As we get older and our parents become elderly and frail, and we often find that our roles become reversed. They become more dependent on us just as we were on them when we were children and with our parents living for longer this dependency is only going to increase. Just like watching over children it is difficult to keep a watchful eye on them, all whilst trying to maintain a respectful distance so they can keep their independence. This can be a difficult and delicate balancing act. If you are part of the growing sandwich generation you may find yourself worrying about your ageing parents at the same time as worrying about your wilful teenagers.
Keep Calm
With an ageing population, we hear more and more about Alzheimer’s and dementia in the news and we all know that the memory loss and confusion of these conditions can lead to people wandering and getting lost. So what can be done to put your mind at rest? This unfortunately depends upon your individual situation, however there are some measures you can put in place in order to ensure that your family are being as safe as possible.
As with most things in life, you need to strike a balance of providing the right knowledge without scaring your youngsters so much that they don’t want to step outside. You want your children to grow up confident and fearless, take a look at these tips:
- This may sound basic but from a young age, make sure your children know their full name, address and phone number.
- Teach them how to dial 999/112 and have other emergency numbers by the phone for them to use or even instilled already in their mobile with speed numbers that they know.
- Why not try setting up a special code word between you and your children? It can be a good idea, especially if they have lots of different family members/adults picking them up from school or extra-curricular activities. The child can then ask the adult for the code word, and if they do not know it then they know it is not safe for them to go with them.
- Whether they are walking to school without adult supervision for the first time or they are planning a shopping trip into the local town, always ensure they have at least a few friends with them, there is safety in numbers!
Good communication is the key to any relationship, young or old. IT’s important to trust your children and to allow them to make decisions and mistakes, they need to become independent and they have to learn to judge situations for themselves. You are there to offer guidance, knowledge and support.
Solutions
As I mentioned earlier, it can be a fine line between checking up on your elderly family members and being over powering and patronising. In fact – many say it’s near impossible! One way of another you are going to offend somebody. Apart from care homes and/or round the clock home care there aren’t many solutions. However, with technology ever increasing, there has recently been an app developed and produced onto the market that can alleviate some of that worry.
GPS devices such as iSee:My Family are able to track any family member, be it an elderly parent or young child anywhere there is a GPS signal or Wi-Fi. Via an app on your mobile phone, you will be able to see their location in real time. You can also set geo-fencing zones so you will be alerted when they wander out of the assigned zone and again when they wander back in. Not to mention there is a safety SOS button located on each device that they can press that alerts you when they are in trouble so you can locate them in an emergency.
Life is stressful enough with the added worry of vulnerable family members, put your mind at rest by tracking their location at any given time.