By Carolyn L. Rosenblatt, RN, BSN, Attorney

Mom has dementia and her daughter, Jennie, is worried.  Mom clearly should not be driving anymore. 
Jennie finally just took the keys away.  Have they talked about it? No. Argued some, maybe. But talking starts out with anger and ends up worse than ever.

Jennie saw the dents in Mom’s car and asked about what happened.  Mom refused to discuss it. First of all, she doesn’t exactly remember.  But she’s embarrassed. She had a perfect driving record.  Not even a parking ticket. Now this. Something is happening to her memory and keeping track of things.  She doesn’t want anyone to find out.  It feels horrible to Mom.  What if they put her away?

Jennie threatens to stop Mom from doing something stupid.  Mom wants Jennie to butt out.  How dare she tell her own Mother what to do?  Can this be solved?

This scenario is real.  It’s also not uncommon.  The problem of how to approach a person who may have a vague idea of something wrong with their memory but won’t admit it is affecting thousands of families every day.  Driving is one area where memory problems can affect lives and can put the public, as well as an aging parent in danger.

Consider the concept of mediation of a family dispute about an aging parent’s driving.

Mediation is a way of resolving disputes of all kinds. We’re quick to say “use mediation” for a labor dispute, or between warring countries to bring about peace. But, we usually don’t think of it for situations like Jennie and her Mom.  However, it can bring hope when conversations and arguing end up in a standoff and anger is destroying family relationships.  There is a way to resolve even the stickiest family issues.

Think of mediation as a way to get an outside, skilled person trained in resolving conflicts to come to your aid.  Think of it as a way to end the fighting, and to work out solutions with help and guidance.  Sometimes a few simple suggestions you’ve never thought about can turn the tide of a family conflict.  People who do this are called “elder mediators” or even “family mediators”.  The process is elder mediation.  People come to their own resolution with the help of a mediator.

You can find one by doing a search in your area for mediators who work with elders and their families.  There is normally a fee, though some community mediation services provide mediation at low cost or free.  If your family is suffering over a driving issue, or any other elder-related issue, think of mediation.  It may be the way out you’re looking for.

To learn more about adult children and dangerous older drivers, see my article in Forbes.com.
To download a short book with step-by-step guidance on how to deal with your aging parent’s driving, try How to Handle a Dangerous Older Driver .

By Carolyn L. Rosenblatt, nurse-attorney, mediator

We recently mediated a case involving a 70-something man and a 20-something woman who had been living in the same house. The relationship had boiled into a lawsuit.  It was not a sexual relationship; rather, it was two people who were probably using each to deal with the pain in their own lonely lives. It ended badly and elder financial abuse was alleged.  There were two lawyers, both trying to do right by their clients.  Lots of bitter feelings were expressed.  After a long day of negotiations at AgingParents.com, we were able to provide a solution, with the mediators shuttling back and forth between the parties and their lawyers.  The mediator’s creative suggestion to trade a car and money to make it go away worked.

We observed that this was a lawsuit that should never have happened.  Neither party was free of blame.  The most compelling thing to me was how loneliness drove them both to be in an unhealthy relationship together that ended up a mess.  Can’t we do better than that?  Addressing loneliness is doable without damaging yourself.

In an earlier post on this blog, we show you a video of my mother-in-law, Alice, who is 88 years old. She’s a widow who had a wonderful 62 years of marriage.  She wanted to die too when she lost her husband, the pain of loss was so great.   She managed to find reasons to live, her family among those reasons.  Loneliness is always a problem, but she has learned to fight it.

We’re pretty proud of Alice. She’s a survivor. She takes field trips offered at her retirement community. Today they’re at a golf tournament. She goes out to dinner with a group after the meetings of her “bereavement group”, comprised of others who have lost a spouse or partner. She listens to audiobooks on her iPod.  She goes on vacation with us.  She even went out to dinner by herself for the first time ever and it was okay.  She takes herself to the movies. She goes to the gym. She takes a current events class. We’re so grateful that she’s able to get around on her own, and she makes the most of it.  “I count my blessings every day”, she says.  Now there’s a guy in the picture.

