Setting Boundaries with Your Senior Loved One
Setting Boundaries with Your Senior Loved One
Out of all the tasks a caregiver has to do in the day, setting and maintaining healthy boundaries can be the toughest thing. How can you say no to the person who raised you? Unfortunately, because setting boundaries is so difficult, many caregivers end up overworking themselves physically and emotionally in order to avoid having hard conversations. Even worse, many go to extremes, allowing themselves to burnout completely before establishing some healthy rules in the house.
Though it would be nice to have a master list of boundaries to set, no such list exists. The boundaries you need to set completely depend on your needs, your senior’s needs, and what’s going on in your lives. So in order to understand what boundaries you personally need to set, you really need to start focusing on your feelings.
What makes you feel overwhelmed? Maybe your mother refuses any outside help and that puts all of the caregiving duties on you. Maybe dad moved in and is trying to regain his old “head of the household” title. If it makes you upset, it’s a problem.
The best way to combat boundaries issues is to have a conversation. Explain how your life has been getting stressful and the ways you need to be accommodated as both a caregiver and a family member. Remind them that you need time for yourself, just like you did before you became a caregiver. Odds are they will understand. If they don’t, then keep trying to explain. It may take more than one conversation, so don’t feel that you have to push it all at once.
The important thing to remember is that you deserve to feel safe, loved, and cared for. Being a caregiver doesn’t take those needs away. That is one of the things Naperville Senior Center Adult Day Services is designed for; to create a ‘home away from home’ for your senior loved one AND give the caregiver, you, time to yourself. Whether you need time to be more productive at work, help your kids with their homework, get them to after-school activities or take time for yourself, we provide a safe, fun environment for our Members.
Each day Members spend time socializing, verbalizing, improvising, evangelizing, visualizing, exercising, having fun, and a host of other activities to provide mental and physical stimulation.
Call to action: to learn more about how NSC can provide a respite for you and a great social environment for your loved one, contact our Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant, Theresa, at 630.857.3017. You can also schedule a tour to see what they have to offer and understand the Naperville Senior Center experience, “Home Away From Home.”
Free TRIAL is for new Members and their caregiver.
The trial visit is Monday-Friday from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm.
Tour our adult day services facility.
Observe some fun activities. Join us for lunch. Learn more at our Senior Adult Day Care center FREE TRIAL
Receive Peace of Mind.
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Learn more about Naperville Senior Citizen services and upcoming events.
But this is also a time to teach your kids some independence.
Eat Better. When we eat heavy, greasy foods, we feel sluggish and tired. Since the heat can already make us feel that way, avoid fatty foods in favor of something light and lean. With the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables on sale this time of the year, load up your loved one’s refrigerator with their favorite cut up fruits and veggies so they have easy snacks ready to go. Activity: when the heat index returns to normal, take your loved one to the Farmer’s Market or out to a farm stand and let them pick their own fruits and veggies.
How do we help our members?
Here are a few reasons why we celebrate the color pink at NSC:
At NSC we strive to be compassionate and nurturing to all of our Members who receive our care. We know that we need to love ourselves in order to truly love others – and we really do love our Members as if they were a part of our family. In a way they are! We spend more time with them – listening, engaging, playing, singing and socializing – than we do with most of our own family members.
The Value of Money. Wouldn’t it be great if money really did grow on trees? Well, it doesn’t. It is important to make sure that kids understand how to care for the things they have so they last, as well as the cost associated with having those things in the first place. We had no ‘silver spoons’ in our family; our children were shown, by example, how to save and when it was okay to spend. (If only our politicians had learned that lesson!) 
Make Good Choices. We have tried to instill a little bit of the Holy Spirit into our children through our actions and words. It seems too easy to see someone else’s ‘bad’ choices with social media giving you 24/7 access to pictures that shouldn’t have been posted in the first place. We hope that our kids will make the right choices to start, so not to have the ‘wrong’ pictures at all.