How To Best Manage Family Dynamics: Resources For Dementia Caregivers
Are you struggling to manage family relationships while caregiving for a loved one with dementia?
This episode offers practical insights into dealing with difficult family dynamics that often arise in dementia caregiving. Whether it’s resentment, conflict, or the pressures of a multi-generational household, this episode breaks down some of the biggest challenges—and offers hope for navigating them successfully.
Resentment in Caregiving: Are You Feeling Coerced?
Many caregivers feel coerced into their role, especially when a loved one believes they are still independent. In this episode, we address the deep-rooted feelings of resentment that can come from feeling like caregiving wasn’t your choice.
The reality is, caregiving often becomes more difficult if you feel forced into it. If you’re struggling with resentment, the first step is recognizing that you may not be the right person to provide hands-on care.
Consider options like planning for Medicaid assistance, finding other family members to help, or even looking into professional care. Resentment won’t go away until you feel empowered to make choices, rather than feeling trapped by circumstance.
Why Do Family Members Refuse to Help?
It’s common to feel frustrated when other family members don’t step up to help. But as Lizette explains, caregiving is a choice. Just as you’ve made a decision to be involved, others in the family have the right to make their own choices too.
Whether it’s because they’re in denial about the loved one’s condition or simply can’t handle the emotional burden, family members may choose not to participate in caregiving.
While it’s easy to harbor resentment, the best approach is to focus on your response. How you handle this reality will impact your emotional well-being. Accepting that others may not help can free you to make decisions that protect your mental and emotional health.
Balancing Multi-Generational Family Care
Caregiving for a loved one with dementia while raising children adds even more complexity to family dynamics. Lizette highlights the importance of setting priorities in a multi-generational household.
Your relationship with your spouse should remain your primary focus. This foundation allows everything else—raising children, caregiving—to flow more smoothly.
Practical tips include seeking external help, such as adult day programs or paid caregivers, and ensuring you build in respite time for yourself and your spouse. Without regular breaks, you run the risk of caregiver burnout, which will make everything harder to manage in the long run.
Building a Long-Term Plan
One key message from this episode is the importance of planning ahead. Dementia caregiving is not a sprint—it’s a marathon. By thinking long-term, you can better prepare for the years ahead.
Whether it’s finding additional help, planning respite time, or managing family conflicts, having a plan in place ensures you can navigate this journey with less stress and more peace.
Are you ready to take control of your caregiving journey? This episode offers real strategies to help you manage family dynamics while caring for a loved one with dementia.
Listen now and discover ways to create a healthier, more balanced caregiving experience.
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Read More:
Talking About Caregiver Burnout With Michelle Gordon
Check the other podcasts: https://dignicarebydesign.com/category/podcast/
Transcript
[0:00] Hey, Christian caregiver, welcome to Christian Dementia Caregiving, the podcast where I teach Bible-believing Christians how to navigate dementia with practical help with a kingdom focus and help you find hope for your caregiving future. This podcast is brought to you by Think Different Dementia, where we create better futures for caregivers through building community around you as a caregiver. And today’s episode, we are going to touch on something that I know many, many family members struggle with, and that is how to best manage family dynamics and giving you some resources as a dementia caregiver on how you can better manage or best manage family dynamics. This is part of a three-part series on questions and answers that I decided to do for the podcast for a couple of episodes to see how it resonates with you guys, to see which kinds of episodes make the most sense.
[1:04] I do have a Facebook group. It’s called Christian Dementia Caregiving. I also have a YouTube channel, also called Christian Dementia Caregiving. These are two additional ways that you can become a part of the community that I am growing of family caregivers of people living with dementia, specifically from a Christian worldview. So if you haven’t joined one of these ways of connecting with me by joining the Facebook group or subscribing to the podcast here or subscribing to the YouTube channel, those are additional ways that you can connect with me and start to build a community around yourself related to navigating this journey so you do not feel overwhelmed and alone all the time. And these questions that I have brought to you over the last several episodes are real questions that real people have asked me when they join the Facebook group. And so here are some additional three more questions that we’re going to talk
Managing Resentment in Caregiving
[2:04] about today related to family dynamics.
[2:07] So the first question I found very interesting because I did a podcast episode a while back on this particular topic. It is episode 152, The Real Reasons Behind Caregiving, by choice, by coercion, or by persuasion. Are you feeling stressed as a Christian dementia caregiver? Let me help. I offer a monthly dementia care audit to one listener of this program to provide you with personalized but evidence-based strategies from a biblical perspective. We only have one session available each month. Don’t miss this opportunity to make your dementia caregiving journey easier. Schedule your own dementia care audit today.
