Were there Warning Signs when you saw Your Aging Parents Over the Holidays? (12:21)
It’s crucial to be vigilant about your aging parents’ well-being
Broadcast Retirement Network’s Jeffrey Snyder discusses observing your aging parents with Kim and Mike Barnes of Parenting Aging Parents.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
This morning on BRN, part two of our conversation, were there warning signs when you visited your aging parents? We’re going to welcome back to the program, Kim and Mike Barnes of Parenting Aging Parents. Kim, Mike, great to see you.
Thanks for joining us again this morning.
Kim Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
Glad to be back. Yeah. Thank you.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Kim, let’s start with you. So yesterday’s segment, we talked about, you know, kind of the signs, the warning signs. And I think you have to, you know, there’s that communication element that Michael talked about.
You have to work as a team to identify the issues. Once you identify the issues, what’s the first step? I mean, what do you do, especially if you’ve never been through this before?
Kim Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
I think, depending on your situation and your family dynamics, one of it could be talking to your siblings or talking to your other parents to see if, am I seeing something that’s not there? Or are other people seeing it too? So that starts the conversation.
I think it can also be even asking your parent, Hey, how are things going? How do you feel like you’re doing? So that you’re not being, it’s not being a, Hey mom, you’re not walking very well.
What’s the problem? Which I might be, have been guilty of a time or two. So don’t take several times.
Lots of times. Because sometimes it’s just having to stop and think before you speak. Because sometimes you just might say, mom, what’s wrong?
You look a little wobbly. Hey, how do you think you’re doing? So that you can kind of get a sense from them how they’re going to respond.
Because I think that’s a huge indication of whether they’re aware, whether they’re in denial or if they really aren’t noticing it.
Mike Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
Yeah. But what can you do to set themselves up for success? Because you don’t want to set them up for failure.
It’s like anything that we do. We don’t want to give them, you know, for us, when, when they were, when we were younger, they’re our parents and they’re, you know, helping us get a car or something like that. They don’t want to give us a hot rod.
If we’re terrible drivers. You know, you want something slow and safe. Well, it’s the same thing here.
You want to be as safe as you can, whether it’s picking up the rugs that are on the floor because you’re, they’re shuffling their feet. So you don’t want to trip on a rug. Or it’s something because they’re terrible with numbers now.
And they don’t even remember how much money they have or how much something costs. Okay. Let’s take the checkbook away.
Things like that. They just keep you from, from getting into those dark areas where things can go wrong. Go ahead, Kim.
Kim Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
Well, it’s so much of it is balancing that safety as well as their independence and their dignity, because they have always been the parent. And now we’re trying to step in sometimes and take over responsibilities or sometimes telling them a little bit of what to do or what we think they should do. And it’s, it’s trying to balance that.
Mike Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
But part of that, I think has to do with personality, not only your personality, but their personality, because some people, some people are more than willing to say, oh, please. Yes. Help me.
Help me. That would be great. Son, daughter.
Thank you. Help me. Help me to help me.
Some people are like, no, you stay away. I’m fine. I’m nothing’s wrong with me.
My mom would say, I mean, she wouldn’t be that mean about it most of the time, but she’d say, there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m fine. It’s like, okay, mom.
So, you know, we won’t bring it up, but you know, if, if you said something the wrong way about her about mom, you’re not remembering things. Yes, I am. I’m fine.
You know? Okay. Then we won’t, we won’t be as, uh, direct or aggressive with helping you so that it’s that apparent, but we’ll figure out ways to subtly help you so that you’re safe, but it’s not as apparent to you.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
How do you know when to go to a doctor? Um, let’s just say that there was a hip issue, um, or a gait issue. How do you know when to bring the doctor in?
Because especially as Michael was saying, Kim, if you’ve got some adamant, I’m going to call it a spirited conversation with the, the loved one, they may say, I’m fine. I don’t need that doctor, but you notice something. You’ve had conversations with the siblings, your other family members.
There’s deniability on the part of the, of the parent, but when do you bring the doctor in and say, Hey, we’ve got to go see the doc.
Kim Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
I think it can, it can depend on in some ways, their relationship with going to the doctor. If they’re used to having a regular checkup every year because their insurance requires it, sometimes you can use that, that, Oh, your insurance wants you to do. They require you to do a once a year checkup or something like that, where that way, if you are with, you know, hopefully probably the doctor who knows them best, the primary care doctor, or, you know, if there is another doctor involved, but then it becomes just more part of their, just of their checkup.
There are ways that you can potentially send a note to the doctor ahead of time to express your concerns. You have to be a little careful because we do hear stories occasionally where the doctor will say, well, your kids told me blah, blah, blah. And you’re like, okay, that really is not very helpful.
But most of the time, many doctors are willing to sort of take that upon advisement, if you will. And having the, that information just helps them be able to ask better questions and or watch for things during that appointment. When you come in for a quick appointment for 15, 20 minutes, likely with a, with your doctor, there aren’t, they aren’t going to be able to notice everything.
Mike Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
Usually people, the cognitive stuff, right?
Kim Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
Right. Because, you know, you put on, we all put on our best behavior, we put on our best behavior, whether it’s the way we look, the way we’re talking to be able to cover for ourselves in most situations. But giving the doctor a heads up can be helpful for, for them being able to be more aware of, okay, I’m looking at things a little differently, perhaps.
Mike Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
I went to quite a few doctor checkups with my mom and dad over the last 10 years. And before my mom went into memory care, the doctor would say, it was a female doctor. He’d say, you know, Jane, how are you doing?
