Quick summary
Adult children and their parents often have trouble talking effectively. Small disagreements can be irksome and frustrating; if they simmer and grow, they can poison your last precious months and years together.
What causes these misunderstandings? According to David Solie, author of How to Say It to Seniors, they occur in part because the needs and developmental tasks older parents face are starkly different from -- and at times even conflict with -- those of their middle-aged children.
Conflicting life stages
As a culture, we tend to view our elderly parents as essentially obsolete -- like old cars destined for the scrap heap. But Solie and other geriatric experts believe that aging can actually be a period of growth and personal development. Understanding and facilitating the developmental needs of your parents can make this stage of life a deeply rewarding one -- for you and for them. But it can be difficult for middle-aged adults to support their elderly parents in this process -- in part because they're focused on their own developmental issues.
For most people, midlife is a time of independence and mastery. You've gained confidence and a clear sense of what your values are, so this stage of life is focused on consolidating your gains and taking on new responsibilities. At the same time, midlife is a time to nurture and give back, whether by having children or engaging in mentoring or social activism.
As an adult in middle age, you move quickly and efficiently through the world, completing tasks and taking care of your many responsibilities, looking ahead to the next mountain to climb. Your elderly parents, in contrast, are letting go of duties and responsibilities as they settle into retirement. As their physical health and independence fail, they try to hold fast to the areas of life they still control. At the same time, they're looking back and trying to understand the significance of their experience and what they'll leave behind.
It's these different perspectives that can lead to breakdowns in communication between you and your parents. By understanding the pitfalls, however, you can learn to talk to your elderly parents in a way that helps to close the communication gap.
I want to thank anyone who responded to my situation with my mother. However I am being truly honest when i say: i pray the Lord end her suffering. Yes, selfishly mine too. We have never been close; and her dementia is awful. She will not leave her house; yet will not let us help. than she gets angry at us for not helping. My husband is one of the most patient people I know. Now he has had enough. I can't blame him he's been great about helping out. She had him so upset the other day I was worried he was going to have a stroke or heart attack. This is not exegerating; she's "CRAZY". Mean, critical, angry, deprerresed you name it. I don't know where to turn or what to do? She will be 89 in Oct. if she lives that long. We are also raising our 6yr. old grandson part time. I'm all alone no extended family. Still grieveing our daughter; who took her life almost 6yrs. ago. My grandson was just a baby. the father also has done his best to make our lives as difficult as possible to see him. I'm more worried about losing my spouse than my mother. Thanks for reading this; I really needed to blow of some steam! I've heard it said that something you now hate; you once loved. Hate is too strong a word. I don't hate my mother, but I don't lover her either. Sometimes I think I'm losing my mind. What can I do? I know God will take care of this in his own time; and I do pray. However I need more than just spiritual help.
Busia, contact Hospice. They're not just for people who's death is imminent. They want to establish their relationships early & can be a medical advocate and provide emotional support & respite care so you can get out & have a life too.
Lovells - There must be many times when you just want to scream too. At this stage in her life your mother's not going to change. It sounds like she may have moved beyond being a pack rat and is instead a be a hoarder. She may agree to move some of her belongings if her budget can allow for storage rental or agree on a different place or places. All of these possessions may be a source of comfort or security for her. Taking them away could create stress for her & might also symbolize to her that she won't be alive much longer. With the understanding that her health & quality of life would improve she may willing to decide what needs to stay in her house & what she can get by with for a while. You could later remove what obviously should be disposed of. I'm a "recovering pack rat". Often forgot that I even had some things until I come across them so I give them away or dispose of them. It was difficult at first but now it feels great. I love the physical & mental space that I've gained. Hang in there. We are thinking about you and you can vent all you want - this is the place to do it!
Oops! My comment was a reply to what part of the article I found most helpful to me. I wasn't telling people what to do. After reading the article I realized that I should stop volunteering medical information to my parents in hopes that they will make educated choices in their health care. As a health care professional I have more medical knowledge than the average person & it's so hard for me to watch them place blind faith in their doctors. Most of the time it's OK but there have been several times when that trust has almost cost them their lives. My mother will die soon from cancer but I would like her quality of life to be as good as possible & not die from something else that could have been prevented. She has always been a very critical person, thinks she always right & seems to view my comments as being critical of her. I respect their right to make their own decisions & am careful not to tell them what to do. I always preface my comments with "Have you considered........?" My father almost lost his leg because of the incompetence & arrogance of his surgeon. In our discussion with the doc right after the 2nd of his 4 surgeries (there should only have been 1) I fought my urge to yell & literally shake some sense into him & managed to present all of my questions & comments to him politely. Afterwards my mother revealed that she wanted to kick me so I would stop and later apologized to the "doctor" & asked if he was offended by me. He said "no" & commented that I had asked very good questions. She was more concerned about his feelings than my father's health or how I felt. Just recently my mother almost died & suffered needlessly because my sister who was taking care of her during the night after a surgery (I'm 3rd of 7 kids) just left messages for the doctor to return her call (in the middle of the night) & didn't think to call me to ask my opinion on what to do. Sometimes I just want to scream. Though it scares me, I've decided to work on letting go because it's tearing me apart. As hard as that is for me I think it's best. I don't want to have to deal with the guilt of knowing that I was responsible for diminishing her emotional quality of life & want both of us to have a peaceful relationship during the time we have left together.
