Five Ways to Convince a Family Member to Accept Help

By Robert D. Liken CPC, CTS, President

December 5, 2018

No matter how hard you try, you may not be able to do everything involved with caregiving and handling your other responsibilities on your own. At some point, you will likely need help and your senior may not be on board with that idea.
 

Home Care in Monroeville PA: Senior Care Tips
Home Care in Monroeville PA: Senior Care Tips

 
Wait for an Opening
The whole idea of wanting extra help is that you’re trying to avoid a big crisis. You don’t want your senior to be hurt and you definitely don’t want to have a breakdown. But you can take a bad day or a challenging situation and use those as an illustration. Look for those little openings and use them whenever possible.
 
Change the Job Description a Bit
When you first bring up the idea of hiring senior care providers, your elderly family member is likely to hear phrases like “babysitter” or something else equally unappealing to her. So you might want to take a page from marketing gurus and change up the phrasing a little bit. Maybe the home care provider can be your assistant or a companion who also helps out around the house. Sometimes it’s all in the phrasing.
 
Include Your Senior in the Process
If you’re locking your family member out of this process, she’s more likely to feel resentful about the whole thing. Do what you can to keep her involved in every aspect of bringing home care into your caregiving journey. You can’t force her to participate, though, so if she won’t, you’ve at least made the attempt.
 
You Can’t Always Wait for Agreement
As much as you might want to, you can’t always wait for her to agree to this situation in order to put it into place. That old saying about sometimes having to ask for forgiveness rather than permission can be applied. It’s about assessing everyone’s needs.
 
Work with Your Senior, but Safety First
When you get to the point at which you need to make a change, you have to weigh what’s going on. You want to respect your elderly family member’s wishes, but if her safety or her well-being is at risk then you need to do what you have to do.
It’s not always easy to convince your aging family member that you or they need help. But sometimes if you’re creative, you can find the right answer for your situation. Senior care services can change how you approach and how you feel about caregiving, which can be crucial.
 
If you are considering Home Care in Monroeville, PA, please contact the friendly staff at Liken Home Care. Call (412) 693-6820 or (855) 856-0551.