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We live our busy lives.  We have children and all their activities.  Our children have children and we get caught up taking care and enjoying our grandchildren.  We are accustomed to our parents doing for themselves.  In fact, many of us become dependent on our parents helping us in our daily schedules.  Time moves on — but how do we know our parents need our help but just aren’t asking us?

It is amazing how often we don’t realize that our parents are getting old until it hits us square in the face — or worse yet, they get a catastrophic illness.  If both our parents are alive and still married and living together, it is easy to miss the signs your parents are slowing down.  Although this topic is worthy of a book (stay tuned because one will be announced soon), but some of the early warning signs are:

• Senses go first, such as sight, hearing, and smell
• Look for signs of forced happiness
• Monitor driving habits — do they stop driving at night, take the long route somewhere versus getting on the interstate
• Sleep problems – usually not being able to get a good night’s sleep
• House is not kept up like usual
• Outdoor gardens look untended
• Hiring people to do yard work especially if they used to do everything themselves
• Comments like ‘your kids wear me out’ or ‘I can’t do that anymore’ or ‘this house is getting to be too much for me’
• Less enthusiasm during major holidays
• You notice signs of arthritis
• Your parents seem more vulnerable and can get confused
• A family pet dies and your parents don’t want a new one
• Hobbies they used to love they rarely do anymore

Obviously, this list could go on and on but you get the picture – life as you know it with your parents are changing – and how you and your family handle these changes will be important to how you handle the fact that your parents will soon need you.  If your parents are living alone, you should even be more vigilant.  Being alone and getting older is very scary for your parents.  They know they’re slipping but are in denial.  They don’t want to burden their children.

Comment on this blog post and let us know what you think.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 12:52 am and is filed under Parent Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.