I am am an only child(61) yrs. old. My mother will be 89 in Oct. I can't help, please or do anyything right. She is stubborn, mistrustful of EVERYONE; including her doctors. She lives alone & will not hear about leaving her house. It's too much for her. She is a pac-rat & her house is filthy. She calls crying begging for help, than refuses or stands over my shoulder watchiing, directing everthing I do. she even wants to go thru trash before I throw it out. I'm far from the perfect daughter; as we have never been close. However I have never given her reason to mistrust me. Nor have I ever asked for money. We are grief; as we lost our daughter over 5 yrs. ago to suicide. Also helping raise her little boy who was just 5months old at the time. the father is constantly threating to take him out of lives. So we have a lot of emotional issues. This is just the short version. I hate to complain; but I am alone in all of this. Who can hjelp me?
Hugs LindaSue
It's hard when you are dealing with someone who never had health problems and now is angry all of the time about everything. Guess who gets the brunt of it? Got one parent who constantly complains and hates to live in the house and the other who would have to be taken kicking and screaming out of the house. A no win situation, and no one knows advice to give me.
Stop bringing up a concern that appears to annoy my parents so as not to alienate them and lessen the quality of our limited time together.
It is a good day, Papa is still sleeping. It is my time to have quite time. I must keep the house quite, I enjoy that. When He gets up then my work starts. How to keep him happy, How to know what to do for him and what not to do. I never know what his ablities will be today. Our world is not like most dementcia, that most families, can see the downward trail. Ours (and I say OURS, because it is a deciese, that he has, but I live it everyday) is one with lost emotioal controls lost, memory loss, paranoira, and he always oppenonated about everything and everyone, he dosen't mind telling what he thinks or how things should be done. He has lost all compassion, sympthy and empthy, for others. I am left to pick up the piceses or fix the hard feeling. Our Family and friends are pretty good about understanding, most of the time. Now we just don't go very many places, or family funcion. This is a huge change in our lives, and the loss of contacts, makes it even harder to have the support that I need. It has been 8 years, since I started seeing my best friend fade away, and the kind gentle man I married 43 years ago, turn into someone else. help.... I could use suggestions. Busia
I feel like this article was addressed personally to me! As always when i read a relevant article on this site, the mere fact of seeing my experience is a common one is very helpful. What i remind myself when dealing with all these frustrations is that my 85 & 81 year old parents are sad, frustrated and terrified. I don't remind myself nearly enough, of course, but it helps my feelings of rage and exasperation to try for a moment to see the situation from their eyes.
While this article has many excellent points, it doesn't address the issues that arrive when your parent/parents are living with you. When your parents don't live with you, you have a break (even if only a small one) from the difficult and frustrating job of communicating....when your parents live with you the difference in daily life experiences is ongoing and 24 hours per day...
Hi anonymous, thank you for your question. If you'd like you can post your question in our Ask & Answer section, located here: ( http://www.caring.com/ask ). I hope that helps, take care -- Emily | Community Manager
My dad is 65 years of age, he is a well know accountant in our town. I’ve started working with him at his firm and got in a relationship with his partner which is 28. So we’ve got a big property’s, 2houses under one roof plus the firm offices, Now my mom works away from home and she is only home on weekends and 2 nights a week. And is much younger as my dad. We didn’t had my dad at a specialist yet, and don’t know how to get to tell him to go see one. And the firm is getting under strain, he forgets his meetings and appointments, handing in clients taxes ect, at night when at table he repeats over and over the same story or stuff that had happened during the day, the nights my mom is home, we don’t sit down with them and then he gets upset, never did before but lately it’s a problem. I can understand he is getting Alzheimer’s but how can I deal with it? Its home, work, relaxation and holidays together, witch is fine but it gets on my nerves and my boyfriends nerves (my dads partner). Cause we cant even go shopping without him tagging along telling story’s over and over, knowing better and starting an argument and interrupting conversations and or taking over the conversation. And also one thing he never forgets is to buy his whisky, but forgets to pay his bills, so if I don’t do it who will. I’ve got an older sister, she stays in Australia and an older brother witch works for a film company and is all over the world. So they cant help and mom isn’t giving up her job, and its putting my relationship on the rocks. So any one who can help me or tell me how or comment how to deal with this please mail me.
I am a 69 year old widow and have lived alone for seven years in the Midwest while my thee grown children have settled in the West, Northwest and Southeast. This article has made me realize that I am a worry and a burden no matter how far away my family is. I am losing strength and gaining infirmities at an alarming rate and can no longer do even the small things by myself that a vigorous me used to do without thinking. Control is an issue, I admit. And pride, oh yes. And I do not want to address change. Scarlet-like, I'll think about it tomorrow. As much as I hate the thought, assisted living is the answer. Probably hiring an accountant will help alleviate the kids' worry, too. Moving to a facility near one of them would unfairly stress his or her life, so I should stay here. I'll make new friends and stay mentally active for as long as possible. Thank you for waking me up. I agree with the hard-line comment about adults acting like adults. Any adult knows that live is change and adaptation is imperative.
