Custody Battles and the Elderly: A Growing Trend

Custody battles involving adult children fighting over their elderly parents and where they should live, who should care for them and who should control their finances is a growing trend. As this trend increases, we encourage families to find a mediator to resolve a dispute or provide options for the future.

Caring for an aging parent can be complicated. Adult children may find themselves managing a parent’s health, personal and financial affairs. Concerned children and frustrated parents may end up arguing over the next step, and siblings may find themselves laboriously assigning new tasks and responsibilities in an effort to create a safe environment for a parent.

Some family members find it hard to communicate with each other when their parent is in need of care. Perhaps they were not raised to work out problems together so that as adults they don’t have a family council strategy to rely on. Such a process may seem unnatural to them. But that is often exactly what is needed, especially in situations in which one child is caring for the parents and the others are left out of the loop.

Children all have a common bond to their parents and as a result a common obligation to each other. When disagreements arise, suspicions begin to grow. Suspicions or distrust often leads to anger which in turns causes people to sever the channels of communication between them. This can occur between parent and child, between siblings or between all of them.

Other than the parent’s lawyer or accountant, most families would not consider inviting a third party into the discussion. Elder mediators a private, beneficial option for families in need of neutral guidance. The goal of elder mediation is to allow seniors a voice in the decision-making process and to help families communicate with compassionate candor about situations which need to be addressed.

Elder mediation is especially effective at the beginning of the decision process – when families are fact finding, struggling with options and discovering feelings about their parents or adult children that escalate and make clear thinking difficult. For instance, an important form of elder mediation is simply to convene a family meeting where a trained neutral third party is present to create the space for everyone in the family to be heard on an important developing family transition. This type of meeting, before the family is in crisis, can strengthen family ties and enable all family members to deal with the changing nature of their relationships and the realities of their situation. It allows family dynamics including sibling rivalries to be addressed at a time when everyone is calm and thoughtful decision making can occur.

What Is Elder Mediation And Why Is It Advantageous?

Mediation is a process of bringing two or more disputing parties together and having them mutually negotiate a solution to their disagreement. The mediator is not a judge and does not render a decision but is there to make sure that communication flows freely between the disputing parties. Elder Mediators are trained in the art of negotiating resolutions between elderly parents and family members and have education and expertise in gerontology (aging studies).

Accordo Elder Mediation Specialists, LLC have the expertise in this area and understand the unquie challenges associated with families caring for elderly loved ones.

In mediation, everybody who is affected by the situation has an opportunity, in a neutral and confidential setting, to tell their story. Whenever possible, that includes the elderly family member.

Mediation can achieve results that the family by itself may not be capable of realizing or have the expertise to achieve. Elder Mediation is valuable because having a trained expert in communication:

• Gives the family a perspective it could not gain by meeting together on its own
• Allows all family members involved to meet and prevent problems from arising by anticipating situations that may cause disputes
• Can invite other experts, such as care managers or other care providers, to the meeting to educate the family and give them a new perspective
• Allows parents to focus on their abilities rather than their limitations
• Allows children to come up with and consider options not thought of previously
• Encourages uninvolved family members to become involved
• Allows parents to express wishes and desires that had previously gone unuttered
• Allows for a neutral third party to challenge family members and make them take responsibility for their actions
• Promotes consensus of all involved which in turn creates a much higher rate of compliance with the plan than with any other process (the success rate for compliance with elder mediation is estimated to be about 80% to 85%)
• Requires a written plan with specific responsibilities which makes compliance feasible.

Elder care mediation helps caring people

How can you preserve relationships, build cooperative and collaborative decision-making processes, and improve the quality of care for your elderly loved one?

Elder care mediation helps caring people make better decisions, settle disputes, and solve family issues. Participants share their perspectives and needs, and work together to make responsible decisions that affect their lives. Families face many challenges in providing continued, loving care for their elders. Many families struggle to communicate and to agree about the care of their parents or other family members. Often people don't know where to turn for help with the myriad of life-changing decisions to be made. Financial, housing, medical, care-giving, end-of-life and legal issues need to be considered. Caring families might disagree not only among themselves but also with their elderly parents, caregivers, facility administrators, and other professionals. Long-distance care-givers have their own areas of concern.

The elder care mediator responds to the challenges facing elders and their families, and is informed about current issues in the industry. Elder care mediation acknowledges the inherent rights and integrity of seniors and provides them an opportunity to express their values and standards. If the senior is cognitively impaired, the mediator will insist on an appropriate advocate. Inherent in the mediation process is the goal of preserving and improving relationships by enhancing and strengthening trust and respect between the participating parties.

A mediator will gather background information about people's concerns, identify areas of mutual interest, and provide a forum for discussion. Interviews can be conducted via telephone, e-mail, fax, etc., and mediation sessions can be held in homes, facilities, or by teleconference.

In choosing a mediator, consider your needs. Does your parent require a medical assessment to determine the type of care? Are legal concerns at issue, whether over inheritance, family business or assigning the power of attorney? Or do you just need to bring the family together to decide what needs to be done and who will do it?

“Bringing a neutral person with a professional and compassionate attitude into our disputes was the best thing for all involved,” said Susan, a woman I know who struggled for months over health and safety issues before she enlisted the service of a professional care manager mediator. “My parents shared their concerns and listened with acceptance to mine. All of a sudden we could communicate and work out a plan that they could live with; then, I could relax knowing they were safe.”

It's hard enough for families to navigate the complicated and emotionally charged decisions related to elder care when everyone gets along. Throw in a family with tensions or outright hostility and it's no wonder that disagreements sometimes end up in court, an expensive proposition that can easily magnify divisions.

Using Mediation to Manage Conflict in Long Term Care Facilities

Conflict in any location where human beings congregate is inevitable. We are all evolutionarily programmed to defend ourselves when threatened, and to protect ourselves if we believe we are being wronged, even if the perceived attack is emotional rather than physical. Seniors are no exception.

When individuals who have lived independently in their own homes for many years are thrust together with caregivers in situations over which they have only partial control, conflict may boil up. Traditionally, administrators of assisted living facilities and nursing homes have tried to work out conflicts by talking and meeting with family or other concerned parties as well as the residents themselves. Sometimes this works. At other times, however, outside help may be necessary to resolve the conflict.

Dispute resolution is a process through which conflict is resolved by consulting a neutral person to assist both parties. Dispute resolution is strongly encouraged by the courts because it is practical, because it is far cheaper than litigation and trial, and because it is successful in resolving conflict about 80% of the time, regardless of the nature of the dispute. However, in health care settings and senior care facilities, using a neutral person to assist in conflict management is rare if not nonexistent. Although dispute resolution is a familiar concept to lawyers, nurses and caregivers may only be familiar with using a neutral person to mediate a labor dispute, divorce or other court-related cases. But mediation has far broader applications than that, and it is a very useful technique to manage conflict in long-term care settings.