Effective caregiving only means the ability to provide for the elder’s needs and improving their lives without exactly ruining yours. Indeed, some people can become entirely dedicated to providing for the needs of the elders that they can tend to ignore their own set of needs.
Here are some helpful tips to enhance your relationship and foster better self-care.
Time and Attention
An important consideration that you need to make and have to make known to the elder you are caring for is that your services are not available for them anytime and wherever they want. Your first business would then involve creating reasonable limits as to when and how you provide service for them. It is important to set your limitations as this too will affect how they establish their demands.
They cannot expect you to provide the care and service for them whenever they want. Learn how to deal with these minor demands. When you fail to give in to them, they will eventually stop. However, there is still the tendency to give in if they continue to push harder in their demands. Find alternatives in responding to such demands, especially if you are caring for your elderly parents and you are tempted to cave in to them.
Practice how you can balance being able to attend to their essential needs and taking care of your personal businesses.
Coping With Unreasonable Demands
At some point, while caring for your elderly parents, they can have unreasonable demands. Instead of beating yourself up trying to meet those demands, look at the more important needs that you can provide for them. The worse that could happen if you try to go out of your way trying to meet those demands is that they’d eventually demand some more to the extent that your inability to meet those demands disappoint both you and them.
Like with providing your time to serve and care for them, you also have to set limitations when it comes to the kind of service you will provide for them. It does not mean that you become nonchalant to their needs, but you need to recognize which ones are essential and those that are not.
You can engage them in various activities to spend the best of their remaining years together. There are various agencies or non-profit groups dedicated to providing activities and services for the aged that you cannot do on your own. Here, you can have professionals in caregiving willing to extend out any form of help so you can improve ways in which you can provide for you
Dealing With Elder’s Complaints
In relation to creating your boundaries or limits, try to infuse empathy and sympathy to the elders. Immerse yourself in their position and understand why they are making such demands. When they make insulting or unfriendly remarks to you about what you did or failed to do for them, learn how to resolve that within yourself. Stay as positive as possible and redirect your attention to avoid being affected by such remarks. If you fail to overcome such negative thoughts, talk to them about it. Let them know how you felt about their reaction and your genuine concern to provide for their needs and demands. At their condition, talking to them straight would be the best way to cope with the difficulties and challenges of trying to meet their demands.
Dealing With Behavior Towards The Caregiver
When people are aging, they tend to exhibit extreme behavior that could cause people lacking in patience to erupt quickly. Most elder individuals exhibit dementia, which results in unusual behavior. When you notice that an elder you are caring for shows behaviors that are unusual to them, then it is best to seek professional help. This will benefit both you and your elderly loved ones as you become less frustrated and they get the immediate help they need.
When it comes to extreme behaviors, you can correct or prevent them from happening again by making it known to the elder. Never respond by using foul language yourself or raising your level of voice. If you cannot hold your temper, walk away, and let your mind relax for a while until you are ready to settle the matter with a clear mind.