Elder Home Care in Woodland CA: How Can You Get Comfortable Asking Family Members for Extra Support?
The act of asking other family members for help is one thing, but if you don’t lay some groundwork first, it’s going to take you much longer to become comfortable with the process. Before you actually start asking for help, see if you’re making any of these mistakes.
Keep the Lines of Communication Open
Families are busy and everyone has their own life that they need to manage. So it’s important to find a way to communicate with your other family members that keeps everyone informed without being too much of a hindrance. You might decide to hold weekly meetings, send out an email to everyone, or even have a conference call regularly. Encourage questions so that you can make sure that everyone has accurate information.
Take Them up on Offers of Help
You may not realize this, but it’s very common for family caregivers to turn down offers of help more often than they think. Start saying yes more often and see what kind of frequency you’ve got in terms of help offers. You’re probably getting more offers of help than you think you are. As you practice saying yes more often, it gets easier to recognize and correct the situation.
Give up Having to Be in Control
Another problem that family caregivers often don’t realize is that they’re extremely likely to want to control every aspect of the caregiving situation. This keeps you from asking for help as often because you want to do more on your own. You don’t have to, however, and holding onto that mindset actually keeps you from getting a lot of help that you could really use.
Open up about Your Loved One’s Needs
Make sure that you let everyone involved know the reality of your loved one’s health conditions. Sometimes your elderly loved one might not want other people to know, but that can be what keeps both of you from having the support that you need. Find ways to keep everyone informed about what’s going on so that they understand.
In some cases, you might not have family members nearby you can ask for support. Hiring elder care providers can give you the extra support that you need.