Involving siblings in care for senior parents can take some of the stress and obligation off of the primary caregiver’s shoulders.
As the saying goes, many hands make light work, and that is certainly true with regards to care for senior parents. If you and your siblings work together well to fulfill the needs of your senior loved ones, well done! Often, however, one sibling takes on most of the responsibilities. This can quickly lead to misunderstandings, conflict, and hurt feelings.
These three basic steps will allow you to more fairly distribute caregiving duties with your siblings. You can reach out to our care team as well for additional information.
- Set up a meeting with your siblings. It’s essential to ensure that you and your siblings are on the same page. Honest, open communication is a must for sharing your perspective and hearing theirs. Truthfully explain that you are feeling stressed by shouldering most of the caregiving responsibilities, and that you would like more support.
- Develop an inventory. Be specific about all the duties that go into your family caregiver role. Determine who is best equipped to help in each area based on time or distance constraints. Even if one of your siblings lives out of the local area, there are plenty of ways to assist remotely, such as researching services and resources, setting aside regular time for FaceTiming, paying bills online, etc. In-person tasks can include:
- Cooking meals
- Cleaning and laundry
- Lawn care
- Grocery shopping as well as other errands
- Pet care
- Transportation to doctors’ appointments, the hair salon, weekly religious services, etc.
- Document details. When you have decided upon a good division of responsibilities, write down your decisions and present a copy to each person. Note all other important issues that came up in your discussion in order to revisit those in a subsequent meeting. Make sure to think through future planning needs as well. If one of your parents is in the first stages of dementia, for instance, you will want to be prepared for increasing care needs as the disease progresses.
Despite having assistance from your sisters and brothers, taking care of aging parents is not easy, especially when keeping up with your own career, household, family, etc. One good way to ensure a healthy life balance for you as well as your siblings is by working with a home care provider like Hearts at Home In-Home Care, offering award-winning help at home in Kansas City and surrounding communities.
Our caregivers are fully trained and knowledgeable in all of the care tasks listed above and so many more. We are here to work with your family to fill in the gaps in care – whether simply for a few hours each week or up to and including around-the-clock assistance. This enables you and your siblings to determine the care tasks you wish to manage yourselves, and then leave the rest to us.
Finding quality care for senior parents is crucial. Provide your parents with the most beneficial care, while making sure you and your siblings have sufficient time for self-care. Reach out to Hearts at Home In-Home Care at 913-440-4209 for a no-cost assessment and for more information about how we can help.