What to Do When Siblings Don’t Help with Aging Parents

November 15th, 2022

You’ve asked, begged, and bargained — but your siblings still don’t help take care of your aging parents. What can you do?

Caregiving is a rewarding yet challenging role, even in the best of times. It becomes even more of a challenge when everything falls on a single set of shoulders. An estimated 48 million Americans provide unpaid care to someone over the age of 18.

Many struggle to figure out how to cope with aging parents, and that struggle comes with a tremendous amount of stress.

Statistics from the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP Public Policy Institute suggest that emotional stress impacts 40% of caregivers. Many more also deal with physical and financial strain.

That burden becomes even more pronounced when siblings don’t step in to provide help for aging parents, but you don’t have to continue to struggle alone. Let’s explore some strategies and options for caring for parents when siblings can’t — or won’t, offer any help.

Meet Your Siblings Where They Are

The hard truth is people can’t be forced to step up and take responsibility — including siblings.

Some of the most common excuses caregivers hear from siblings include “I can’t stand seeing Mom or Dad like that,” or “I don’t have time.”

Setting aside the idea of similar feelings and time constraints, it’s essential for caregivers to realize that there is rarely anything “fair” about caregiving. Someone inevitably ends up taking on more responsibility, whether it’s because they are physically or emotionally closer to the parent or because no one else is willing to help.

It’s natural to feel trapped caring for elderly parents when you don’t have any support. Finding ways to take some of the pressure off can help reduce the strain.

Open the Lines of Communication

Even if you’re not on good terms with your siblings, communication is key. Let them decide their level of involvement and accept that it may not be exactly what you want, but it can still be positive.

Explore Other Ways They Can Help

Perhaps siblings live far away or work long hours. Suggest ideas like making regular phone calls to parents, helping with things like finances or research that can be tackled virtually, and contributing to the expense of hiring the help needed to balance the workload.

Protecting Elderly Parents from Siblings

In some cases, a sibling may try to take advantage of an elderly parent. Emotional, financial, and physical abuse does happen, and it sadly happens far more often than it should.

No matter how involved or uninvolved siblings are with their parents’ care, taking a few steps early in the process can help families prevent elder abuse from happening.

These steps include:

Transparency: Communicate early and often so everyone understands your aging parent’s needs and has an opportunity to be involved in the planning.
Financial Planning: Gather legal documents, including medical and financial power of attorney and a living will, to protect parents’ wishes and assets.
Documentation: If you suspect a sibling is taking advantage of an elderly parent, document everything possible to provide evidence of mishandling.
Call a Meeting: Get the family together and talk about the situation. Bring the documentation you’ve gathered and attempt to intervene and come to an agreement.
Consult an Attorney: Understanding your rights and options is critical, and consulting with an attorney who specializes in elder care or probate law can help you better understand your options.

Build Your Own Support Network

Whether the sibling has been removed from the equation to protect the parents or your siblings simply refuse to help with aging parents, the result is the same. You may be on your own, but that doesn’t mean the road has to be traveled alone.

Do the same thing caregivers without siblings do: build a support network. Check with the area’s Office and/or Agency on Aging, enlist neighbors, and contact your parent’s place of worship.

Community groups can also provide caregiver support, education, and more.

Enlist Professional Help

In addition to support, many caregivers need extra help caring for their parents. Work schedules, family obligations, and personal needs are important too. Preventing caregiver burnout requires enlisting outside help early in the process.

Some of the available options include:

Hiring a Home Health Aid: In-home aides can help with activities like bathing, dressing, and eating for several hours a day.
Arranging Transportation: Transportation services can provide rides to appointments when you can’t.
Delivering Meals: Many community groups can arrange meal drop-offs to help ensure elderly parents stay nourished.
Hiring In-Home Medical Professionals: Nursing care or therapy can attend to in-home care beyond the activities of daily living. This may include activities like medication administration, wound care, and physical therapy.
Schedule Respite Care: Respite care, which may be for a few hours a day or several days or weeks, provides caregivers with a break from their duties.

Talk About Assisted Living

Many caregivers eventually find themselves at a crossroads. Despite their best intentions and their desire to keep their loved ones at home, they can no longer provide all the care their parents need. Although it’s not an easy conversation to have, the sooner you talk about assisted living, the better.

Signs That It’s Time to Make the Move

Sometimes the best help for aging parents is knowing when it’s time to transition from staying at home and struggling to making the move into assisted living. This option allows a fair amount of independence while providing meals, social enrichment, medication management, and so much more.

Some of the signs to watch for include:

Deteriorating physical health
Loneliness, depression, or anxiety
Messiness around the house or an unkempt physical appearance
Marked, unexplainable weight loss
Frequent falls or other safety issues

For Respite Care or Assisted Living, Turn to Judson Meadows

When siblings don’t help with aging parents, it increases the pressure and strain on those who do. Whether a caregiver needs a short-term break or a long-term living arrangement for an elderly family member, Judson Meadows is here for you.