Moving Parents into Assisted Living?
Just How to Convince Resistant Parents To Leave Their Home of 50 years?
My siblings and I were able to come together for a common purpose. It took a few zoom meetings to formulate a plan for approaching Step-Dad. It’s not going to be easy for any one of us to participate in this discussion! Even our own zoom discussions were emotionally draining.
I’ve learned these past 4 years or so to communicate with dementia patient using short sentences, reason things out in gradual baby steps, and ask “is it okay if I” permission questions. That doesn’t mean I can do it or that I’m good at it. No, me and my sibs have in common a knack of forcing solutions rather than use patience and cool-headedness to get a quality agreement. The good news is I have 2 brothers-in-law that can do this better than I.
Side Bar: For my sanity, I began using short single sentence motto’s to sign off zoom meetings, emails and, for calming self-talk. Repeating “help is on the way” gave me peace and hope. Other motto’s I used were: “I am one of 5″ to help myself from taking all the burden. “We are making progress” when milestones were achieved; “We are doing this thoughtfully” gave me confidence and, “The parents are safe now” to alleviate a false sense of guilt that kept coming back. Check out other self-care tools I picked up along the way.
Family Intervention
Thoughtfully we developed our plan. A date was set about 4 weeks out for all of us to meet up at the family home for an ‘intervention’. It was both a blessing and a stress to wait so long for it. The anticipation kept me lying awake at night with the ‘what ifs” but it provided ample time for sister to fly all the way in from Montana and for us plan out the details.
- We narrowed down the number of participants from all 8 of us to 5. We decided 8 could be threatening but 2 could be too light for the job. We settled on 5 each with specific duties.
- One sib picked up KFC on the way in to help make it a casual environment and also fill the tummy to help reduce an edge.
- At the dining room table, thought was given to Step-Dad seated in a location more difficult to spring from and leave when the talk got uncomfortable.
- One sib’s responsibility was to take Mom in another room to play and keep her occupied when the heavy talking starts. That way there, the authoritative decision-maker (Step-Dad) can focus and Mom doesn’t get upset.
- One sib stayed behind to baby-sit nieces and nephews.
- One sib, the professional salesman, volunteered as conversation leader.
- Each sib came with a written paragraph explaining and encouraging reasons it was time for them to move out of the rural family home and into assisted living closer to town – btw we stopped calling it assisted living in favor of senior living!
- Once the KFC and small talk ended, the conversation leader created a segue and a cue for the one sib to lead Mom from the table into the living room to look at photo albums and play ‘war’. This left 4 at the table with Step-Dad. We had to promise one another to avoid interrupting each other and Step-Dad and let the leader do the talking.
- A written family agreement was printed ahead of time and on-hand for the conversation leader to present at the perfect right time. ALL of us signed, not just the parents.
Planned vs. Actual
About an hour in, I choose to disengage and leave the table. I felt Step-Dad’s tension and resistance rise but it was really my own frustration and inability to keep my mouth shut that caused me to leave. I didn’t want to ruin any progress.
At the end of 2 hours in to the conversation, at the table were Step-Dad, leader and, one sib.
Finally at the magic 3rd hour, it came down to one big idea to convince Step-Dad to move. It wasn’t Mom’s declining health, it wasn’t safety, increased social activity, or the convenience of living closer to family. It wasn’t the fact that he was an illegal driver either. His interest and agreement came when there was mention of housing prices being sky-high right now. Money. That did the trick. He is enticed by the idea of playing with money in the stock market from selling the house – and we ran with it. We signed the written agreement and immediately began planning for a facility search. Better to get on with this than allow him time to change his mind. So we did.
It’s interesting though that even with the confusion and memory from dementia, core a personality trait doesn’t disappear. Step-Dad for years played the ponies, as he would say, when racetracks were in town. That came to end when Mom found a bunch of money missing. Then, he played the stock market which seemed a more acceptable way to feed the gambling thrill. Indeed, the family has used now many times his gambling as a means to our ends.
Is It Time for Assisted Living?
How To Convince Resistant Parent
