Making A Choice

Perhaps you believe, as I do, that life is all about relationships.  Relationships can be those with our families of origin or our families of choice, with friends, colleagues and our clients.  In senior care, those clients are both the elders that we serve and their families.

One of the things that is most important to remember about relationships is that they are not one-sided. Regardless of the relationship, each person has their own point of view as well as their own feelings and opinions, and they are both entitled to them and entitled to express them.

With older adults, however, we often see that assumptions are being made and decisions being imposed without considering the elder’s feelings or concerns or choices.  When someone says they have a problem, we jump in to solve it immediately.  We don’t take the time to fully listen nor do we take the time to ask a simple, and important, thing “What do YOU want?” as well as a question that can really make a difference “Do you want to be helped, do you want to be heard, do you want to be hugged?”

Variations of that simple phrase are useful in so many areas of our lives.  We make assumptions—that the other person is asking for our opinion or our help—when perhaps all the other person wants is to vent or be comforted.  We act on those assumptions, we tell the person how to take care of it, what to do and expect that they will be grateful for our wisdom and input.  Sometimes we just take it out of their hands and seize control.

When we do that with peers, family members or friends, they may push back or not react or just ignore our unsolicited advice.  In fact, it may discourage them from sharing with us again. But, when we do that with an older adult, we effectively disenfranchise them.  We not only show them that we see them as helpless, we tell them that they have no rights and that their feelings and opinions do not matter.

It is easy to forget, living life at the pace that we do, that not everything is ours to control, that not everything is about us.  Remembering to treat each individual, regardless of age or stage, as a person is not just a kinder way to go through life, it will bring more meaning to our life and to theirs and to all of our relationships.