It is Time To Have The Family Meeting About Our Aging Parents?
Every 6 seconds someone turns 60.
That also suggests that every 6 seconds, someone’s aging parent turned 80, 85, or more.
There’s a sea of us with aging parents who are presenting all manner of challenges for us Boomers. One of the most daunting is the necessity to interface with siblings. Maybe we never got along. Maybe we’ve been estranged for a few years. Whatever it is, we find ourselves having to make decisions we never considered making.
What Feeds Family Conflict?
There are a lot of kinds of conflict, but some of the very worst are the kind that occur in families. Why is this?
A long history of interacting in ways that don’t work, family members who are totally closed to change, lack of self-awareness and self-understanding, and fear are among the things that can maintain patterns of conflict for years on end.
Can an Elder With Dementia Participate in Mediation?
Can an Elder With Dementia Participate in Mediation?
Can an elder with dementia participate in mediation? The short answer is, it depends on the progress of the dementia.
Dementia is one of several kinds, the most common being Alzheimer’s Disease. It causes progressive damage to brain cells, initially affecting short term memory, and gradually affecting all “executive” functions of the brain, including judgment, analysis, thinking, and others. The affected person eventually loses the ability to recognize familiar objects, and even loved ones.