Tips for Taking Care of an Elderly Parent in Your Home

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If you are caring for a parent or an elderly person in your home you may want to consider following a few of these helpful tips that I picked up through personal experience years before his. Being a caretaker for someone who is elderly, especially a parent, can almost feel unnatural. The tables are turned and you can easily fall into the trap of treating your parent or elderly like a child. And they are not children! They have their dignity and they deserve full respect. So please remember to make them feel important.

1. Ask what they want to eat. Don’t just serve whatever you feel like serving. I have a grocery list and buy the foods that they want.
2. Ask how they feel. Listen to them complain about their aches and pains. Let them complain all they want. You don’t need to cure them. You just need to listen.
3. Play games with them. Card games, dice games, board games… keep them thinking!
4. Give them rides on nice days. Ask them where they would like to go.
5. Give them their own space as much as possible. Give them their own room with a TV, phone, etc. If you can’t do that, at least make sure they have a chair that belongs to them and only them and put it near a window with a little table, whatever. Just give them some space that is their own.
6. Offer to read to them. Or get them some books on tape. Or let them listen to the radio. Or get your kids to sing to them.
7. Ask for their advice! They love knowing that you care about their opinion. Ask for their advice and listen to what they say! They are usually right!