Safety issues are surely not the ones you would like to discuss in Sunday dinners with your aging parents. You just don’t go straight on asking your parent if he or she has already decided on which assistive community to move into or if they have already installed the grab bars in their bathrooms. Understand that while it is important for you – as their concerned kid – to know, this makes them feel threatened – like they don’t have the capacity to decide for themselves.
Just think of it this way, when you were younger and your parents were the wiser beings, you didn’t like it too when they nag on you and tell you what to do all the time right? Just imagine what you felt and how it made you furious even if you know they were right then imagine yourself being told by your kid, that doesn’t feel really good, does it?
It is also important to start with your right foot forward just so you won’t be considered by your senior parents as the enemy in the picture. You might want to be their confidante, not the enemy as this will only make your intentions harder to do. Remember that when you are viewed as the bad guy, everything that you’ll ever say will surely be met with an argument, no matter how sensible your suggestion is. You may find your parents a little hesitant but that’s just because they are frightened.
To be able to find a common ground, better to discuss everything with an air of practicality. Your suggestion should sound as the most practical thing to do given their situation – however, they must not feel, in any way, that you consider them as a threat to their own safety.
It is also important for them to feel that they also have a say in their situation. Don’t push too hard no matter how pressing their situation is. Having a successful dialogue with your aging parent regarding their safety requires perfect timing. Allow them some time to think then ask again another time, you would know if they are ready. If you really have to make some changes now and your feel your senior is still refusing to cooperate, then seek help from people who you think they respect and believe in, like a pastor or a preacher, or their own mom perhaps? It will not be easy to make your senior “just” follow your decision since they were the ones making all the decisions for you when you were younger. What’s more important is that you earn their trust – enough trust to make them feel comfortable with your decisions over their wellbeing. Surely nobody would trust their financial woes to someone who has just filed bankruptcy, don’t you think? If you have to be in control, you must at least, act and look the part.