Effectively Share Caregiving Duties with Siblings

How to Effectively Share Caregiving Duties with Siblings

BY MARY CAMPBELL WILLSANDESTATES.NYC

Anyone who has ever battled with a sibling about sharing toys, clothes, or living space knows that brothers and sisters can really mix it up. When adding the additional stress of caregiving for elderly parents or other relatives to sibling relationships, tensions can sometimes boil over. But it doesn't have to be that way. Members of the Gen X and Millennial generations are spending increasing amounts of time helping elderly relatives care for themselves and navigate evermore-complex healthcare systems. The 65-and-older population grew by over a third from 2010 to 2019. As this cohort continues to age, their demand for caregiving services will grow. Their adult children and other relatives will be tasked with providing that help. The best methods to effectively share caregiving tasks among family members are similar to those that foster good relationships. Siblings need to understand shared responsibilities, sharing their goals, and set healthy boundaries. Our relationships with our siblings can be among the most enduring in our lives. Siblings can know one another and their personalities (and their preferred communication styles) better than they know anyone else. They know who is introverted; who procrastinates; and who has a habit of not picking up the phone when they're too busy. But that knowledge can also cause conflict. We recommend first considering all the assumptions that go along with caregiving and questioning those assumptions, like who "always" helps and who "never" does. Here are some tips:

When beginning to share duties, holding family meetings can be helpful.

Choose a time when everyone can meet (even if they have to join the meeting virtually or on the phone). Set a brief agenda. Consider holding an initial meeting just for caregivers, as well as a follow-up meeting with the person who requires care. Make initial decisions for what needs most urgently to be done and who might be best able to help with cleaning, transportation and shopping, personal finance tasks, and doctor appointments.

Don't be afraid to make your prefer-

ences known! Everyone has different abilities and often caregiving tasks can be sorted among the most appropriate family members. Be aware that the time needs of different tasks will vary over the experience; at tax time, there are more financial tasks to complete. Likewise, accidents or acute health events like strokes or cataract surgeries will consume more time during some months and less during others.

Family members must also agree on the level of time and resources that

they can provide. This is a time for honest communication: if you are starting a business or a new job, or have a new baby, your ability to provide extras like outings or visits for your elderly relative might be curtailed. Try to outline what all family members consider the most important priorities (pillbox filling, meal providing, doctor visits), and meet those obligations first.

Setting boundaries within families can be challenging. Siblings will disagree on the extent of parents' needs and the best ways to meet them. Your opinions matter! State them clearly and often rather than keeping them to yourself and then becoming angry when you feel ignored. One of the most contentious issues among families is members' differing abilities to "just say no"— some are com-

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sive, he says. "We often seek consensual validation from peers about risk messages and risk behaviors." For instance, hurricane evacuation notices are more effective, he says, when people learn their neighbors are leaving. Peer information — "the number of others who are doing or believing or responding to something -- definitely persuades people," agrees Cialdini. "When a lot of others are responding in a particular way — for example, getting vaccinated — people follow for three reasons: The action seems more appropriate or correct, it appears more feasible to perform, and it avoids social disapproval from those others."

Let Them Talk, Give Them Time

Gladys Jimenez is a contact tracer and "vaccine ambassador" for Tracing Health, a partnership between the Oregon Public Health Institute and the Public Health Institute that has nearly 300 bilingual contract tracers who serve the ethnic communities they're from. During a typical week, she talks to 50 people or more, and promoting the vaccine is top of mind. The conversations, Jimenez says, are like a dance. She presents information, then steps back and lets them talk. "I want to hear the person talk, where they are coming from, where they are at." Depending on what they say, she gives them more information or corrects their misinformation. "They often will say, 'Oh, I didn't know that.'" It's rarely one conversation that convinces hesitant people, she says. "I'm planting this seed in their brain. … people want someone to listen to them … they want to vent." Once you let them do that, Jimenez says, "I can tell the person is in a different state of mind." She also knows that people "will make the decision in their own time." With time, people can change their minds, as a Southern California woman who resisted at first (and asked to remain anonymous) can attest. "When the vaccine first came out, I remember thinking [that] it was a quick fix to a very big problem," she says. The lack of full FDA approval, which has since been granted, was also an issue. She doesn’t oppose vaccines, she says, but was leery just of the COVID vaccine. When her longtime partner got his vaccine, he urged her to go right away for hers. She stalled. He got his second dose and grew impatient with her hesitancy. It began to wear on the relationship. Finally, the woman talked to two health care professionals she knew socially. They both follow the science, and "they both could explain vaccination to me in a way that resonated. The information was coming from sources I already trusted." Those conversations are what convinced her to get vaccinated this summer.

Simpson's Transformation

Simpson of Back to the Vax got her first COVID immunization April 16. She had an allergic reaction, including severe itchiness and a bad headache, and needed emergency care, she says. Even so, she's scheduled her second shot appointment for next week. Like many who turned against vaccines as adults, Simpson had all her childhood vaccines, but she developed a distrust after watching a lengthy documentary series that warned of vaccine dangers as an adult. Looking back at that documentary, she thought about how it seems to blame everything — childhood cancer, ADHD, autism, allergies — on vaccinations. That suddenly seemed like sketchy science to her. So did the claim from a family friend who said she knew someone who got the flu shot and began walking backward. She researched on her own, and with time, she decided to be pro-vaccines. These days, she continues to find that stories, not statistics, are changing the minds of many who decide to get vaccinated. If the nurse practitioner urging the tetanus shot for her daughter had told her that the tetanus shot is linked with problems in one of a specific number of people who get it, no matter how large that second number was, Simpson says she would have thought: "What if she is that one?"

So she relies on stories that point out how universally vulnerable people are to COVID first, facts next. "Facts help once you are already moved," Simpson says.l

Share Caregiving Duties/

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fortable stating their limits, while others will neglect their own lives to take on ever more caregiving jobs.

Setting boundaries means that all family members need to become more

flexible with one another. You can decide what you are uncomfortable doing, and state that, but be prepared to offer to fill other roles instead to keep things fair. Remember that feeling guilt is normal. Acknowledge the feeling at times when competing demands mean you are stretched thin across all your responsibilities. Then move on. You will get more done if you are not explaining yourself to your guilty conscience or your siblings. It is possible to provide generous and sustaining care to family members without damaging your relationships with your siblings. Remember to have conversations about the help required, work together to define shared goals, and recognize the boundaries set by your fellow family members. These strategies will help you minimize possible frustrations and to maximize the many instances of grace and love that often accompany caregiving.l

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