Good stuff ~ let's have a "reverse" issue outlined, on on how we seniors should talk to our kiddos ~
You have to use 'sales techniques' to get what you want for them with them wanting it too! Most people want something but hesitant to pay the little extra to get the better! Pointing out the pluses that the extra hundred gets the customer convinces them its the best move to make. Make it a win-win deal!
My mother has many health issues, and has just went through open heart surgery. There are 4 siblings and many grandchildren who were never around until they thought she may not make it through this latest surgery. I live in the Boston area, with 1 sister in CA who has been caring for our Mother, taking her to Drs. appointments, grocery store, and out to lunch or dinner. Our Mother is no longer driving, and is on a very limited budget. While our Mom was in the hosptital, my sister collected her bills for her, and we decided to pay off all of her credit cards so when she come home she would not have to worry so much about the bills that might occur with her many new medications. There are two other sisters that are not able to help out finacially, and they have only started to visit again. When our Mother found out my sister and I had paid off her cards, she was livid, and now wants nothing to do with us. If we even ment ioned bringing in a mentiator she will never ever speck to us. Our Mother doesn't have anything except a very small house, so there isn't really any estate to speak of. Our hearts were in the right place, but how do we resolve the problem. I have choosen to step back for a while, as the other family believes our upseting Mom by paying as many bills as we could cover with our own money was a mistake. We are not looking to be repaid, we just wanted to give her a little relief from the stress. A granddaghter is now in charge of her checkbook, and this granddaughter has been a problem for years with the entire family, exceept with our Mother. Ouch! (She doesn't trust her own daughters to look out for her.) We understand this generation is very secretive about their personal finance, but we are all concerned for her welfare, and she refuses to sort out any of her affairs. She has been very good about pinning the siblings against each other during her recovery. Does anyone have any idea's?
this is completely one-sided. the elderly used to EARN respect by gaining wisdom through life experience, not by raging through senior life in stubborn denial. seniors have a responsibility to face their stage of life head-on..doctors and children should be able to bluntly point out reality when they refuse to look - as any caring individual would do for their, children, friend or partner. "Hey Dad, you can't buckle the seat belt on your own, you are unable to turn your head to see in the blind spot and your vision is failing. Stop being selfish and a danger to others and agree to stop driving. What kind of alternative arrangements can we make?" If they don't want to be treated like children - then they can act like responsible adults. Its not anyone's job to walk on eggshells and lie to them about their dimished capabilities. For myself, I would rather die in a cave than be this kind of burden to my children when they are in the midst of raising their own family. And before someone starts in with the "hey they took care of you, now you take care of them.." NO, they have already been taken care of when they were children by their own parents. Children have the right to be taken care of without any expectation of a debt to be repaid. Your parents are ADULTS. Expect them to behave like one.
Helpful article but pretty basic. In our situation, Dad had made a late life marriage to a lady who was very hard to get along with and jealous of his past marriage and children. He had been lonely and was also looking for someone who could run the household as he was in failing health and unable to live there alone. They refused, in spite of several health crises, to discuss "Plan B": what they wanted their life to look like once living independently was impossible. We had to finally take Dad's license away as he was having blackouts; he kept trying to drive anyway. This left his wife under considerable pressure to drive in spite of poor skills, worsening cataracts. Her children refused to ask her to stop driving. Dad began skipping doctor's appointments to avoid hospitalization, and they were both were hiding high blood pressure and TIA's. Finally, she crashed the car, mercifully without killing herself or anyone else. With her injury, their world fell apart...Dad could not live alone, and she was not eligible for a hospital bed in our area. We ended up bringing them both home to our house to recover and plan their next steps. In the middle of that, Dad had a heart attack and passed away. In spite of her considerable confusion, her children began badgering her to get the house and wanted to know what she got in Dad's will...but they left her with us. After two weeks we asked them to come up with a plan for their mother's future, and by this time she was having tantrums daily, insisting she was going to move back to the house and buy a new car. They finally came and picked her up, but one of them moved into Dad's house (which was not left to his wife) and refused to leave. The house was strip mined. She wound up in a care facililty she had never seen. It was a really painful experience. I wish now we had been more assertive about how they needed to address their advancing infirmities and pushed harder on them moving to more manageable circumstances nearby, where we could support them. Then, if one of them had passed away, the other would not have been left to face all these tough transitions alone. It was an outcome they never imagined, but it happens all the time.
Very helpful in caring for my parents I am incline to want to organise them. I tend to be so work focused that I am trying to run the situation like a business implementing process and procedures. I need to remember that even if they do not express their feelings it doesn't mean they do not have any.
helpful but most direct communication will be met with resistance