She’s not crazy about him, but he’s company for some things. Hey, the guy drives at night and she doesn’t.  All in all, we know Alice won’t do anything stupid like the poor fellow in the lawsuit whose case we mediated.  We’re involved. We watch out for her. My husband calls his Mom every evening, to check in.  It’s that kind of caring that makes the world a better place.

If your aging parent is widowed, they need you.  Yes, even if they weren’t the best parent possible, or even if you don’t love their company.  Taking the time to call your aging parent,  every day, even for a few minutes, is a pretty easy way to stay connected, safeguard against the feeling of isolation that can come with widowhood, and to do the right thing.

As for Alice, she’s already planning her next vacation. Wouldn’t you love to be like that at age 88?

© 2010 AgingParents.com

Money seems to lead the way when we look at the various things that are the source of conflict for elders and their families. While the elder is in declining health, the family may be fighting about who is in charge of the financial decisions. After the elder passes away, the courts see a never-ending stream of heirs fighting over the estate.

Mediation at any stage can help keep things from boiling over. Because relatively few people understand how mediation of a conflict can help people involved in everyday disputes, the American Bar Association sponsored a contest to encourage members to make brief videos illustrating this. At AgingParents.com, we entered the contest by producing a video on a typical dispute about an aging parent, and won honorable mention. Here’s the link to our video on elder mediation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFwLjUFaUQs

What the video illustrates is how a brother and sister are arguing about Dad’s care and what should be done for him. Threats are made, and they’re stuck in their opposite views. Of course, in our video they do work things out.

What we often see in dealing with elder related disputed is friction over who has the power to make financial decisions when the aging parent loses the ability to do so. We can’t emphasize enough how the basic document, a durable power of attorney, along with other basic planning, can avert some of these hassles altogether.

If you are over the age of 50 and your aging parent is over the age of 70, it’s time to do your durable power of attorney. While the language of the form document varies from state to state, the basic function is the same: an aging parent has named someone else, often a spouse or adult child, to take over the financial decision-making if the aging parent loses the capacity to make these decisions.

You can likely get the form for free in your state. We offer it free to anyone who visits AgingParents.com in California and asks for it. One thing to know is that it has to be specific about the powers it gives the the person appointed (agent) to take over when needed. And, it has to be notarized. If you don’t have one, please get moving!

© 2010, AgingParents.com

Carolyn L. Rosenblatt, RN, BSN, Attorney

Here at AgingParents.com, we see a lot of problems involving families of aging parents and their adult children.  Often, the daughter or daughter-in-law is the one asking for help.  Daughters-in-law sometimes tell us that they feel that they must walk on eggshells.  Their spouses may not have a good relationship with mom or dad.  They are the conduits for help and good communication.  It is sometimes surprising to see how a daughter-in-law, and sometimes a son-in-law has a better relationship with the aging parent than their spouse does.

Maybe the complexity of relating to  parent is less for those who came to the relationship with the elder later in their lives.  Maybe the in-law adult child has fewer issues, more courage, and possibly, feels there is less to lose by speaking out. Sometimes sons have trouble taking charge of Mom.  They have resistance to dealing with the fact that Mom’s competency is failing. Whatever the reason, we have the deepest regard for those dutiful, respectful daughters-in-law (or sons) when we meet them.  They are true peacemakers.

We think the daughter or son-in law’s voice does, indeed count.  Often as not, they are the ones who want to get a conflict out in the open and to work on it.  We have yet to see a son coming to AgingParents.com for help with conflict resolution, a service we offer families.  It’s always been the daughter, or daughter-in-law.
For those out there who are in that role, keep reaching out, keep being the voice of reason, keep looking for ways to solve the family’s difficulty when your spouse can’t seem to get off the dime.  Your mother/father-in-law is lucky to have you.

© 2010, AgingParents.com

By Carolyn Rosenblatt, RN, Attorney, Mediator

When 3 sisters are in conflict about how to take care of Dad, is there any way to stop the fighting? One shares power over finances with Dad. Dad is making some pretty crazy decisions lately. He’s 88, partially blind, lives alone, has memory loss, gets lost on his way home, and oh, yes, he still has a driver’s license. Is anyone in charge here??

