Are Your Parents Driving You Crazy? How to Resolve the Most Common Dilemmas with Aging Parents FROM THE PUBLISHER
Do you have an aging parent whoﾽ
refuses to stop driving?
skimps unnecessarily on expenses?
refuses to see a doctor?
wants to move in with you?
ignores the doctor?
antagonizes the home health aide?
avoids discussing end-of-life issues?
Do you have a family member whoﾽ
never offers to help?
resents the time you spend caring for your parent?
actually discourages your involvement?
steals from your parents?
These dilemmas and more are resolved in this practical and helpful book written -- with you in mind -- by two family-focused therapists. The authors prescribe a simple problem-solving model that proves useful for any dilemma you may encounter as the child of aging parents. Read the introductory chapters on how to talk with your parents so that you and they can communicate productively. Find out how to break an impasse and how to S.U.R.V.I.V.E. the process of making things better for everyone, including yourself.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Clinical social worker Ilardo and clinical psychologist Rothman codirect the Center for Adult Children of the Elderly and the Center for Caregiver Studies in Scarsdale, NY. Here, they have simply and logically condensed years of experience at those institutions. In straightforward text, they present a problem-solving model that anyone can use with his/her aging parents. The groundwork of the model is immediately followed by analyses of 25 common dilemmas (e.g., how to deal with an elderly parent who insists on driving or who refuses to take medication) with possible outcomes. After each scenario, the authors pose six questions: Does everyone agree that the problem exists? How urgent is the problem? What's behind the behavior? What is hooking the adult child? Who must be included in the discussions? And, finally, what is the expected goal or final outcome? Very similar in scope to Grace Lebow and Barbara Kane's Coping with Your Difficult Older Parent (Avon, 1999), this is an excellent choice for parents, adult children, caretakers, and other health professionals. Lisa Wise, Broome Cty. P.L., Binghamton, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Internet Book Watch
Joseph Ilardo and Carole Rothman effectively collaborate in Are Your Parents Driving You Crazy? to show stressed out adult children how to resolve the most common and frequently encountered dilemmas that arise from efforts to care their aging parents. Cogent, insightful, practical, and competent problem solving advice, suggestions, and observations are provided when an aging parent can no longer safely drives but is refusing to quit; detrimentally skimps on expenses even though they are not poverty stricken; refuse to see a doctor or ignore medical advice; want to move in with their children; antagonize home health aides and other support workers; are unwilling to discuss vital end-of-life issues and decisions; and more. Also of great and enduring value is the advice on handling adult siblings who refuse to help in the care and problems of the aging parent; resent the time spent caring for a parent; disagree, discourage, or undermine parental care efforts; steals from the parent, and more. If you are undertaking the responsibilities of caring for an aging parent, begin with a careful reading of Joseph Ilardo and Carole Rothman's Are Your Parents Driving You Crazy? It will save you immense amounts of stressful anxiety and bewildered frustration — as well as substantially improve the quality and effectiveness of your efforts in behalf of your aging parent.
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