Fighting Like Cats and Dogs With Midlife Siblings Over Parent Care?

Are you a middle-aged sibling struggling over caregiving issues that are a big sore point in your midlife family?

Gail Sheehy in her new book Passages in Caregiving, strongly suggests having a family meeting over caregiving issues and offers some guidelines for midlife siblings seeking this tool.

Sheehy proposes not involving the older family member or care receiver at the first meeting, because midlife sibling issues need to be solved first.

Jagged family concerns such as present middle-aged sibling struggles over parent care or brother and sisters life long battles need to be addressed immediately before moving forward with the family meeting.

Solutions like paths to sibling forgiveness need to be road mapped before caregiving problems can be solved. Other strategies like a forgiveness system might be tapped into as a goal before care giving could be shared by adult -child siblings.

The therapist should have a thorough background in midlife sibling issues before she or he tackles a family meeting. Sparks can fly because adult brothers and sisters often gather as a team for the first time since childhood, at a family meeting, called to face a red hot aging parent problem

Organizing this first family caregiver/sibling team is a good reason to have an initial family meeting. But the therapist or professional must know sibling dynamics, such as the parental caregiving patterns in midlife siblings, sibling aide and direct services and sibling rivalry extended into midlife.