communicating with seniors Archives - Aging, caregiving and the journey through the second half of life

New Booklet: No Longer Safe To Drive

October 5, 2018

At some point it becomes painfully obvious. Maybe it’s the near misses, another fender bender, traffic tickets, getting lost on errands, poor night vision, or increasing confusion. Whatever the mix of warning signs, the message is clear and deeply concerning.…

Three Strategies for Preserving Relationships with Older Clients

October 9, 2014

It’s always an ambush. From Steve’s perspective, the estate settlement was going well. Beneficiary papers had been filed and trust provisions initiated. While he had worked primarily with Jim over the last 11 years on financial matters, Steve always maintained…

Caregiver Support Lessons…

February 12, 2014

Last fall, I started a caregiver’s support group. The goal was to offer a non-judgmental setting for adult children to share their stories. While being the facilitator, my real job was arranging chairs and making sure everyone had a turn…

Dancing with Negative Feedback: Redirection and Resolution

November 21, 2013

I wrote this article for an assisted living magazine but the technique of “Redirection and Resolution” works in a wide range of situations where negative feedback needs to be managed in a calm, professional manner. Asking the daughter of a…

Communicating with Older Adults: An Update

March 16, 2013

I have been studying how to unlock the communication code of older adults for the last twenty-three years. My first breakthrough came early on with developmental psychology, a model based on age-specific tasks that are easy to understand, easy to…

Navigating Caregiver Dilemmas

May 25, 2011

As the drama of aging parents unfolds, it reveals itself as layers of interconnected dilemmas that resist heroic attempts to keep everything together. Like an unruly Rubik’s Cube, alignment in one caregiver area seems to trigger chaos in another. Just…