Pages

Friday 31 January 2014

Keeping an active relationship with your children… when you are in a care home.



Watching your baby grow up is a beautiful experience and nurturing them, caring for them and shaping their lives is like nothing else. They are so reliant on your love, your care and your financial support for at least 18 years of their lives, sometimes longer, until they fly the nest and start their own lives.
In time, (hopefully a very long time) when the tables turn and they are fully independent and you are in the situation of losing your own independence, it would be nice to know that they will help to look after you, at least seeing that you are safe, where you can keep an active relationship going with your child.

Caring for your baby

Caring for a child is a real labour of love, The National Geographic says that in the time you raise a baby you will change their nappies at least 3,796 times, you’ll spend thousands of hours of your life driving them to and from their various activities and the cost of raising a child from birth until their 21st birthday is now estimated at morethan £218,000. Woah!

Obviously these figures don’t account for the love and the amazing memories you’ll have together but they do explain how much effort and hard work you put into their care, while they need it.

The hope is that after they go away to do their own thing they still keep that relationship and bond as strong as it has always been, carrying it well into their adult life and forever.


When you are old will your baby look after you?

I don’t think parents often expect a return for the unconditional love they show to their children. But to know that they will still be there in your life, to offer some kind of help would be of comfort to any elderly parent. So it is important to keep an active relationship with your child so they can keep you in mind as you get older.

It would be ideal if your child could help look after you when you need it, but many elderly people do not want their children’s help in their everyday lives, they want a certain degree of independence even if they are losing whatever independence they had.

If you do find yourself or someone you love in similar a situation like this, you don’t need to worry about burdening your children with your care. If you seek out a care option such as care homes you are able to organise the amount of care you require, however small or large that is.

But you’ll still need that relationship you have with your child to keep you happy and offer the unconditional love and support that a care worker can only try to offer. So instead of changing your nappies or paying for your care, maybe it would be nice if they were to drive you around every so often and take you to the places you would like to go to.


 

No comments:

Post a Comment