Patience Required For The Love Of Aging Parent Care

When you were a child, did your parents teach you – or at least attempt to teach you – that ‘patience is a virtue’?

This is a hard lesson to learn, oftentimes taking an entire lifetime. Aging parent care can be hard to learn to manage.

When children are born every parent determines to be the best parent possible. Before long though, they are being tested beyond the limits of their wildest imagination.

Sound familiar? If you are a parent, you know what I’m talking about. Even if you have not parented a child, simply being human will test your patience.

As our parents age, we may find ourselves being faced with challenging situations we simply could not have anticipated. Caring for aging parents may be one of these.

Life keeps us so busy we hardly notice that our parents have aged until they start showing symptoms or they get sick and don’t bounce back the way they used to.

Suddenly you look at these people you know as mom or dad who once were so strong and vital and realize they are now quite frail. Their hair, once so thick and dark and lovely is grey or snow white and …you’re not sure what to do.

This is the time to sit down and start to make a serious plan, if you haven’t already.

Maybe they’ve put a financial plan in place. Maybe they’ve created a will. If they haven’t mentioned either, now’s the time to ask and get busy with an asset protection plan and begin the discussion about their long-term care.

In reality, those topics should be discussed long before frailty and illness occur. Hopefully those things will be in place.

A new realization comes to the foreground when a parent begins to show signs of dementia. This is when you realize you may be put in the position where it feels like you are parenting your parent. But, unlike a newborn who has no life experiences when they are put in your care, your parents have had a lifetime of experiences and memories. Your patience will be tested in entirely new ways. Education and proper communication are key.

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