Video Transcript
[0:00] Welcome to Caregiver SOS by Bay Alarm Medical. I’m caregiving expert Haley Burress. This is a special episode — we’re looking back at some of your most pressing questions about sibling conflict in caregiving.
[0:23] Family issues are magnified, and relationships can become strained when the matriarch or patriarch begins to get older and experience some challenges. In this situation, I’d like to start out by giving your siblings the benefit of the doubt. They may not realize how much you are doing on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis for your mom. If they have never been in the trenches with you, they may not think you’re helping as much as you actually are.
[0:40] If this is the case, you want to do your best to educate them about how much support your mom actually needs. The easiest way to do this is to write down a list of everything you do for your mom. Include the big things, like shopping for her groceries and taking her to doctor appointments, but also include the smaller things, like calling about insurance discrepancies, ordering medications for refill every 3 months, and answering the phone each night when your mom calls to talk because she’s lonely.
[1:26] Then, host a family gathering with your siblings to review this list. Don’t bring your mom. Just keep it to the siblings, and approach it as an educational opportunity for them. Don’t be angry. Try to give them the benefit of the doubt. When they see how much you are doing for your mom, it will help them understand why you’re asking for help.
[1:47] Then ask for help with those specific tasks. Don’t just say, “I need help.” Instead, take your list that you’ve written down and ask for help with each specific task. Can your sister be in charge of ordering medications and any insurance follow-up calls? Can your brother take care of online grocery orders? Get creative and brainstorm together so that everyone pitches in.
[2:24] When you are the primary caregiver, you need to do things the way that works best for you and that makes the most sense for you. Unfortunately, siblings — especially those who might not be a part of that day-to-day caregiving operation — can have a lot of opinions about what they think is working and what isn’t. You have a few options here. First, you can educate your siblings on why you do things a certain way and why it works best for you and your mom. Perhaps when they understand your reasoning, they will lay off on giving their two cents.
[2:56] Your next option is to tell them that their opinions are not helpful to you and only contribute to your caregiver stress. You can give them a list of tasks they can help you with if they’re looking to support your loved one.
[3:19] Finally, you can tell them that unless they are actively caring for your loved one, they don’t get to have an opinion about how you are doing it. This option is the most confrontational, so you might want to work up to this one.
[3:40] Like and subscribe for more caregiving advice.
