For Yourself and Your Aging Parent

A how-to book for adult children faced with making decisions regarding care for their aging parent(s).

Caring for your elderly parent is the ultimate exercise in personal responsibility. It is one area where only you can do what is necessary to rescue yourself from being trapped in the emotional minefield of family dynamics and dysfunction. In The Best You Can Do, Carol S. Pierskalla, Ph.D. offers problem-solving tools for weary and exasperated caregivers. She helps the reader learn to:

Identify the 3 Types of Problems
Choose Between Needs and Wants
Focus on Solutions
Name Pushing and Holding Forces
Relinquish the Need to Control
Set Limits while Ensuring Care Truly Listen to an Elder
Create a Journal
Beware Shoulds and Ought Tos
Seek Fellow Sufferers
Chart Your Problems
Embrace Actions that Heal
Determine Responsibility
Put Your Needs First
Investigate Your Resources
Discover the Real Message
Differentiate Between Sacrifice and Exploitation
Listen Actively
Care for Difficult Parents
Read Body Language
Respond Appropriately
Focus and Be Patient
Keep Parents from Feeling Like a Burden
Understand Parents Who Can’t Talk
Keep from Giving Yourself Reasons to Fail

Each chapter features an exercise to help you help yourself. Appendixes include:
* support group affirmations
* suggested reading
* “Notes to the Listener”
* alphabetical listing of states’ websites on aging
* group discussion questions

ISBN 9781568251554
96 pages
Paperback
$14.00