

Vaile Wright, senior director for health care innovation at the American Psychological Association. suggests starting the story by explaining how much you care about your family“I feel it’s in my family’s best interests to be more strict, so we’re not going to travel for Christmas.” This type of language, she said, makes the other person less defensive, since it doesn’t come across as “You aren’t doing the right thing so I can’t come to visit.”

SIGN UP FOR MY WEBINAR

 

Sign Up for My January Webinar  

 Working with Aging Dysfunctional Families- January and February-Long Day’s Journey into Night- 

             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 st

 

 

 Learn how to:family-charis1-226x300.jpg

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 the 5 Clinical Tools – you need – to solve these problems with your clients

 

Learn Six Steps Professional Must Take to Work with These Difficult Families

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, Coronavirus safety elders, CORONAVIRUS Stay at Home Plan, COVID & HOLIDAY SEASON, Covid Holiday Remote Visit, COVID Webinar, COVID-19 Webinar, Families, FREE WEBINAR, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday season, HolidaySeason and COVID, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, TELEHEALTH HOLIDAY PLAN, Telehealth with GCM, ZOOM CHRISTMAS, ZOOM HANUKKAH, ZOOM THANKSGVING Tagged With: aging family, aging life and geraitric care manager, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, COVID & Christmas, COVID & Holidays, COVID & Seasonal Flu, COVID VIRTUAL CHRISTMAS VISIT, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday COVID Celebration, HOLIDAY VISIT TO FAMILY PLAN, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

8 Steps to Take to Avoid Midlife Sibling Mayhem on Thanksgiving

November 12, 2020

Ritual Celebrations  + COVID Turn Into Kick- Boxing

Celebrations, (like Thanksgiving coming up) Hanukah, Christmas

 

Father’s – any holiday— can be a nightmare with adult siblings and the dysfunctional family. You have to show up, yet you prepare for the daggers or uppercuts – either wielded by you as a sibling.

 Tips to Save the Holidays

1) It is a holiday event, not a family meeting. If you want to talk about personal issues, make a date to get together with your angry sister/brother.

2) Remember that it is Thanksgiving and not all about you. Keep a positive attitude for the sake of your aging parent if they are there, your own kids your nieces and nephews, and your adult siblings.

4)Have a family meeting to discuss COVID restrictions and the best way to stay safe,

 

which might mean a zoom meal Do not exclude in the decision. Again to build a team effort.

5) Call ahead and arrange to split the bill if you order individual meals from a  restaurant due to COVID – ahead of time- again team effort and no embarrassing credit card bargaining at the table that only brings on more fights.

 

6) Keep your alcohol in check. You can’t control anyone else but you can control and even change yourself. We all say things we may regret with lots of nervous drinking.

 

7) Check out in-person family meeting tools and some free online meeting tools so if you have an aging parent you can arrange care between siblings with online after the holiday get meeting- not in midst of holiday visit.

8) Hire an aging life care manager to facilitate a family meeting.

SIGN UP FOR MY FREE 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 strugglingwith 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

 

 

Filed Under: Adult children, ADULT SIBling, Aging, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, ALCA COVID-19 Crisis, ALCA Disaster Plan, Coronavirus safety elders, COVID & HOLIDAY SEASON, Cut Off, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday Sibling Rivalry, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Remote Thanksgiving Family Visit, SIBLING, sibling rivalry, Sibling Strife Holidays, Sibling Strife Thanksgiving, THANKSGIVING BLOG, Thanksgiving Parent crisis, Thanksgiving Safe Visits to Grandma, Thanksgving visits during COVID Tagged With: check list for holiday visit, COVID Safety Precautionss, COVID THANKSGIVING VISIT, danger signs for holiday visit, dysfunctional family on the holiday, Holiday COVID Celebration, Holiday Crisis For Aging Family, Holiday sibling rivalry, Holidays with midlife siblings

What Types Concierge Clients Can Afford Paid Care Besides Donald Trump On the Holidays?

