No matter how long your elderly family member has been taking care of herself, there comes a time when she may need to have help with at least some areas of her life. When that time comes, you may have to approach the situation carefully to make sure that you’re respecting her autonomy while also trying to offer her help.
Find Out How Self-reliant Your Senior Truly Is
Home Care Assistance Ridgefield, CT: Self-Reliant Senior
Do you know for sure that your elderly family member needs help or are you assuming that is the case? At this stage of the game, you really have to operate with facts instead of gut feelings, no matter how accurate you might think your feelings are. Try talking openly with your senior about what exactly is getting more difficult for her. It’s possible that she’ll start to accept help with those specific tasks.
Adjust Your Strategy a Bit:
You love your senior, which might mean that you’re trying to push help at her, even when she is making it clear to you that she doesn’t want it. It might be time to adjust your strategy a bit and back off. Relieving the pressure can help your elderly family member to return to the conversation with a clearer head, too.
Keep Options Available for Your Senior:
Options and choices are crucial for people who are used to taking care of themselves. The last thing that you want to do is to start dictating to your senior about what she’s going to do. Home care assistance is a lot more acceptable when your elderly family member can make a choice about the help. There’s nothing that says you can’t stack the choices a bit, either, but be careful doing that too much as it can be frustrating for your senior.
Share How You’re Affected:
Something else that can help is to share how it feels to want to offer more help to your senior, either personally or through elder care professionals. Your elderly family member can get wrapped up in her own perspective and forget what it’s like to want to ensure that someone they love is safe and happy. When you open up about how you’re affected, that can bring forth compromise more readily.
Choose Your Battles Carefully:
You definitely want to choose your battles carefully with your senior. If she really doesn’t want home care assistance, you may not be able to change her mind by arguing. What you can do is back off from the conversation for a while and revisit the topic down the road. That’s not necessarily easy to do, but it can help your elderly family member to have the time she needs to come around to your perspective.
Just because your elderly family member wants to keep doing it all on her own, that doesn’t mean that she has to. Find small ways to compromise with her and stick to what you tell her you’ll do. If you try to go back on your word, you’re likely to create more trouble.
If you or an aging loved-one is considering Home Care Assistance in Ridgefield, CT please contact the caring staff at Connecticut Nursing Services today. 203-730-2739
