“You are old, Father William,” said the young man, “and your hair has become very white, and yet you incessantly stand on your head – Do you, at your age, it is good?” Lewis Carroll (1865) My grandmother was the original matriarch. When she barked “frog,” the only acceptable answer was “how high?” She was difficult to treat in her last days, surprising no one. Not being the brightest penny in the family purse, I responded emotionally to her complaints, judgments and demands. Rather than immediately leave, I stood my ground, trying to defend my family and I from her relentless attacks. As a result, we were not speaking when she died. Had I understood what I was facing, I had tried to put myself in her shoes would have a better ending our story. In the hope that your story have a more satisfying ending, I offer a couple of tricks for dealing with difficult elders I’ve learned since then. 1) before a plan of a crisis The best way to deal with difficult parents is as much as possible to avoid problems by planning how you treat them before they arise. Choose a time when all family members can meet in person or on a conference call to discuss what you will do when a family member needs help. Take the attention away from elderly parents to fully participate in planning and making certain they have a role to play. Sure to take notes! Share them with all your family members to check appointments. In difficult situations, you may want to ask family members to sign a copy of an agreement to return. Here are a few of the topics you would like to address: Physical Location How do you help a family member if they live in another city? Can an effective long-distance caregiver, and if so, how? If not, who will move, and when should that happen? Roles Who is responsible for what? Will you share the cost is, or want to contribute cash balance through time? What will happen when there are disagreements? How will you deal with changes in individual circumstances? How will you respond to threats to health and safety? Differentiation preferences and requirements. If it’s more than a preference for family live together, get it out on the table before a crisis erupts. Planning Document Where do you store important documents such as wills, powers of attorney, insurance, and deeds of trust. Who will have access to these documents? And under what circumstances? 2) Extend your patience muscles Remember your excitement when you crossed the threshold of adulthood? When you first get a license? When your first job? When you find your first apartment and could decorate it all on your own? Then think about how you would feel if you had to give adult privileges, one by one. What you feel now can close the feelings of your difficult parent. But old feelings you indispensable. Your difficult parent may fear · Becoming invisible · themselves as useless or stupid · the loss of their friends, · losing physical abilities · Becoming dependent. By yourself in their place, you can respond positively and well. 3) Forget “parenting your parent” One of the most useful ideas in our culture is the idea that if your parents age, you become their parents. Stuff and Nonsense!You are not your parents’ age, nor will you ever. Your role may be friend, confidant, carer and supporter, but if you take the role of parent, your older decrease by reducing them to the position of the child. No wonder they react negatively. Would not you?

Anne recently lost her husband of 42 years to cancer.

“I just can not cook myself,” she said. ”What can I do cooking is not such an ordeal?”

Anne’s circumstance is typical of many seniors who have lost a spouse or partner. And while it would be easy for her a “cooking for a cookbook that is really not the problem – an undesirable change.

When you are ready for a family of two or more, cooking for one is a lonely business. But a few simple changes can help.

1. Change your cooking environment.

Toss or store those old dishes are so many signals for remembering other times. Replace with a new set for two or four. I found four beautiful dinnerware sets for under $ 50.00 at Crate & Barrel and Kitchen, Tableware, etc. need not be expensive to be fun, and the change will help guide you to the life you now live.

While you’re at it, take a quick trip to your local bookstore. Many of the latest cookbooks feature beautiful color photographs of delicious meals to tempt your taste buds.

2. Change your eating habits.

Change the time you eat your e-mail meal. Change your regular diet to something new and more exciting. Change your eating partner. You may have friends who would enjoy sharing a meal. If not, volunteer or to create new senior centers.

Invite friends, new and old, to come to share a meal. Maybe they enjoy sharing meal preparations as well.

Spend your meals regularly work at a soup kitchen or delivering “Meals-on-Wheels.” It’s hard to be lonely when you give of yourself.

3. Not cooking for one.

It is not difficult to prepare a meal for four than a meal for one – if cooking for four, and freeze the surplus in meal portions. TM Ziplock freezer bags will work well for single servings, but do not use sandwich bags. They are too thin for adequate freeze.

Alternatively, consider a vacuum packaging system. The company promotes its system bags boil-in bags and frozen containers.Vacuum air removal extends the shelf life of frozen foods. I found such a system under $ 40.00 on DmartStores. Replacements bags are about $ 16.00 for three, 66-bag roll.

Do not forget to label bags and flatten, while freezer for easy stacking.

4. Eat what you’ve grown in your garden.

Food you’ve grown yourself feeds your body and your mind. Even the smallest patio has room for a few pots of tomatoes and spicy peppers, and watching the plants mature and produce fruit and vegetables is something to look forward to every day. Freeze excess produce.

5. Proportion of frozen meals with a friend.

Commercial frozen meals with a friend (whom you pre-qualified as a good, or at least acceptable cook). You will both benefit from a change in diet.

6. Eating!

But not just food. While working as a veteran road warrior, I spent many weeks away from friends and family. I often ate in restaurants, but it was never the same as eating with a pleasant companion. So take the initiative – Invite a friend to lunch or dinner.

Remember, cooking for one is not the problem. Loneliness and living in memories, but you can from them and toward enjoying meals again.