As an adult child, maybe one of your parents has passed away. Or maybe the other parent is still living in the family home. They have become more fragile physically and maybe mentally.
How do you begin that talk?
- If there are several adult children, schedule a weekend you all get together at the family home.
- Do not make it a holiday weekend. Save that for fun family events.
- One of the siblings needs to take the lead and create an agenda on what is to be discussed.
- Call the parent living in the home and tell them all the adult children are concerned for their well-being and want to have a family discussion. The adult parent may disagree, but do it anyhow.
- In the agenda, leave it open and ask questions to the parent. What do they need help with?
- Is grocery shopping, doing laundry, running errands, remembering their medication, sleepless nights, loneliness, and more challenging?
- Let them share their feelings. Then it’s up to the adult children to find resources and discuss solutions to help them.
- Should they move to a retirement community or one of the siblings’ homes or near, in an apartment?
- Do we need to get caregivers to assist?
- Do we arrange for weekly or bi-weekly house cleaning, or a professional to stop by and check on them?
- In some cases, adult children have strong opinions and may disagree. But it is all about the parent on what they want. But the adult children can use resources such as Complete Relocation Solutions to help them find resources they need.
Call us so we can help assist your family on a practical but so important decision for the family.