Help Your Parents Enjoy the Holidays - 6 Tips for the Season

The holiday season is a great time to get together with family to rekindle warm feelings and recall fond experiences from the past. However, family gatherings can also be stressful if we are not prepared or if we have expectations that cannot be met. As you prepare to gather with family this year, the staff of Helpwithmyparents.com offers some suggestions that will help you and the older members of your group have the best possible experience.

1- Be considerate
Remember that the older members of your group may not be able to maintain the same level of activity as the younger members, so plan activities that are suitable for all of the group. If an older family member suffers from memory difficulties avoid embarrassing them by asking them to recall an event from the past.

2- Be Prepared
If you are hosting the family gathering make sure that your home is accessible to older family members who may have limited mobility. Older members of your family group may not be as able to tolerate the noise and the strain of an extended gathering and it may be necessary to prepare a quiet room where they can rest.

3- Be Aware
If an older family member needs transportation make sure that it is arranged well in advance and that a suitable vehicle is available. If the older family member needs to take medication during the event make sure they bring it with them. Some medications will interact poorly with alcohol and it may be necessary to monitor the alcohol consumption of an older family member particularly if there is some loss of cognitive functioning.

4- Be Understanding
As we age our abilities and interests may also change, if an older family member cannot or does not want to engage in activities they may have engaged in in the past avoid attempting to persuade them to do so.

5- Be Open
Going into a holiday family gathering with expectations that are too rigid or inflexible will likely lead to disappointment for all, so try to open to the experiences as they occur and allow those present to be themselves.

6- Be…
Most importantly if we can relax and be our most warm, open and accepting selves, the holiday gathering can be a wonderful experience for all who attend.

Companion Site Launched

This week we decided to launch a companion site of HelpWithMyParents.com called HelpWithMyKids.com. In many ways this decision feels premature to me - the site still needs a lot of work on the topic pages and we have just begun to list providers who serve children and their parents. Nevertheless, the need is there, and the decision to publish the site now will spur us to action. It will also provide the opportunity for others to contribute as they see fit. The site is very similar in structure to the HelpWithMyParents site - it is in a wiki format so that those with expertise can contribute and providers of services can list themselves on the site.

Those of you, like me, who have young children and aging parents will quickly see why both websites are necessary. This point was brought home to me recently as I spoke at a conference on Multiple Sclerosis. I was demonstrating the information on the HelpWithMyParents site and a woman in the audience said that she thought the information was helpful, but that she would not have found it on her own because it was her child she needed help with not her parents.

I look forward to working with those of you who share my commitment to provide comprehensive and easily accessible information to people who are in need of services throughout the life span.