Is Your Family Fighting About How to Care for Your Aging Parents?
Lots of Boomer-aged siblings find themselves fighting about their aging parents.
Should Mom be allowed to stay in her home, even though she’s really not safe living alone? Who is going to pay for her care? How about the driving issue? Does one parent have Alzheimer’s or some other dementia and some siblings are in denial about it? These are common areas of family conflict that can tear apart relationships, if you are not mindful of how you fight.
You can’t stop your brothers or sisters from having a different way of seeing your parent’s situation, but you can change the way you approach the conversation with them. Getting along, agreeing to disagree and other struggles are manageable, if you know how.
How To Deal With Family Conflict Productively
In many ways, dealing with family conflict productively is like using fair fighting rules for married people or other couples. There are things you can do and things you should never do. Many destructive things we do when we are in a conflict with siblings can’t be undone. Emotionally loaded subjects can bring out the worst in families. If you are aware of how to fight fairly, you will have a better chance of still being on speaking terms with your siblings after your parents pass on.
Some of the worst mistakes people make are the same for any fight: they are verbally violent and cause harm that may last long after the fight ends. The basics of fair fighting are the equivalent of not “hitting below the belt”. They include setting up a few ground rules. We use them at AgingParents.com when we are doing family mediation with warring siblings, whether by phone or in person, sitting at a table.
The subject of parents in declining health brings up a lot of feelings, good or not, about the parent and each person’s relationship with the parent. It also brings up a lot about the siblings relationships with each other, sometimes things never discussed before. Things can get explosive.
Fair Fighting Ground Rules Help Ease Families Conflict
Here are the ground rules we always ask people to follow to keep conversations civil, although some people can’t seem to restrain themselves from doing otherwise. These rules do help everyone actually communicate while struggling with a load of emotions rising to the surface about Mom or Dad.
- No name calling, no swearing and cursing, and no shouting at each other. These are all forms of verbal violence, and they can cause hurt you never imagined and may not mean to cause. Restrain yourself, and see if everyone can agree to do the same.
- Define among you what you’re going to talk about ahead of the conversation and stick to it. It will reduce the magnitude of the disagreement and keep the door closed, for now, on other volatile subjects. Make a list or agenda if you need to. It can help.
- Agree to avoid bringing up the past, especially about decades old hurts. If you focus on what Mom or Dad needs, things will go a lot better. Stick to the problem with your parent that caused this conversation in the first place.
- Don’t start sentences with “You“. Statements like “You can’t be bothered!” or “You don’t care about anyone else” don’t get anyone anywhere in a fight. They tend to make other sibling defensive, and it gets worse from there.
- No interrupting. You need to listen to the sibling who is talking. It helps to have a leader in the conversation to keep this rule in force. If there isn’t one, you can remind others that we agreed to not interrupt each other.
- Don’t clam up, no matter how angry you get in a fight with a sibling, be honest about your feelings and keep your message about what you want very clear. Take a breath or take a break, but come back and be straight about what is bothering you.
- Ask your sibling what he or she needs. It sounds simple, but this rarely happens. You can find out a lot about how to resolve your disagreements if you ask more questions of those who are involved in the fight with you. If a sibling is angry with you because there is something he or she is not getting, perhaps they’ll admit it, and you can do something about it.
- Avoid absolute statements like “you never contribute a dime” or “I always know you’ll disappear when there’s work to do.” If you try another tack such as “I’m feeling overwhelmed by the work of taking care of Dad, and I would like you to come next month and give me a break” is going to work a lot better than the “always”, “never” extreme statements.
No matter how your relationships have been with siblings in the past, we can all do better when an aging parent conflict comes up. The rules of fair fighting work. Try discussing them, passing them around or testing the waters with siblings by bringing up the idea before any meeting at which you anticipate an argument. It might be a big relief to you when things go better than ever.
We Are Experienced In Family Mediation
If you find yourself stuck in a battle or you are just not able to communicate with siblings, contact us at AgingParents.com for help. No one needs to be stuck. We are experienced in family mediation. Even if your difficult family members seem impossible, there are smart ways you can learn to deal more effectively with them. Getting advice will relieve the pain and stress. Ask for your complimentary family conflict strategy session today.
