How Much Time Should You Spend With Elderly Parents? Finding the Right Balance

Key Factors Determining Visit Frequency

Adult children caring for aging parents must thoughtfully assess factors like health status, living situations, family obligations and proximity when deciding how often to visit. General guidelines suggest minimums ranging from weekly to monthly check-ins depending on needs and vulnerabilities.

Concerning red flags call for urgently ramping up visit frequency even if parents resist perceived intrusions. Daily hands-on care may become necessary in limited crisis scenarios. Sustainable caregiving requires balancing seniors’ wellbeing and adult children’s bandwidth

Several key considerations play into decisions about how often to visit aging parents:

Parents' Physical and Mental Health

If your parents are relatively healthy, active and independent, they may only want occasional visits. Parents with multiple chronic illnesses or dementia symptoms likely need more frequent contact and assistance. Assess their conditions honestly to determine appropriate visit frequency.

Parents' Living Arrangements

Do Mom and Dad live alone, with other relatives or in a senior community? Those living solo, especially in isolated rural areas, typically need more regular visits to remain safe. If parents have attentive live-in caregivers, companions or nearby relatives, pressure on you may be less.

Geographic Proximity

Naturally, kids living an hour away can visit elderly parents more easily than those several states over. With good planning, even long-distance caregivers can maintain meaningful involvement. But frequent day-to-day caregiving is unrealistic without proximity.

Work and Family Obligations

Most caregivers juggle parental care with jobs, spouses, kids and other responsibilities. Be realistic about what's possible given your existing commitments. Everyone needs balance to avoid burnout.

By weighing all these dynamics, you can set visiting goals that work for your unique situation.

Typical Visiting Frequency Guidelines

Though individual factors matter most, general guidelines provide starting points for deciding visit frequency:

Once a Week

• For parents with advancing dementia symptoms, multiple complex health issues or unsteady mobility
• If living over 30 minutes away and providing hands-on care during visits
• When parents seem lonely, socially isolated or express wanting more frequent visits.

Every Other Week

• For relatively healthy parents able to handle most basic self-care
• If you help with household chores, finances, transportation and social interactions during visits
• When parents live very close by

Once a Month

• For active, independent parents in good physical and cognitive health
• If parents live in supportive senior housing with regular monitoring
• When siblings/other family routinely visit at other times
• For long-distance caregivers traveling substantial distances.

These benchmarks demonstrate commonly recommended minimums according to parents’ needs and vulnerabilities. More contact is almost always beneficial.

Key Signs It's Time to Visit More Often

Sometimes parents resist "excessive" visits, not wanting to be a burden. But you must act in their best interest if you notice:

• Declining hygiene, unclean home, missed doctor appointments
• New bruises, injuries from falls or mishaps
• Unpaid bills, uncollected mail/newspapers, missed medications
• Weight loss from inadequate nutrition
• Car accidents, dangerous driving signs
• Confusion, memory lapses, personality changes
• Withdrawal from activities, friends or family
• Requests for more company and support

Any such red flags warrant quickly ramping up visit frequency, even if parents protest. Their well-being must come first.

Making the Most of Visits

Simply stopping by on occasion is not enough. To ensure visits support parents’ health and safety:

• Assess needs to identify any concerning changes
• Tackle household chores and tackle any backlogs
• Stock groceries, prepare meals and pre-fill med boxes
• Schedule medical appointments and coordinate transportation
• Organize bills and financial records
• Complete safety checks of smoke detectors, rails and access features
• Encourage engagement with hobbies and community resources
• Update other relatives on your parents' status
• Discuss adding part-time professional assistance if needed for additional support between visits

By maximizing time during visits and addressing emerging needs proactively, you can maximize parents’ health, safety and overall wellbeing.

Striking the Right Balance

Unless you provide daily around-the-clock care, you'll always second guess if you visit frequently enough. Ultimately you must find an equilibrium between parents’ needs and your own bandwidth. Some things that can help:

• Share the responsibility with siblings and other family whenever possible
• Communicate openly with parents about expectations
• Set caregiving boundaries so it doesn't overtake your life
• Use technology like video chats and safety sensors between visits
• Consider relocating closer to parents if feasible
• Hire home health aides to check-in when you cannot
• Look into senior day programs or community resources for socialization and supervision
• Tour quality assisted living homes “just in case” even if parents currently refuse
• Join support groups to exchange ideas with fellow caregivers
• Make self-care a priority to manage stress and avoid burnout

Caregiving takes an emotional toll even when visits seem adequate. But listening to your intuition combined with input from doctors, senior care managers and your inner circle can provide reassurance you’re doing everything within reason.

When to Consider Daily Caregiving

In limited cases, circumstances demand assuming the role of a full-time daily caregiver:

• Parents have dementia with severe memory loss, wandering risks or combative flare ups
• Neither parent can walk safely without supervision and assistance
• Someone requires total help with all daily self-care such as bathing, dressing and eating
• No other family or aides available to fill gaps between visits
• Skilled care needs exceed what senior living staff offer
• Having to continually rush to urgent calls multiple times per week

If nonstop hands-on caregiving is unavoidable yet unrealistic long-term, look into specialty dementia care homes, respite programs or short-term skilled nursing facilities as needed.

FAQs

How often should I visit my healthy elderly parents?

At minimum, plan to visit active, independent parents about once a month. This maintains regular contact and allows you to casually monitor their wellbeing. Depending on proximity, availability and relationship quality, contacting healthy parents weekly or bimonthly also works.

Can the elderly go too long without seeing someone?

Yes, seniors can decline cognitively and physically if they go too long without interaction. Loneliness and isolation are major risks requiring proactive mitigation through regular social contacts. If you live far away, enlist locals to visit so parents see someone almost daily.

Is it OK to only visit elderly parents on holidays?

Making parental visits a once-a-year holiday ritual risks leaving their interim care needs unmet. Arrange supplemental check-ins by nearby relatives, friends or paid help. And use video chatting to preserve more frequent contact.

What if my elderly mom says she doesn't want visitors?

Don't take a senior's adamance about not wanting visits at face value. Their generation often has too much pride to admit loneliness. Explain that visiting brings you joy too - so you'll politely disregard her insistence on no company. Stop by anyway on a trial basis and gauge if she seems happy for the company.

My elderly dad gets angry when I visit him too much. What should I do?

First assess whether more serious medical issues could be causing your dad's anger, like dementia, chronic pain or depression. If he's mentally competent, explain your caregiving motivations. Look for potential middle ground compromises on visit frequency. But ultimately your duty is to ensure his wellbeing, even if that makes him mad sometimes.

CONCLUSION

Deciding visit frequency with elderly parents necessitates honest appraisals of their total situation - and your own. While more contact is usually preferable for their wellbeing, burnout risks mean finding a judicious balance. Keep communicating with loved ones and professionals to adapt as circumstances evolve.

Despite best efforts, some situations escalate beyond part-time caregiving capabilities to require round-the-clock support. By acknowledging when your limits are reached, you can make responsible provisions without guilt. Remaining engaged but not engulfed is key for sustainable senior caregiving through the years ahead.

SOURCES

1.https://lottie.org/how-often-to-visit-elderly-parents-and-relatives

2.https://www.quora.com/How-often-should-you-visit-your-older-parents

3.https://startsat60.com/how-often-should-you-visit-your-parents