Case Studies

A Sample of Hard Conversations we have helped to successful outcome:

1)   Elderly Mom & Dad were very stressed because their middle- aged children could not get along. The “kids” were always “tattling” on one another just as they did when they were children.   Mom and Dad felt like they were living in a war zone. How would they ever find peace?

2)   Elderly Mom and Dad were still supporting one of their children who never earned enough to pay her bills. The sister of the poor earner didn’t think it was right or fair for Mom & Dad to continue to support her. Among many other reasons, by sending money to the sister, Mom and Dad were cutting themselves short financially.

3)   Dad crashed his car. Luckily, no one was hurt. He was a hazard on the road. The children were  fearful for him and others on the road. They wanted him to give up driving before something terrible happened. Driving meant independence to him.

4)   Mom was a very private person and did not want any help in the house. However, she was not preparing  meals, or cleaning any more. Her environment had become unsafe and her health was deteriorating because of poor nutrition. The children all lived several hours away.

5)   PG&E notified a son that Mom had not paid her utility bill for two months. When asking Mom about her bills, she said everything is “all taken care of” –that his sister is paying the bills. When the son visited Mom, he found mail all over the place. Envelopes were stuck in books, intermingled with the newspaper, and tossed into a dusty pile on the dresser.

6)   One sibling was living with 90 year old Dad and theoretically caring for him, but was doing an inadequate job. The other siblings live many hours away. Dad always says “everything is OK”…but when the siblings visited, they noticed that he was not taking his meds regularly, and he was not supervised when he would go outdoors in their very rural area.  He was unsteady on his feet and had had several TIAs.

7)   One sibling was a manipulator. He had Mom move all her assets into his name so he could take care of her finances. She couldn’t get information about how much money she had in her accounts. He become hostile when his siblings questioned what was going on.

8)   Mom and Dad still lived in the house where they raised their family. It was a much bigger space than they needed to be comfortable. As the family was growing up, they always did their own maintenance. With advanced age, they became unable to manage the upkeep. They did not have the funds to pay someone to do the maintenance. One son lives near-by, but he was very busy with his family and his job. He didn’t have enough time to do anything more than the most critical fix-it jobs.  All of Mom and Dad’s assets were in their house.