Why Your Siblings Haven’t Helped with Providing Care for Your Parents

If you are providing care for your parents and your siblings consistently withhold help from you, you are not alone! In fact, 50 percent of all family caregivers are caring for an aging loved one alone, according to a recently available report from AARP.

Making sense of why this issue is so common, as well as determining ways to preserve your personal health, which is easily stunted by providing care for your parents alone, is imperative. Our aging care specialists have the answers.

• They are fearful or feel uncomfortable. Providing care for your parents can be overwhelming for someone who has never done it.

What you can do: Invite them to “shadow” you for a day to help them gain confidence with the specific tasks that they are not comfortable with. A bit of hands-on training tends to make a big difference.

• They do not know what to do to help. While it may come natural to you to step in and provide your parents’ care needs, that may not be the case for your siblings.

What you can do: Put together a list of particular tasks that you could use help with, together with the times and days that help and support are necessary, and ask for volunteers.

• Your siblings do not realize you need help. It may be that from the outside looking in, you have everything under control and running smoothly, and you are not in need of their assistance.

What you can do: Be open, and have a genuine conversation about the pressure you’re under to provide care for your parents. Encourage your brothers and sisters as well as other family members to come over to visit during a time of higher intensity care needs, like when you are making dinner and then helping the person prepare for bed, and recruit their help so they are able to see for themselves how much work is involved.

How Can Home Care Help?

At Endeavor In Home care, our professional care providers in Phoenix, Mesa, and Tempe are always happy to work with you to meet the care needs of your senior loved one with professionalism, compassion, and commitment. If you need help providing care for your parents, reach out to us online or at 480-498-2324 to find out more about our in home care services.