Providing care for your aging parents can be a very difficult task, especially when you are balancing it with work and a family of your own to take care of. Having siblings to help share the work load can be very beneficial, unfortunately not all siblings are willing to help. We at Carefect Home Care Services understand the difficulties that family caregivers face and would like to share some tips on how you may get your siblings to help.

The first thing you can do as a primary caregiver to enlist help from your siblings is to call a family meeting. If your siblings live close by, you can ask them to come over so that you can talk to them about what needs to be done for your elderly parents. Once you have everyone there, you can tell your siblings what you have been doing for your parents so far and let them know that you will need help taking care of them moving forward. If your siblings do not realize that you need help then they might not offer it, so it is important to be sure that they know you need help. If your siblings do not live close by you can try a phone conference or call them all individually to talk with them about it. Even if your siblings live far away they can still help in some areas.

When you talk to your siblings about helping out with your elderly parents, you should make sure that you are clear about what you need help with. Prepare ahead of time for the family meeting to make sure that you will find the most clear and organized way to cover all of your requests during the meeting. For instance if you know that you need someone to take care of your parents on a specific day and time each week you should ask your siblings about that specific time instead of just asking for help in general. Approaching things this way helps to ensure that you get as much help as you need and your siblings know exactly what is required of them. Making a general appeal for help allows your siblings to slack off some because you are not asking for specific things so they only have to offer a little bit of their time to seem like they are helping. Even if you are not looking for them to share equally in the caregiving, you can still let them know that you would like them to help out as much as they can by covering what you are unable to do.

If your siblings are not able to help you personally or just do not want to, you can ask them to contribute financially. If you are having a hard time paying for your parents to live with you, you can always ask for financial help from your siblings. Your siblings can help cover the costs of medical bills, health care equipment, and a private caregiver if necessary. Hiring a homecare service such as our services at Carefect Home Care Services is a great way to take some of the stress off you. If you have a sibling that lives too far away to help but would still like to be involved, having them help cover the cost of a homecare service that can take care of your loved one when you are not able to can be one of the best ways for them to help out. Maybe there is one day a week that you cannot be there or you need someone to come in every morning for a few hours but cannot afford to hire someone on your own. If this is the case, you should find out exactly what it will cost and discuss it with your siblings.

No matter what you do, you should always make sure to approach your siblings in a friendly manner and try not to alienate them with anger or resentment. It might take your siblings some time to get used to the fact that your parents need to be taken care of, and they will be more likely to come around and help if you remain friendly. Many children find it hard to accept that their parents need to be taken care of, or do not want to see them in a sick state. This can make it hard to enlist the help of certain siblings, but sometimes they come around if you talk to them openly about it. If you still cannot get your siblings to help and you get frustrated or upset, you can always join a support group and talk to them about what you are going through. Following these tips can make it much easier to be a primary caregiver for your elderly parents and to enlist the help of your siblings.

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