How to talk to your parents about getting older

Most families have this conversation too late. It happens in a hospital corridor after a fall, or at a kitchen table after a diagnosis, when everyone is frightened and every decision is urgent. The same conversation, had a few years earlier over an ordinary lunch, is far easier and far kinder.

If you have started to notice small changes in a parent, or simply realised you do not know what they would want if things changed, this is how to begin.

Start before there is a crisis

The best time to talk about getting older is when nothing is wrong. The subject is then about wishes and plans, not about failings. A parent who is asked “What would you want, if the stairs ever got too much?” at seventy is being consulted. A parent who is told “You can’t manage the stairs any more” at eighty-five is being corrected.

Choose a calm, private moment when nobody is rushed: a walk, a drive, a meal at home. Avoid the days straight after a fall or an argument, and avoid big family gatherings where a parent may feel outnumbered.

Open with a question, not a verdict

Parents are adults who have run their own lives for decades, and most of them are acutely sensitive to being managed by their children. A conversation that begins with your list of worries will usually end with their defences.

Questions work better:

• “Have you ever thought about what you’d want if you needed a bit more help at home?”
• “If something happened and you couldn’t tell the doctors what you wanted, who would you want to speak for you?”
• “Is there anything you worry about, about getting older?”
• “Where do you see yourselves in ten years?”

It can help to make it about yourself: “I’ve been sorting out my own will and it made me realise I don’t know what you’d want.” That turns an inspection into a shared piece of life admin.

Then listen, and let silences stay silent. You are unlikely to settle anything in one go, and you are not meant to.

The subjects that matter most

Over several conversations, it is worth gently covering a handful of things. Not all at once.

• Where they want to live. Staying at home, moving somewhere smaller, moving nearer family, or, one day, care. There are no wrong answers, but it helps to know which they would choose.
• Who should make decisions if they cannot. Most countries have a legal way for a person to choose, in advance, who can make decisions for them if they are no longer able to. It goes by different names, such as a lasting or enduring power of attorney, a healthcare proxy or an advance directive, and it can usually only be set up while the person still has the mental capacity to do it, which is exactly why it is worth doing early. In England and Wales, for example, a lasting power of attorney comes in two kinds, one for property and financial affairs and one for health and welfare, and has to be registered before it can be used. A local lawyer, or the official guidance where your parent lives, will tell you what applies to them.
• Health wishes. What matters to them if they became seriously ill, and who their doctors should talk to.
• Money and paperwork. Not the amounts, necessarily, but where the important things are: the will, the bank accounts, the pension, the house deeds, the passwords.
• Help at home. What would make life easier now, before anything is urgent.

Know where help comes from

If a parent is starting to struggle day to day, find out what help exists where they live. In many places a local authority, health service or care agency can assess what someone needs at home and arrange equipment, changes to the home, help from a paid carer or day centres. Their doctor is often the best person to ask where to start. In England, for example, this is a free needs assessment from the local council, which anyone can request.

If you are helping to look after a parent yourself, ask whether there is support for carers too. Some systems, including England’s, offer a carer’s assessment of your own needs.

Charities and organisations for older people, such as Age UK in the UK or AARP in the United States, offer information and advice for older people and their families. One of them is a good place to start if you do not know what to ask.

When they do not want to talk

Some parents will change the subject, joke it away or bristle. That is normal. You are asking them to imagine losing independence, and nobody enjoys that. Respect a no for today. A boundary is not a rejection, and a conversation you leave gracefully is one you can come back to.

Try again later, from a different angle, or through a different person: a sibling, a friend of theirs, their doctor. Sometimes a parent who will not discuss it with a worried son or daughter will discuss it with a lawyer, or with someone their own age who has been through it.

If there are siblings, try to agree between yourselves first, so your parent is not caught between competing plans. It is also worth deciding who will be the main point of contact, so that decisions do not stall while everyone waits for someone else.

Do not make every visit about this

The practical conversations matter, but they are not the whole relationship. Keep the visits that are just visits: the lunches, the walks, the stories you have heard ten times. Ask about their lives, not only about their plans. Take the photographs, including the ones with you in them. Photographs of the people we love matter more later than we expect.

The point of talking about getting older is not to hurry it along. It is so that, when it comes, the people you love are looked after in the way they would have chosen.

Sources

• GOV.UK (England and Wales). Make, register or end a lasting power of attorney.
• NHS (England). Getting a care needs assessment.
• NHS (England). Carer’s assessments.