Adult Sibling Rivalry at Thanksgiving- Where To Get Help?

November 14, 2020

Siblings are The Biggest Source Of Stress Between Human Being

At family rituals, like Thanksgiving next week, adult siblings often are often brought back together. If you are one- will it be a happy feast?

As Gail Sheehy says in her book, Passages in Caregiving, we think that siblings will automatically support each other when aging parents fall apart. Sheehy quotes sociologists, Karl Pillemer and J. Jill Suitor, in a study they did conclude that siblings are inherent rivals and the biggest source of stress between human beings.

If you are a midlife sibling, perhaps you have a brother or sister to whom you hardly speak. Maybe you are about to see your siblings at the coming Thanksgiving feast, even on zoom during COVID, and anticipate largely ignoring him or her or doing chitchat as you seethe the inside. If you fit this description, you are in the same lurching boat as uncounted baby boomer siblings all over the world.

Childhood Wound Ripped Open

That wound from childhood may still ache enough to keep you on the furrowed path your family followed when you were young. Now, however, you and adult siblings, nearing or at retirement age, may need to come together again to be part of a niece or

nephew’s wedding or christening, help plan a parent’s anniversary dinner or, most important, oversee the increasing care of elderly family members.

Best Thanksgiving Sibling War Film

I suggest you watch Pieces of April, a fabulous Thanksgiving film ( lead Katy Holmes debuts in a standout performance) where the film’s dysfunctional family revolves around adult sibling rivalry. The film is also, in the end. around a catastrophic illness of the aging parent, where the siblings need to resolve their differences.

If you recognize this problem in your own family, seek counseling before coming the holidays engulfs you. Contact the Aging Life Care Association to find help before a parental crisis.

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8 Ways to Tame the Turmoil of the Holidays & Twindemic in the Aging Family

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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

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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.

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

8 Steps to Take to Avoid Midlife Sibling Mayhem on Thanksgiving

November 20, 2019

When Ritual Celebrations Turn Into Kick- Boxing

Celebrations, (like Thanksgiving coming up) Mother’s Day, Hanukah, Christmas, and 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) Call ahead as a team effort to arrange the sharing of the food for the meal, if it is at someone’s home. Call every family member. Do not exclude. Again to build a team effort.

5) Call ahead and arrange to split the bill if at a restaurant – 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.

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

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Ten Clinical Steps to Tame the Turbulence of the Holiday Season in The Entitled Concierge Family

Join me for my free webinar and learn how to come to the rescue of Long-Distance, dysfunctional and entitled families who find coal in their stockings. Give frantic entitled adult children hope when they call desperately call this holiday. Learn the 10 Steps to tame holiday turmoil from Cathy Cress MSW, the author of the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management. Thursday, November 21, 2019, 2 PM- 3-PM PST

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How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays

How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
How to sell services to desperate adult child callers
How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
How to use financial forecasting to prepare for growth during the holidays
Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional Aging Families so the client chooses you

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS NOVEMBER 21, 2019 FROM 2 PM – 3 PM PST

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

December 16, 2016

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 barrier 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 aging life 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.

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

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