What Can You Do to Provide More Emotional Support for Your Aging Adult?
As a caregiver, you’re there for all types of support for your elderly family member, including emotional support. There’s a lot of loss involved in growing older and it can bring up some big emotions for your elderly family member.
Caregiver Warren NJ – What Can You Do to Provide More Emotional Support for Your Aging Adult?
Talk to Her about How She’s Feeling
Make it a point to regularly ask your senior how she’s feeling about certain situations and just in general. She may be feeling irritated, but you’re not sure why. This is the perfect time to find out. If you don’t understand what your senior is feeling and what’s behind those emotions, you can’t do much for her to resolve that.
Validate Her Feelings, Even if You Don’t Agree
The thing about feelings is that they’re neither right nor wrong, yet sometimes people will tell someone else that they shouldn’t feel that way. Don’t do that to your elderly family member. Validate her feelings, which simply means that you acknowledge that she’s got a right to feel the way that she feels. Trying to talk her out of how she’s feeling is just going to frustrate both of you.
Be Patient with Her
Feelings are definitely a sticky topic and it can be a frustrating topic for both you and your elderly family member. So being patient with both her and yourself is key in this situation. Your elderly family member might need some time to really start opening up to you and that’s got to be okay, too.
Find a Support Group for Her
If your aging family member understands that there are other people who feel the same way that she does, it can go a long way toward helping her to feel accepted and supported. While you can do quite a bit for her in that regard, that weight doesn’t have to be all on your shoulders. Find a support group for her that allows her to meet others in her same situation.
Get Help for Your Own Emotional Needs
It’s just as important that you’re not ignoring your own emotional needs right now. You may want to join your own support group as well or find a therapist who can work with you. As you have more emotional support, you can offer even more support to your senior.
Helping your aging adult to feel supported emotionally can lead to her feeling safer and more secure overall, which is what you want for her as her caregiver. The more secure that she is, the better she’ll be able to handle all of the curves that life still has to throw her way.
If you or an aging loved one are considering hiring professional Caregiver Services in Warren NJ, please talk to the caring staff at Generations Home Health Care today. Providing Home Care in Somerset, Essex, Union, Morris and Hunterdon Counties. Call us today at (908) 290-0691 or (973) 241-4534.
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