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8 Ways You Can Help Your Elderly Parent BEFORE Crisis

| Julie Hall

Here are 8 ways that you can be proactive and and take action now to help de-clutter your parents’ home.  Do this now for their sake, and for your own sake.  I can tell you from personal experience: you do not want to have to do this in “crisis mode.”

  1. Have the important conversations with your parents.  Approach them with love and ask them about their wishes.  Try to gain an understanding of their financial situation.  Be sure to know where all the important legal documents are kept. 
  2. Start to de-clutter your parents’ home.  Since they won’t likely appreciate this, suggest that you are helping them avoid both a fire and a tripping hazard.  Start by removing expired food, unused things, piles of newspapers, etc.
  3. Discuss and document allocation of personal property and heirlooms.  Create a wish list and ask an appraiser to assess the values.  Suggest “gifting” of special items while your parents are still alive.
  4. Every time you leave their house, take a few bags of donation items with you.  Dress the less fortunate.  Tell your parents you are helping them to “thin out” the house.
  5. If your parents have already moved out or passed away, begin the process of clearing out the house by using three piles to sort belongings: donate, sell, keep.
  6. When in doubt, always have a personal property appraiser evaluate antiques, collectibles, and anything you are not sure about.
  7. Continue to keep in touch with siblings and keep everyone on the same page.  This is the only way that whole family will maintain close and healthy relationships through this process.
  8. Always come from a place of love.  In the end, life is about MUCH more than the stuff.  It’s about the wonderful, deep, and abiding relationships within our families.

That’s my thoughts for this week.  Click on the “leave a comment” line below, and let’s discuss this together.

© 2010 Julie Hall

Conversation Starters for You and Your Parents

| Julie Hall

It is never easy to talk with your parents about future issues.  Here are some conversation starters that will make it more comfortable for you and your parents.

  • “Mom, you’ve been such a great help to me over the years.  I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
  • “Mom and Dad, sometimes I worry about you living all alone.  Are there any things we could do to help you?”
  • “Dad, when Uncle Jim passed away, his family fought for weeks over things.  Do you ever worry that Mike and I will be like that?”
  • “Ever since Mom’s stroke, I’ve been worried about your meals and things.  Are you doing all right?”
  • “Jim and I started looking closer at our retirement account, and we’d love to pick your brain about all the things we need to know about retirement.”
  • “Dad, do you ever worry about Mom if she had to go it alone without you?”

Parents, listen to your children.  And children, listen to your parents.  This is a critical conversation for all of you, and you want to make sure you communicate well.  Just like when we were kids at school, don’t be afraid to raise your hand and ask questions.  Making assumptions or guessing about what the other one wants can be dangerous and lead to places you don’t want to go.  Remember what your teachers used to tell you:  there’s no such thing as a dumb question!

For more help on this and many other topics related to your aging parents and their stuff, please read my book, The Boomer Burden: Dealing with Your Parents’ Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff.  It’s available from Amazon.com or click on the link at the right of this article.

© 2010 Julie Hall