As your parents start to get older, you might find yourself becoming more and more worried about their health. However, having conversations about their health and their future might be a bit uncomfortable, especially if you don’t have the best relationship with your parents. Luckily, there are things that you can do to help you have these types of conversations without making this awkward.
To help you with this, here are three tips for speaking with your elderly parents about their health.
Start With The Right Questions
In most cases, it’s usually best to try to have this conversation as part of a larger conversation, not just coming at your parents with questions that they might view to be invasive. So to help the conversation naturally lead toward the topic of their health, you’ll want to start by asking the right questions.
Before you ask any questions, make sure you’re coming to them with genuine curiosity about how they’re doing and what their plans are regarding their health. You could begin by asking about what their plans for retirement are, how they’re feeling generally, and if there’s anything you can do to help them in their life. If you’re able to listen well and continue to ask them questions about their life and health, you should be able to naturally broach the topic you’re really wanting to speak about.
Discuss Their Needs And Their Wishes
If you’ve noticed that your aging parent’s health isn’t as robust as it once was, you may want to figure out what their new needs are and what their wishes are for their health. While it can be hard to discuss topics that involve planning for a future where your parents can’t care for themselves as well as they are now, share with them that you really need this information to ensure that you’re able to help them get their needs and wishes met.
Depending on your parents, they may want to do everything possible to age in place or move into a memory care facility at a certain point. But if you don’t ask these questions now, you may not know how to proceed when their health starts failing.
Know That Some Things Are Sensitive For Them To Share
While there are things about your parents’ health that they should be willing to share with you in order to give them the best care possible, there may be things that they don’t want to share with you because they feel that these topics are too sensitive. And although it can be hard to feel like you’re being left in the dark, it’s important to respect their decisions as much as you can when it comes to their privacy.
If you need to speak with your elderly parents about their health, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you with this.
