Seeing your parents go from figures of strength and agility to seeing them age can be a tough process. The responsibility of caring for parents often falls on the shoulders of one of the eldest children in the family. 

This responsibility is not easy, as you are essentially in charge of caring for your parents, whilst still juggling your own adult life of work, family and children. To protect yourself and your parents during the trying times of their aging, it is important to think ahead and consider elder care planning.

Find Legal Assistance

Elder care planning is a challenging task, as it encompasses so many roles. The trepidation around how to address the need for elder care with your aging parent is completely fair as you are essentially responsible for the life of someone who used to take care of you and now the roles have switched to you taking care of them. This task alone is daunting but then come the additional factors, such as their health and finances.

It cannot be denied that increased age often goes hand in hand with ailments or sickness. It is the sad truth of aging and as the adult child responsible, this is often completely new territory. It can be scary to see parents get sick and try to identify and help them through their everyday lives. Questions arise such as, whether to send them to an old age home or not, how much money they have in their accounts to continue affording the mortgage of their home, when their pension runs out etc. A great idea during this time of questioning is finding a great law firm, like the Jarvis Law Office. These professionals can guide you through making tough decisions and inform you of the reality of the financial impact of certain decisions.

The reason it is beneficial to hire legal assistance is because of how it benefits you. You can benefit from the lawyer’s years of theoretical and practical experience. These seasoned legal professionals are great at correctly handling a person’s private assets, such as their private interests, business and general assets as they have previous experience in this. 

Try to make finding legal assistance a priority, such as what you would receive at the Jarvis Law Office, to make this difficult time a little easier.

Ask Your Parents What They Want While You Still Can

Knowing how to address the need for elder care with your aging parent can be extremely difficult, especially if you do not speak to them about it beforehand. Although the idea of speaking to your parents about what they want to do in the event of them getting sick, passing or even finding themselves in a state where they can no longer properly take care of themselves, can be rather morbid, it is important. It is crucial to overcome any awkwardness and bring up the conversation.

Consider asking them some of the below questions:

• When you start to get sick, do you want one of the kids to come over every day and help you with basic tasks and go buy medicine for you or how do you want it to work? 
• If you get sick and can’t take care of yourself alone at home anymore, would you prefer if a nurse who does house visits is arranged for you or would you prefer going to an old age home where you can get 24/7 care? 
• Do you want to transfer the deed title of the house onto one of the children to continue paying off the loan or would you like to sell it to pay for the old age home or facility of your choice? 
• Do you have a will set up already? If you don’t, can one be arranged for you by the Jarvis Law Office for example? 

To Conclude

The idea of parents aging, getting sick or no longer being able to care for themselves is something that no adult child wants to think about. The question of how to address the need for elder care with aging parents is not an easy one. It requires a strong stomach, direction communication and the need for logistical thinking, even around such an emotional topic. Hiring legal counsel, like the Jarvis Law Office, is always a good first step and then asking your parents what they want is the next best thing.