Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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.

Who Should Hold a Family Meeting With Siblings in Dysfunctional Aging Family?

In order to help adult siblings in dysfunctional families, change, and work towards filial maturity  the geriatric care manager must move on all fronts.

A family meeting is one of the best tools a care manager can use.

Research shows that that siblings constructing care decisions as a group, make decisions that better respect their parent’s autonomy than a single sibling making decisions alone. Group decisions offers checks and balances together to insure the parents view is respected. Besides adult siblings it is probably true for all family members. By including the family, whoever that may be (partners, siblings, friends, spouses or ex-spouses), as a group, the care manager will be able better able to advocate for the older client because those group checks and balances are present.

So, when a decision that is critical needs to be made about an old person, a family meeting is a choice that a geriatric care manager should consider. This decision might be moving a client

to a higher level of care, or replacing a caregiving system, especially one family member replacing another.

Family meeting are generally beneficial to plan interventions and set goals. Achieving either of these is supremely difficult with the dysfunctional family.

An aging life or geriatric care manager must have at least 5 years of experience, a background in family dynamics and be certified. by a certification body like NACCM   If not turn this over to a  elder mediator. 

 

Find out more about how to run a family meeting  and intervention with dysfunctional families in my book Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition 

 

Do You have A Twisted Sister Story After the Holidays?

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Did you spend Christmas or Hanukkah with midlife siblings and family then 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.

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 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-Christmas or Hanukkah quiz to see if you need help from someone like an Aging Life 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-Christmas or Hanukkah – 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 change of season resolution and welcome The New Year by taking the – ten steps to sibling forgiveness to heal yourself and hopefully make the next holiday, sometimes the dreaded holidays with siblings will be spent hangover free. For Help

Check out my book Mom Loves You Best  

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