Video Transcript
[0:00] Welcome to Caregiver SOS by Bay Alarm Medical. My name is Haley Burress. I’m a caregiving expert here to talk about the ugly side of caregiving that no one else talks about — the most frustrating and challenging parts of caring for an aging family member, and how to get through it.
[0:15] Family dynamics can get tricky when a parent starts to struggle. Here’s our question. “My brother and sister have a lot of criticism when it comes to how I help out our mom. I’m the one here doing the work. How do I deal with their negative attitude?”
[0:35] 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.
[1:00] You do have a few options here. First, you can choose to 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.
[1:15] 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.
[1:28] 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 obviously the most confrontational, so you might want to work up to that one.
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