CONTACT: Pamela D. Wilson +1 303-810-1816

Email:   Inquiry_For_Pamela@pameladwilson.com

Golden, Colorado – July 31, 2021

The Caring Generation® Things Caregivers Wish Parents Knew

Golden CO- Caregiver subject matter expert Pamela D. Wilson hosts The Caring Generation® podcast show for caregivers and aging adults. This coming Wednesday, August 4, 2021, Wilson shares insights about what adult children wish aging parents knew about the challenges brought about by caregiving responsibilities.

New podcasts for The Caring Generation series are released on Wednesdays. Featured are tips and conversations about aging, caregiving, family relationships, and health. In addition, listeners receive information on how to plan for care situations and avoid mistakes due to a lack of experience and knowledge. The Caring Generation is available on Wilson's website and all major podcast and music apps.

Caregivers Have the Best of Intentions

Family caregivers and caregivers working in home healthcare, care communities, and healthcare professions have the best intentions. Desiring to be helpful, caregivers often go the extra mile, sometimes to the point of exhaustion and self-neglect.

When care expectations are not thoroughly discussed within families or in the workplace, caregivers can make faulty assumptions. For example, aging parents may expect children who live 2,000 miles across the country to fly home every time there is an emergency. Some parents expect adult children to move into their home, or vice versa, to provide care.

Setting clear expectations and boundaries for what caregivers should and should not do is essential in the workplace.  Care workers can become personally attached to clients by sharing personal information or by treating clients like family members. While taking a personal interest in a client can be seen as an act of caring, when professional caregivers are emotionally swayed to act against company guidelines or policies, crossing professional boundaries can be problematic.

Caregivers ask, "what's the problem with giving a client my cell number, or why is bringing my children to the home of a client a bad thing?" When a client calls the caregiver for a health emergency at midnight instead of 911 or when the client's family begins to question why a parent is giving money or gifts to a caregiver for their children, caregivers' best intentions and personal motivations raise questions.   

Caregivers Feel Bad About Sharing Their Feelings

Caregiver burnout and resentment happen when adult-child caregivers trade their lives and time to care for elderly parents. In many cultures expressing feelings to aging parents of exhaustion, stress or frustration is taboo. The idea of duty to family and doing whatever it takes is admirable. Still, it often results in physical and emotional health issues for caregivers who take on sole responsibility for parents' care.

Adult children caregivers don't express their feelings to elderly parents because they don't want to make parents feel like their care is a burden. However, the reality is that many adult children caregivers give up careers, lose jobs, become financially disadvantaged, delay education, experience marital break-ups, and damage personal relationships to care for aging parents.

While discussions may be uncomfortable, talking about caregiving challenges with aging parents is critical to ensure that relationships do not become resentment-filled. While adult children have good intentions, they cannot always fulfill promises to keep a parent out of a nursing home or keep a parent at home.

In addition, when health conditions change and care situations become more demanding, caregivers may not provide safe and appropriate care for elderly parents. Things caregivers wish parents knew is that they have the best intentions but may not be the permanent or only solution to provide care for the remainder of a parent's life.

Wilson works with family caregivers, groups, and corporations worldwide to educate about the role strain that caregivers experience, managing, and planning for health and aging issues. More about Wilson's online courses for elderly care, individual elder care consultations, caregiver support, webinars, and speaking engagements are on her website www.pameladwilson.com. Pamela may also be contacted at +1 303-810-1816 or through the contact Me page on her website.

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