Elder Care in Ballantyne, NC: Why Does your Aging Loved One Refuse Help?

You have probably experienced it – you can’t convince your aging parents to let you give them some help! Yet you can tell they need help with keeping track of doctor’s appointments, taking medication on time, balancing their checkbook, and a few other things. You would love to help them, but they are very resistant to the idea.

What do you do? That’s a big question that today’s adult children are facing in regards to their aging parents. They are getting to the age when they need help with household chores, everyday activities like shopping, and sometimes even personal things like bathing and dressing each day.

Trying to convince your loved one they need your help, even when it is obvious they need it, is certainly not an easy thing. Sometimes seniors are more likely to accept help from an elderly home care attendant than they are from their own grown-up children. Why is that?

Elder Care in Ballantyne, NCOur perceptions of growing old

Part of this refusal to accept help can be traced to our society’s perceptions of old age. For Americans, going grey is a negative process. We assume advancing years means the accumulation of very undesirable conditions, such as forgetfulness, loss of productivity, confusion and loss of independence.

When adult children approach their parents with offers of help, it must come across in the correct way. Often however, adult children communicate to their aging parents in a way that challenges their parents’ self-esteem as a competent and capable adult.

Some aging adults will hide their indiscretions from their adult children just as a way to hang onto their independence longer. For example, the elderly parent who pretends they are no longer driving but they really are driving secretly without their adult child’s knowledge.

Sometimes the aging adult will purposefully do something that the grown child has forbidden her to do. For example climbing a ladder or getting up on a chair to reach something. The elder feels threatened by the loss of mobility and loss of independence; so they feel they have to rebel against the “decrees” their children have given them.

Remember there’s more to how you say something than what you actually say. Take time to think out your conversation so that it goes the right way. That could mean that instead of forbidding her to climb the ladder, offer to come over and help her paint and then spend the day together.

If you or someone you know needs help with elder care in Ballantyne, NC contact the caregivers at Affordable HomeCare. We provide quality and affordable senior care for many disabled and elderly loved ones in our community. Call us at (704) 323-5454  for more information.

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Does someone you love need care at home?

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About Ted Nagraba
