Easing the Tough Conversations
DECEMBER, 2010
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Hi!
We are delighted to share our Holiday newsletter with you!
As we face the holiday season, a traditional time for family gatherings, we are on heightened alert for families that are NOT getting along. Our article, Tips for Reducing Conflict this Holiday Season, provides hints about how to approach these families (even your own!) when they present with conflicting views. These tips can also work with your own family! Paula Span's article, They Can't Go Home Again (in the New Old Age blog in the New York Times) writes about those family members who can't or who choose not to be involved in family conversations, even about their own parents.
We are excited to introduce Gail Hoaglund as our new intern. She will be focusing on curriculum design for our trainings - both in-person and webinars, too!
Best wishes for the New Year!
Debbie and John
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A Tip for
Reducing Conflict
this Holiday Season
As families around the country gather for the holidays, they have an opportunity to discuss important or pressing topics regarding eldercare issues. For some families, it is a relatively smooth task. For other families, such conversations are avoided altogether, regardless of the urgency of the issue.
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Adult siblings with a history of conflict may avoid talking about important topics, because they feel they do not have the skills or energy to engage their brothers and sisters in meaningful conversation.
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Avoiding discussions has been referred to as procrastination or "kicking the can down the road" and can create dynamics better known as "walking on eggshells" or avoiding "the elephant in the room."
When we get around to the tough conversation, one of the most common problems that arises is that we tend to talk about solutions, rather than our needs. For example, if your sister says "Mom needs to go to assisted living!" she is leading off with a solution. If you counter with "No, Mom needs to stay at home!" - well, you can see how things might escalate. Trying to convince the other of the rightness of their position doesn't usually solve anything!
If you respond to the solution by asking, "What is important to you about that?" it can completely change the complexion of the conversation. Your sibling now has to talk about what he/she needs. If you can talk about what is important to you (your needs), you may discover that you and your sibling have similar needs. When people discover that they have similar needs they have built a bridge that then allows a discussion of options (solutions) that will meet both needs. When the solutions come after the needs, the conversation tends to go better. Try it; it can be a simple but powerful tool.
Impossible situations can become possible miracles.
-- Robert H. Schuller
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Meet Our New Intern
Gail Hoaglund
We are fortunate to have found Gail to work with us. She will be helping to develop webinars and other training materials. We were drawn to Gail because of her strong background in mediation and curriculum design/teaching in an online environment. She was drawn to us because of our work in elder dispute resolution.
Gail is a trained mediator and skilled facilitator. She is currently Affiliate Faculty at Regis University, developing curriculum and teaching on-line courses in nonprofit management, cultural diversity and inclusion.
Gail would like to learn more about intergenerational dispute resolution, so as she helps us develop new training offerings we will facilitate her learning in our field.
Welcome aboard, Gail
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Mediators increasingly
try to help families
resolve conflicts over
aging parents
 (James Fryer For The Washington Post) By Sandra G. Boodman
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, December 13, 2010
The elderly man became increasingly alarmed as the battles among his five grown children grew acrimonious.
His two daughters, worried that he wasn't taking proper care of himself, wanted him to move to a retirement community. His three sons balked, insisting that he was managing fine in his own home. At a family meeting their father made this jarring announcement: I'm nearing the end of my life, and you are making me so unhappy that it might be easier if I killed myself and ended the fighting.
Click here to read the rest of the article
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Good Read
Living Your Best With Early-Stage Alzheimer's: An Essential Guide
by Lisa Snyder
by Sunrise River Press
Paperback
List Price: $18.95
Lisa Snyder does a fabulous job of describing how to approach a diagnosis of Alzheimer's. Although the book is designed for those with a diagnosis, it proves to be invaluable to family members and professionals alike. The insights, solutions included provides comfort and reassurance to all.
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 They Can't Go Home Again
by Paula Span
December 1, 2010
Few subjects generate as much contention and heartache hereabouts as siblings and the role they play, or don't play, in caring for aging parents.
The last time we talked about this, lots of beleaguered commenters blasted their brothers and sisters as "heartless," "useless" and "breathtakingly self-centered" for having opted out of the burdens of elder care. "I will never know them again," wrote Julie from Mendocino, Calif. "No great loss."
Which led me to wonder: What about those absent children? What's the view from their side of the divide?
Click here to read the rest of the article.
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