How To Help an Aging Parent Who Doesn’t Want Help
While many seniors appreciate when you help them in their later years, not all of them do. Sometimes you’ll have a stubborn parent who doesn’t want any form of assistance from your or anyone else. This can be difficult on you and other family members because you don’t want to see them suffer due to their obstinance. That’s why we made a guide on how to help an aging parent who doesn’t want help from you. Not all of these solutions will help, but hopefully, one of them will assist you in producing a breakthrough with them.
Figure Out Why They Don’t Want Help
Most of the time, the elderly person in question who doesn’t want any assistance isn’t forthcoming on why. Despite that, it usually comes down to the feeling of losing their independence, but sometimes there’s more to it than that.
That’s why you need to try to open a dialogue with them. Find ways to get them to open up about their unwillingness to accept help. Let them know that you’re simply concerned about their safety and well-being. If you get them to talk about their feelings, you can work out the issues and convince them to accept support.
Offer To Have Someone Else Help Them
Unfortunately, it’s rarely that easy. Sometimes there’s some deep-seated resentment that your parent doesn’t want to get into. If you suspect that’s why, try having someone else try to reach out and help them—whether it’s another family member, one of their close friends, or a licensed specialist. If the aid comes from another source, they might be more willing to accept it. Once they are getting the assistance they need, then maybe you can circle back to figure out what went wrong between you two.
Encourage Them To Use a Monitoring Device
If they refuse to accept help from a person, maybe they’ll take it from a device. If the feeling of independence is on the line, this will help give it back to them. They will be able to monitor their own vitals, call for emergency services when needed, and possibly be able to track where they’re located. If you get them a device such as our GPS tracking watch for the elderly, they will be able to do all of those things at once, plus some others. On top of that, you will be able to track those things as well.
Don’t Give Up on Them
If none of our tips on how to help an aging parent who doesn’t want help seem to work, the only thing we have left to suggest for you is to not give up hope. If you keep asking your aging parent about their unwillingness to accept help, they might one day admit defeat and let you in. While we don’t think you should pester them every day about this, keeping it a topic in their mind will hopefully one day open the divide between you and make them more willing to accept your support.