Oh, I’m doing great. You know, doing this and doing this, reading books, reading books and working the crossword every morning. It was like, and we’re.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. And Mike, yeah. Mike, let’s talk about the finances.
Cause I think you assume the role of your, for your father. And your dad was really good with numbers. I, I seen you.
Mike Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
My dad is a, is an accountant, former accountant, and he, he still is in control of his finances. I try to take them away. It’s going to be a little dicey.
Okay.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So let’s, let’s talk a little bit about that. So, and I don’t want to make it about you, but how do you, so forget your dad for a second. How do you know?
And what do you do if you have to step in? I don’t want to make it about, especially if your dad watches the program, you’re coming and he just celebrated.
Mike Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
I get him all the time. I say, you know, you’re selfish and stubborn and someday we’re going to have to take the keys away. And someday we’re going to have to take the finances away.
You realize that don’t you? Oh, I know. I know son.
Yeah. I’m okay though. I think like, yeah.
Okay. Dad today. But you know, again, you have to look at how it’s affecting them and how it’s affecting you about when you need to start controlling things, taking the keys away for driving or taking the finances away because they’re, they’re getting scanned or they’re, they’re making mistakes or forgetting to pay their bills.
You just have to realize, okay, they’re not doing it. It’s not that they’re not doing it the right way because they may be doing it fine for what they need to do, but are they messing up or getting themselves into trouble or getting their finances into trouble? Or is it something where again, you need to step in, just like when we were having little kids who were, you know, four or five, seven years old and okay.
When do you need to step in and do something for them? And when do you let them, well, go ahead and learn a little bit.
Kim Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
Yeah.
Mike Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
Because sometimes it’s going to be okay. It’s such a something that’s that minor. It’s okay.
But when it gets bigger and bigger, you have to step in. It’s the same thing with our parents. Yeah.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. And what, and what about privacy and scams? I mean, there, there is a, our, our older family members are really ripe for attack from some of these people that are bad.
Mike Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
It is awful. Part of it doesn’t have to do with the fact that they’re going downhill. So to speak, it’s because they’re old and they’re not used to this generation yet.
I mean, yes, computers have been around for, for 40 years for, for home computers, but not, but they didn’t grow up with them. Like, like so many of us did. And our kids really have with iPhones and iPads and that type of thing.
My dad made the unfortunate thing of, of clicking on something on his computer. Well, a pop-up showed up. A pop-up.
Well, I’ve always told him, don’t click on anything. Don’t click on anything. He accidentally clicked on something and then a pop-up came up that said his computer was, was damaged and you need to call this number.
He called the number before he called me and, and the people on the, on the line had him do some things. And we were so lucky. Thank goodness that he had the malware stuff on there and the, the antivirus that they weren’t able to get in, but it was close.
He almost lost everything. And it’s because he just didn’t think and just clicked on the wrong thing. And that’s something that, that we, you know, we’re kind of used to because we’ve grown up in it, but you know, think about someone who’s 87 computers back in the forties, fifties, sixties.
No. So they’re not used to that still because that’s not what they grew up with.
Kim Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
But I, and I, but I will tell you that there are, there are, they’re getting so sophisticated that there are text messages that I get, you know, from FedEx or whatever that’s, you know, that there, there’s a lot of phishing out there that’s going on that it, that it makes us have to look twice at. And you can only imagine if we’re. Thinking, Oh, that’s weird.
Huh? And actually having to process and think whether it’s valid or not, we can only imagine how difficult it is for our parents. And it is, I mean, there is a special place for the people who prey on our elderly people.
It is awful. We heard a case recently where a, of a, of somebody in our community whose parent was like over the phone and they came and picked up the money in person, which you just think, Oh my gosh, they’re getting, you know, many of the scammers are getting very, just, just. I don’t know.
I mean, just where they will come and pick it up. And they, there’s all kinds of different scams, romance scams, and your kids in jail, or my mom fell prey to the, can you buy me some gift cards? Because we’re in an unfortunate situation and we’re not able to go, but we can give you the money, but we just can’t go buy the gift cards.
One of those that when you start thinking about logically just sounds ludicrous, but at the time they’re so convincing. And that was the impetus for us saying, okay. No more online access to your bank account, because that way in case somebody accidentally gets access to your computer, they can’t get to anything because you don’t have online access to your banking information anymore.
And we, we had, we took the checkbook away because we just, and, and even when she would get upset about it, we would just say, I know you don’t want people stealing from you. And she would say, Oh yeah, you’re right. Yeah.
I don’t want that to happen. And so it’s, it can be a tough transition, but it’s so much of how do you balance the, I’m really trying to protect you and so that you don’t lose, you’re not having money stolen from you that you likely will need to care for you versus, you know, can they manage it themselves?
Mike Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
Yeah. Again, it’s so much so similar to having kids when, when you have teenagers and they want their independence, they want to be dropped off somewhere and they don’t see parents anymore. And you want to show up and pick them up and say, are you okay?
Come on, jump in the car. And they’re embarrassed about it. In so many ways, it’s the same thing with our parents.
You want to embarrass them, but you want to protect them as best you can.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. Well said. Well, Mike, Kim, always great to see you.
Keep up the great work and parenting aging parents.com. People should certainly check it out. Join the Facebook group, especially if you need some help.
Great to see you. Thanks for joining us and we look forward to having you back on the program again, very soon.
Kim Barnes, Parenting Aging Parents
I appreciate it.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
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And until then, I’m Jeff Snider. Stay safe, keep on saving. And don’t forget, roll with the changes.