When we’re a parent of growing children, but we’ve also got to provide care for those who have looked after us, it involves striking the right balance. We need to ensure that as our parents get older, we give them the right type of help, and this can easily mean that we switch into parental mode and baby them. But here are some of the best ways to ensure that you can help your ageing parents without being overbearing.
Offer Help But Without Forcing It
Letting your parents know you’re available to assist them when needed is vital, but you need to ensure you get the balance right. Don’t insist if they refuse your help, but also listen carefully for signs that they may need support with certain basic tasks. If it gets to this point where their well-being is severely impacted, there’s always a variety of home care services that can help you look after your parents more effectively without you personally infringing on them.
Let Them Take the Lead
When possible, do tasks alongside your parents instead of for them. We have to remember that everyone is entitled to independence and dignity, therefore looking at what they need help with on a day-to-day basis is worth doing because it helps you to truly gauge what they can and cannot do.
Respect Their Autonomy
Before you step in to help, you need to respect boundaries and ask permission before you swoop in. When we are looking after children of our own, there’s always that temptation to take over because it makes life easier. However, they are still your parents, and as their abilities change, they still deserve your respect.
Understand Their Needs
Ensuring you provide appropriate support is vital, and therefore being aware of their physical and mental health as it stands, as well as their daily routines and potential challenges, ensures that you can provide the right type of support. When you do this, you can create a network of people and resources that your parents can turn to. Whether it’s community services, friends, neighbours, or relatives like yourself, you need to ensure that everything is in place that allows them to be as independent as humanly possible.
Develop a Care Plan Together
Involving your parents in creating a plan that outlines their needs and preferences for things like medical care, daily activities, and living arrangements means that they have first refusal as to the things that give them a better quality of life. We have to consider things like safeguarding, especially for parents and older people who may have symptoms of age-related cognitive decline. They should always have a choice, and we should never presume they have an incapacity to make decisions because we all can change over time. A care plan should constantly evolve.
Be Patient and Persistent
Understand that, when it comes to care, you need to approach discussions with everybody calmly and sensitively.
By following these approaches, you can guarantee that you will provide support to your ageing parents that’s not just invaluable but also respects their dignity and independence as well.
For a similar post from me, see 4 Ways to Help Your Parents Come to Terms with Ageing.
