A Life of Care Giving – Becoming an Enlightened Caregiver

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Caring for an elderly relative can be an extremely stressful process. If you choose to go into care and deal with the elderly and infirm then you can maintain an air of detachment. However, if you look after a relative, it is impossible to detach yourself from your family role as well as providing effective care. As a result, you will have to deal with all of the emotions that go with caring for a disabled or ill relative. As it is so hard to detach, you may well decide that you need help caring for him or her in order to escape from some of the stress and pressure. There are plenty of options as far as this is concerned owing to a service commonly known as home help. It may be labelled differently in your area but this name sums up just what it is.

Home help is a service that provides an experienced and qualified carer who will come into your home or your relative’s home as often as you wish to provide various aspects of care, such as bathing, feeding and dressing. This can be useful in that you could escape the elements of personal hygiene that are necessary. Many individuals cannot cope with the thought of undressing and washing their own flesh and blood, and understandably so. Again, it all goes back to that air of detachment that has previously been mentioned. It may well be easier to have someone to come in to administer that side of things every day whilst you take care of feeding and chores around the home.

As home help carers administer such care for a living, they are schooled in the necessary privacy rules of their trade and can be counted upon to be honest and trustworthy. They all have to pass certain qualifications in order to be able to do their job and thus know what they are doing, although it may be hard not to interfere and make suggestions. Some people therefore choose to meet a home help carer once and then leave them to do their job.

Most home help carers go into a home at least once a day, usually to get the individual out of bed, bathe and dress him or her, but you can choose to have home help as often as you want. Two or three times a day is the usual level, and this is especially popular amongst those caring for elderly relatives and also have a full time job to earn a living. However, the amount of times that you choose to have a carer in largely depends on what you can afford. The best services can be quite expensive, although there are usually several within one area to choose from. As a result, you can interview until you finally find a service that you are happy with and would trust with your relative.

You can search for home help services on the Internet or in the local service directories. There are minimum standards that each service has to comply with so always be wary of services that do not boast of their credentials. Check out testimonials and ask around for recommendations. You may also want to take your elderly relative’s opinion into considerations. After all, it is your relative that will have the most contact with the home help. If they like the person that they have to help them, then you will find that you have less problems than if you were to select an individual on your own.

A vast readership awaits How to Negotiate with Kids. It addresses some of today’s top parenting concerns: how to deal with a child who disagrees, how to avoid being either an ogre or a pushover, and-most of all-how to handle conflicts in ways that build lasting relationships with children.

Scott Brown, a founding member of the world-famous Harvard Negotiation Project, coauthor of Getting Together, and a father of four, has found that parents face the same dilemmas as negotiators everywhere. Now he has adapted his highly acclaimed techniques to teach parents how to:

* manage their own emotions and reactions during conflict
* manage their children’s emotions and strengthen their emotional control
* listen in ways that will build understanding
* negotiate solutions to common problems
* teach their children to be problem solvers
* learn when not to negotiate
* discipline wisely

Personal anecdotes, stories from Brown’s workshop families, and sample dialogues of “right” and “wrong” approaches make How to Negotiate with Kids an essential tool for parents who want to reduce conflict and strengthen their families in ways that will protect their children’s emotional health and happiness.

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The notion that parents cherish all their children equally — or at least say they do — is so entrenched in our culture that colleagues warned Karl Pillemer, a gerontologist at Cornell University embarking on the first of many studies of family favoritism, that his research would prove futile. No mother, they insisted, would admit to caring more for one son or daughter than another.

So much for that. His team’s interviewers, talking to mothers ages 65 to 75 in the Boston area about their adult offspring, found that most were perfectly willing to name favorites. “Most mothers have very distinct preferences,” Dr. Pillemer said. “There’s one to whom they feel most emotionally close . . .

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Intelligence That Comes from the Heart

Every parent knows the importance of equipping children with the intellectual skills they need to succeed in school and life. But children also need to master their emotions. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child is a guide to teaching children to understand and regulate their emotional world. And as acclaimed psychologist and researcher John Gottman shows, once they master this important life skill, emotionally intelligent children will enjoy increased self-confidence, greater physical health, better performance in school, and healthier social relationships. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child will equip parents with a five-step “emotion coaching” process that teaches how to:

* Be aware of a child’s emotions
* Recognize emotional expression as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching
* Listen empathetically and validate a child’s feelings
* Label emotions in words a child can understand
* Help a child come up with an appropriate way to solve a problem or deal with an upsetting issue or situation

Written for parents of children of all ages, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child will enrich the bonds between parent and child and contribute immeasurably to the development of a generation of emotionally healthy adults.

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The book that thousands of new parents and professionals have turned to as their first source of information on Down syndrome. This classic guide provides new parents with straightforward and compassionate advice and insight. It helps families become more confident in their ability to cope, to learn about their child’s development, to know where to seek help, and to advocate for their child. This second edition, written by the same knowledgeable parents and professionals who contributed to the first edition, covers these important areas: diagnosis; medical concerns treatment; coping with your emotions; daily care; family life; early intervention; special education; and legal rights. The satisfying blend of practical information and emotional support make BABIES WITH DOWN SYNDROME the guide new families will want to refer to first.

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