Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

Ten Warning Signs You Are Working With a Dysfunctional Family

Working with Dysfunctional Family

Ten Warning Signs you are Working with Dysfunctional Family represents critical information to share with long-distance caregivers before their holiday visit. Do you know them? They include contentiousness, anger, and cut off and all are listed below. These clinical issues give the visiting caregiver signs that they need to call a care manager and you the care manager 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 parents 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.

Ten Warning Signs You are Working with the  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 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 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 need not personally solve their own, children’s siblings or parents’ problems. This lack of engagement leaves them, unprepared and unwilling in getting involved in solving family tribulations.

Ten Warning Signs You Are Working with a 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 HOLIDAY WEBINAR –

 

Get Ready for the Holiday Rush

Get Ready for the Holiday Rush

WEDNESDAY, November 16th, 2022, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

 Learn how to create!

  • Pre-Holiday Social media campaigns to reach worried caregivers
  • Pre- Holiday-Materials about the warning signs that a parent needs help
  • Pre-Holiday Marketing to help you sign up families who might face a serious decline in aging parents
  • How to sell services to desperate post-holiday callers from Normal dysfunctional & long-distance family
  • How to use tools to contain holiday chaos & arrange care in festive family fright
  • How to move the family to New Year’s stability
  • Know The Ten Warning Signs you are working with a dysfunctional family and position Your Agency ahead of Care Managers who do not have great pre-holiday marketing campaigns and lack the clinical skills how to work with Adult Children and families during the chaotic aging family holiday visit when adult kids find their aging parents need care
  • Featuring

 Cathy Cress MSW author of the Handbook of Geriatric Care

Management     

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7 Tips For Feuding Midlife Siblings on Mother’s Day

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Share ZOOM Without Daggers

Celebrations like Mother’s Day, (today) Hanukah, Christmas, and Father’s Day- (coming up)– any holiday— can be a nightmare with adult siblings and the dysfunctional family. They have to show up, yet they prepare for the daggers – either wielded by them or a fellow sibling.

 

Here are 7 tips to suggest adult sibling’s clients follow on holidays like Mother’s Day.:

 

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.images_20130906-154817_1.jpg

 

2) Remember that it is Mother’s Day 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 a time limit if using zoom for everyone to talk like 5 minutes. Call every family member. Do not exclude. Again to build a team effort.

 

5) Call ahead and arrange to split the bill a gift you send  – ahead of time- again team effort and no embarrassing credit card bargaining afterward that only brings on more fights.

 

6) Keep your alcohol in check on the zoom call. 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)If you are a professional working with midlife siblings caring for elders check out Care Managers Working With The Aging families and the Chapter about Siblings  

 

 

If Estranged— Midlife Siblings Face Draining Hourglass

Time is running out for estranged Midlife Siblings

Like  a draining hourglass, time is running out on the aging family stage. If severed ,the midlife sibling connection ,to help aging parents, has finite time left.

The midlife families play will run only so long before the curtain closes. Death stalks the cast and will pick off the characters one by one then someday shut down the performance. Vulnerable to that drawn curtain, it is important for midlife siblings to resolve brother and sister breaches before a chronic illness or sudden death takes a parent then the  sibling and leaves the survivor with nothing but regret.

Midlife brothers and sisters come through for us in a million ways.

If we move, they are the family members who most frequently help us pack, drive the U-Haul, and give a hand in the upheaval. When we retire with sheet cakes and cheap champagne, the biggest toasters can be siblings.

If  elderly parents are moving, downsizing or relocating to warmer climates, siblings are there to help us parcel out family treasures, sort out the collected furniture and decades of junk, working with us as a team to help get our parents to the new location.

Siblings are stellar partners in this sometimes-overwhelming adult child task. If we become disabled or are ill, that sibling air mattress can reflate on a dime, and brothers and sisters are among the first people we can call in a health care crisis, to do everything from going on the web to find resources to coming to our home and nursing us back to health.

Forgiving Siblings Crucial as We Age

Potential victims of that emptying hourglass, sibling  forgiveness is crucial as we age. If the sand runs out before ruptures are repaired, the warped family pattern just appears in the next generation. Passing on impoverished sibling models deals a bad hand of family desolation to the next generation, passing on hurt, rage, resentment, and unsutured gashes.

Aging Life Care Managers Can Help Stitch Midlife Siblings Together

As care coordinators, Aging Life or Geriatric care managers can help stitch these brother and sister wounds back together, by referring to counselors and MFT who specialize in aging.They can get sibling in parent care support groups. They can take the load of arranging care of siblings backs so they  can care for work through the kinks in their relationship,  support their parents as they age and be friends in midlife.

Find out more about midlife sibling in my Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition in the Nearly Normal and Dysfunctional Family Chapters.

Red Flags for Long Distance Siblings Inquiring About Services Before the Holiday Visit.

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Checklist Midlife Siblings Holiday Visit to Aging Parents

 

Do you have adult children inquiring about your services before the rapidly approaching holiday? Here is a Check List of 10 red flags for danger to share with long distance midlife siblings for their holiday visit to aging parents? A midlife sibling Christmas or Hanukah visit to elderly parents to can be bitter or sweet or it can be just plain scary. Ask them to call you when they return and you can set up a meeting with all the siblings to discuss care.

 

The frightening part often happens when you haven’t seen an aging Mom or Dad for a while. If midlife siblings live long distance, making an occasional visit can set off alarms, especially if they find  aging Mom or Dad has gone downhill . Then a geriatric or aging life care manager is just the perfect answer. Let them figure this out with your geriatric care manager  Sherlock Holmes guidance and clues to find your value.

 

  1. Curb Appeal – Does your Dad’s home look more like an unmaintained rental? Is there disrepair, a weedy yard, uncleaned carpets or furniture?
  2. Housekeeping – Are there dirty dishes, unwashed sheets, a mess where things used to be tidy? Does the house look like it needs a scrubbing, or at least someone to help with cleaning?
  3. Medication – Can you find a stash of outdated medication in the bathroom, bedroom or anywhere? ➢ Driving – Is driving with your older Dad frightening? Ask him to drive you somewhere. How is his reaction time, or judgment? Can he drive at night? Does he have traffic tickets? Assess the car. Is it worse for wear, dented or are there telltale signs of accidents?
  4. Trash- Are there bags of trash in the basement or out back? Look in closets.

 

  1. Collections- Are there growing collections that appear to be out of control, of newspapers, magazines, old sports memorabilia, ashtrays – any accumulation that appears to be taking over space and looks excessive. This is a sign of hoarding
  2. Shopping- Take him out shopping or out to a meal to celebrate the day. When he does shopping or pays for a meal, does he have problems with checks, credit cards, figuring tips, or calculating discounts? Does he forget his wallet or other important personal items he should have with him?
  3. Change in Behavior- Is Dad quiet when he used to be loud? Is he paranoid, having mood swings, unsocial when he used to be the belle of the ball or life of the party?
  4. Odors- Did you smell urine? Must? Mildew? Dirty clothes or dishes?
  5. Refrigerator- Are there science experiments, aka moldy food in the refrigerator?
  6. Unpaid Bills- are there piles of unpaid bills in drawers or in your loved one’s desk. Are their notices or gas or electric turn offs? Search their desk and perhaps, in you have access, look at their bill pay account.

 

 If any of these clues turn up trouble, you should set up meeting vis phone or in person to talk your midlife siblings about the problems discovered and set up a family meeting via Skype, in person or a family conference call. 

For More Read Care Manager’s Working With Nearly Normal Families- Working With Long Distance Care Providers in

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Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition 

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