November 1, 2020

 Types of aging families who can afford care management

Families who can afford geriatric care management and home care  long term can do so because they have the financial resources, which are usually over a million dollars in assets.. Part of this is drawn from Claudia Fine and Nick Newcombe excellent chapter ” Entitlement in the Aging Family”, Care Managers Working With the Aging Family, Jones and Bartlett) 

Narcissistic-Entitled Families:

Entitlement in these families usually develops from a specific kind of “not good enough parenting” in which the parents themselves have struggled with personality disorders, most typically, in this type of family, narcissistic borderline personality  ( example President Trump)They struggled with a borderline personality that went undiagnosed or was formally diagnosed and untreated. The narcissistic or borderline parent essentially does not experience the child/children as separate and discreet from themselves and, moreover, uses the child/children to serve parental needs.  This parent-child relationship is characterized by severe boundary issues in which seduction and abandonment are ever-present dynamics and where emotional unpredictability and instability are constant.  ( Fine and Newcombe- Entitlement in the Aging Family, Care Managers Working With the Aging Family)

 

 Rich and Famous-Entitled Families:

These families are identified by the parents’ socioeconomic, financial and political prominence.  ( example President Reagan)They are families in which all basic needs, services, resources and creature comforts are obtained via income, assets, abundant discretionary cash flow and/or come from the political position, station or power.  Once again, the entitlement of the family is passed from the parent to the child who in turn brings these behaviors and actions to the caregiving milieu and care management relationship.  In this category, the entitlement arises out of a family that is accustomed to purchasing everything.  They look to paid others to meet their needs (as opposed to families who must themselves find and orchestrate ways to meet basic and complex needs themselves or with the help of the extra-familial system).  Often these families have household staff, i.e., nannies, butlers, drivers, private pilots, cooks, and maids.  They may have available to the business and family lawyers and accountants, as well as, teams of medical professionals and concierge physicians.  Consequently, in almost all situations they are uninvolved in processes, especially those that are difficult, stressful and time-consuming.  ( Fine and Newcombe- Entitlement in the Aging Family, Care Managers Working With the Aging Family)

 

Well-heeled seniors,affluentseniors.jpg

According to the New York Times, may be middle-class retirees who buy shoes from Payless but have a defined pension can afford care at home when they need it and private care management. They rode the post-war economy, held jobs long term and through that defined pension (no 401K) face a very healthy financial picture in aging.  They worked for city, county, state government are teachers, truck drivers, social workers or were union members in all trades. They had a career at Xerox, IBM, Campbell Soup and big Fortune 500 companies.

 

Professionals- Physician, Attorneys, CPAs

This group made a very healthy living during the late 20th Century, probably had a defined pension and have very lucrative investments that allow them to afford home care and care management. They usually come from nearly iStock_000063346301_Medium-1.jpgnormal families and have been well parented although you will find a mixture of dysfunctional aging families. Their adult children tend to be supportive of their parents, although again you will find a mixture of dysfunctional families in this category.

If you are in any of these families, how will you spend the coming holidays with them- and will you spend the future COVID-ridden Holidays with them. If you are a geriatric care manager or geriatric therapist, what will you advise your clients do during this star crossed holiday on ice.?

SIGN UP FOR MY NEW FREE 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

 

 

 Blog: https://www.cathycress.com/blog/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Gerontologist/Cathy-Cress-MSW-633836950007072/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cathyjocress

Email: cressgcm@got.net

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, ALCA & Skilled Nursing Facility, Blog, Concierge aging clients, Concierge Client, concierge clients, Concierge Senior, COVID & HOLIDAY SEASON, Covid 19 Webinar, Covid Holiday Remote Visit, COVID Webinar, Covid-19 and GCM SERVICES, COVID-19 Webinar, elder care manager, Families, Geriatric Assessment, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, high end clients, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday season, Holiday Sibling Rivalry, Holidays, HolidaySeason and COVID, home care, Long Distance Care, Long distance caregiver, Narcissistic Personality, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Remote Thanksgiving Family Visit, Webinar Tagged With: Aging Concierge client, aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, Certified Senior Advisors, Concierge Care Manager, Covid, COVID & Holiday Season, COVID VIRTUAL CHRISTMAS VISIT, COVID VIRTUAL HANN, COVID VIRTUAL THANKSGIVING VISIT, Covid-19 Telehealth, COVIF VIRTUAL THANKSGIVING VISIT, Entitled, Entitled Family, geriatric care manager, Holiday COVID Celebration, Narcissistic Personality, nurse advocates, nurse care manager, Rich and Famous, Virtual COVID Holiday Celebration, well heeled seniors

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