Working with families can be a challenge, especially when siblings don’t trust each other. A conversation tends to deteriorate into ancient family history about who said what 40 years ago. They will take each other on and forget the problem at hand: Dad!

Aging parents can be hard for anyone, particularly when the elder won’t give up control of anything. Dad says, I’m ready for help, but no, on second thought, I’m not. Let’s go ahead and sell the house, but, wait, I’ve changed my mind. I think I’ll live with my daughter, but no, I don’t want to. I do have some memory problems, but there’s really no problem. Sound familiar?

Families can get very bogged down in the question of how to handle the elder who needs help but isn’t ready to accept it. Perhaps adult children themselves are having trouble facing how much help Dad needs and are making excuses for the danger signs they see. They react to each other, get polarized against each other and forget that they have a common goal: to help their aging parent stay safe at home, or wherever is best.

A mediator can do much to help them get back on track. A series of family meetings by conference call with an elder mediator can work quite well to focus the family members on the most important tasks. A mediator can sometimes be a referee, breaking up the argument, and refocusing attention on how to solve a problem. A mediator can keep order, let everyone be heard, and repeat any agreements that are made so everyone understands them.

If this hassle we’re describing sounds like someone you know, consider mediation. It is an efficient way to reduce conflict among family members, and is a whole lot cheaper than hiring lawyers and having siblings suing each other.

We all want to believe that we can handle the problems in our own families without any outside help. Getting a professional mediator into the mix might feel embarrassing to some. Others will complain that it’s too expensive. But consider the cost of any lawsuit: thousands and thousands of dollars just to get rolling.

Lawyers representing you for an hourly fee will be very happy to keep doing work and keep getting paid. Most litigators are not trained to resolve conflicts as they arise; they’re trained to be your vigorous advocates. No matter how you look at it, mediation is cheaper than any lawsuit. And it’s way less stressful, too.
© 2010, AgingParents.com

Elder Mediation: A Solution for Families at War

Elder Mediation-a Solution for Families at War looks at a typical family conflict over the care of an aging parent, and shows how a mediator can help bring disputing siblings together together.

What Feeds Family Conflict?

By Carolyn L. Rosenblatt, R.N., B.S.N., Attorney at Law

There are a lot of kinds of conflict, but some of the very worst are the kind that occur in families. Why is this? A long history of interacting in ways that don’t work, family members who are totally closed to change, lack of self-awareness and self-understanding, and fear are among the things that can maintain patterns of conflict for years on end.

Psychology teaches us that all behavior is motivated. That is to say, from that perspective, everything we do comes from some reason, some conscious or unconscious place within. If people behave unreasonably, there is a cause for their behavior. Knowing that may not change a thing about family conflict, but it can help us deal with it a little better. Dealing with family conflict is essential as our elders age and family members have to step up and make decisions about aging parents.  Everyone may not get along so well in this situation.

In our practice of elder mediation, fear seems to be the single biggest motivator that drives the conflicts we see. It can be fear around money, or control, or change. It can be fear of being found out, exposed. It can be fear of being asked to do something one is not competent or willing to do. It is one of the most basic of human emotions, but an emotion that causes extreme self-protective reactions. These reactions sometimes manifest in strong words, violent behavior, or generally hostile contact with others.
Mediators work to help participants at mediation find ways to agree and to make compromises. The stronger a participant’s fear, the more difficult it is for that person to give in to anything, or to make agreements that touch upon his or her fear.

What can we do about all this? Perhaps we can start by recognizing that no one enjoys being horribly difficult at mediation or any time. Behaving badly is simply what shows on the outside. What just might be on the inside is a person frightened of losing control, security, money, the family home, an inheritance, the right to make decisions, or anything.

Compassion and understanding can do a lot to uplift the process of working with persons who are showing their worst side in a dispute. It does not change the difficult person’s behavior, but it can cause the whole tone of a mediation to soften. Understanding that emotion feeds conflict can cause one to step back and try to imagine what it is like to be the person who is acting out.

If one is able to imagine that, to “walk in someone else’s shoes” for the moment, it makes it a lot easier to compromise or try to figure out what would work for that difficult person. I guess you can call it being a little less selfish in a dispute.

