Coping With Your Difficult Older Parent : A Guide for Stressed-Out Children

...dry. Lots of useful information, but I prefer Elder Rage by Jacqueline Marcell for an informative book that is very readable. I found myself skipping chapters in Coping that I felt were not relevent and skimming topics that seemed to fit. Lots of clinical examples and dialogs. I highlighted a lot of this book and passed it along to my brothers so they could better care for our mom. Useful, but not a page turner.

This book addresses some of the "normal" problems or issues adult children may encounter as their parents age, for instance, how to coax a parent to stop driving when the parent can no longer do so safely. The book doesn't address how adult survivors of dysfunctional families can handle truly "difficult" parents as they age. I'd have been glad to have had the kinds of "difficult" parents described in this book! This book appears to use the word "difficult" to mean, essentially, "inconvenient."

This book was excellent. I was having such a time dealing emotionally with my parent's behaviour and was trying to use strategies that just were'nt working. Now I know why. I've changed my strategies and can say we have all seen progress in how we are getting along. I also like that the book offers advice on how to avoid becoming a difficult older parent yourself. If you're looking for a book that offers advice and you are willing to change, this is it. If you're not willing to change, don't bother reading it.

As a stressed out adult child of a mother who has been lapsing into dementia for the past 6 years, I found this book to be a great resource. It's a great combination of theory and highlighted points and application through illustrative anecdotes. It's one of my books I refer back to time and again, rather than a one sit-down read.

A lot of real life information. Chapters 3 and 4 described my mother-in-law to a tee. A lot of good suggestions on handling interactions and keeping conversations productive and moving forward.