It works. This, of course doesn’t apply only to mediation of disputes involving elders. It’s a general concept, and can apply to any kind of conflict. Difficult as it is to see the other’s side of the story in any clash of ideas, working at doing just that is essential to getting things resolved.

At the risk of sounding too philosophical here, I conclude that elder mediation can uplift us if we are willing to put forth the effort to stop thinking of only our own point of view. It’s not easy. The upside to the effort is that your dispute could be over with, or at least down to a workable level. Were we all able to see past the specifics of a family conflict to the underlying emotions we would surely be more peaceful.

To learn more about family conflicts and aging loved ones, sign up for our free newsletter at http://www.AgingParents.com.

© 2009, AgingParents.com

I shudder when I see these situations. The parent thought, somehow, she was doing the right thing. Or dad wanted his kids to “work together”, even though they’d never done so in their lives before.

The parent appoints two children as “co”- powers of attorney for finances. Mistake!

When the aging parent gets too incompetent to make decisions because of dementia, or some other condition, the two siblings begin to argue and hassle each other about money. One wants to spend it on mom’s care. One wants to move property and money around (all to be done legally), make the parent poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, and not spend the money so that he/she can inherit it.

These are difficult situations to mediate. The sibling who wants to impoverish the parent so he or she can qualify for a Medicaid bed in a nursing home is looking for that inheritance, and not for what is best for the parent.

It’s not that every nursing home is bad. Some do a good job. But, many are unsafe and neglect is quite common. I know this because I’ve personally sued nursing homes for neglected clients. Three beds to a room are often the situation when Medicaid is paying. Private pay beds are expensive, but usually, a lot better. Some nursing homes do not accept Medicaid.

How do we help families negotiate these situations? We encourage them to research the nursing homes in the area, to visit them personally, to spend time there observing.

We help them explore all the options available. We encourage them to choose one of them to be the decision-maker and the other to be the back-up. That’s a lot cleaner way for the parent to set things up to begin with, but it doesn’t always happen that way.

Greed can drive a dispute pretty far. If your parent has set up his or her power of attorney for finances with two, instead of one decision-maker, and the parent is still competent to change this, talk about it now! It can get very messy later, if the two who are supposed to decide such important things as spending money on a parent’s care are unable to agree.

To learn more about sibling conflicts, visit AgingParents.com, for articles, and our free newsletter.

Elder mediation has finally gotten a little respect. National Public Radio did a piece on it, and it seems that people are finally learning about this. What is it? Elder mediation is a method of resolving conflicts about elders, their families and those who are responsible for them. Mediation, in general, is vaguely familiar to many people, because sometimes, it’s in the news. A Federal mediator is on the scene to deal with the labor dispute about Federal employees. A local mediator is trying to negotiate a crisis in a city. But in everyday life, especially family life, it may not be a familiar way of trying to get through a dispute.

Mediation, in general is a very effective way to help people who are stuck in their differences, filled with emotional disagreement, or unable to think past their own opposing positions learn to find a way out. A mediator is a guide, a facilitator, and a neutral person regarding the dispute. The mediator usually sets up a meeting, in which the people who are in a conflict agree to come together to try to resolve the conflict. It can take place anywhere. It’s totally voluntary. Courts are not involved, and no record of what happens is kept, except for a written agreement or settlement, if one is reached. The best news is that mediation is effective in resolving disputes about 80-85% of the time, regardless of the kind of dispute. Those are much better odds than people have when they sue each other or go to court.

When it comes to families, their long patterns of relating to each other can get in the way of dealing with an aging parent, and many kinds of conflicts come up. We’re elder mediators at AgingParents.com. We see legal disputes about whether the elder is competent, fights about who should take care of Mom, siblings at war over how money should be spent, and many other family fights. We’ll share some of what we do in this blog. We hope to generate more interest in using elder mediation to break through the logjam families get into when they get stuck in conflict, creating such stress for everyone. We’re in the stress-relief business!

Tell us about the family disputes or other conflicts that are affecting you.
Carolyn Rosenblatt, R.N., B.S.N., Attorney, Mediator, AgingParents.com.