[2:58] And the question that I was asked is, how do I deal with resentment when I feel coerced into caregiving and my mother believes that she is independent? And I know that is a very tough situation. And yes, some caregivers feel coerced. They feel like they do not have another option. But what I would love to challenge you with or what I would love for you to start to think through is how do you change your thinking about your caregiving journeys so that you do not feel coerced? Because if you do feel coerced to do anything, you are obviously always going to resent that particular journey. So dealing with resentment comes secondary, and we have to deal with the primary problem, which is your feeling of feeling like you’re coerced into caregiving. And without Without actually being able to have a conversation with this particular person, it’s a little harder to answer this particular question because if her mother really does have dementia, even if she believes that she’s independent, at some point or another, she is not going to be able to live alone because of a diagnosis of dementia.
[4:14] So the way I’m going to answer this question is not perfect because a lot of factors can play into this. But if you really, as a family caregiver, feel coerced into caregiving, I believe it is in your best interest as well as the person who you are caring for. Because the longer I’m walking down this journey as a dementia coach.
[4:35] The more I’m recognizing that the reality of the matter is that the relationship that we’re in related to the person that we are caring for and with, that sets the stage a lot for the result that we get. So as long as this person is feeling coerced into being a caregiver, resentment is naturally going to follow. And the reality is then we need to step back from that situation and say to ourselves, I feel coerced, which means I’m I’m likely never going to be the right person to actually provide the hands-on caregiving. And if my mother lives long enough, she will require 24-hour care and supervision. So how are we going to fix that problem and make it so that she receives the care that she will need without me being the primary person taking care of my mother? What could that look like? Are there other siblings that can step in and do it? What was the previous relationship with all the other people in your life? Because quite frankly, there’s some people who are always going to be challenging to take care of and the pre-existing, pre-morbid, pre-before dementia relationship is going to play into that, which means that maybe I’m not the right person to be providing that care. What can we do to get prepared for Medicaid?
[5:58] Do we need to go speak with an attorney? A state attorney and look at your options for Medicaid protection. Yes, that means there’s a five-year look-back period, and I understand that, which means if you’re listening to this and you already can tell that you’re not likely going to be the right person to take care of somebody, you need to go meet with an attorney earlier on and get Medicaid protection, asset protection, in place so that you can perhaps have that person ultimately then placed in a facility so that you’re not the hands-on caregiver. So dealing with resentment when you feel coerced is never going to change until you don’t feel coerced. So not a happy conversation to have with anybody, but I do recommend you guys listen to episode 152, The Real Reasons Behind Caregiving by Choice, Coercion, or Persuasion. And really go listen to that and kind of get a sense of where are you,
Family Dynamics in Caregiving
[6:51] which one are you as a caregiver? A second question that came up is, why do some family members refuse to help care for a loved one with dementia?
[7:01] So this is another topic that’s not going to be super popular, but this is also not going to necessarily be a popular conversation for a lot of people. The question, why do some family members refuse to help care for a loved one with dementia, goes hand in hand with the fact that caregiving is actually a choice And we get to choose whether or not we are going to be a caregiver. And just as much as I have a choice to be a caregiver, so do my family members. And that can be for a variety of different reasons. Some people truly cannot see that there is something wrong with that person, whether it’s because they are just being an ostrich and sticking their head in the sand, or they cannot deal with consequences of racism. Recognizing what’s going on or whatever the situation is that they are not willing to see that there is a problem. But that person, that family member does have a choice. And I want to present to you as a family caregiver, you do have a choice too to be a caregiver or not. And I want people to hear me very clearly. I’m not saying abandon the person who is living with dementia because I do believe it is our obligation to care of our family members.
[8:20] That is a Christian belief. That is a foundation of our faith that we are supposed to care for widows and orphans. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are the physical person providing the care. I believe there are situations when we shouldn’t be the physical person providing the care. But what it does mean is if we choose not to be that as a person, that we have a plan in place to ensure that the person who is requiring care has the right care in place, whether that be a memory care, a skilled nursing facility.
[8:52] An assisted living facility, an additional adult day program.
[8:56] Whatever system, whatever process we need put into place to allow that you are not the hands-on care person. So family caregivers, family members can choose to not help. And just as much as, you know, I don’t have to like it, the reality is they have the right to make that decision. And yes, it can create tremendous stress and tremendous family conflict and dynamics because one person typically then gets the brunt of the care. But what I want people to recognize and understand is that that family member does have an absolute right to make a decision that they can make. Best for their life and for their situation to not be the primary caregiver. What we need to do in place of that is ensure that you as the caregiver who may be providing the care work on your emotions and your strategies of how you’re going to respond to that person. Because if you feel like they’re not helping you, then it’s easy for you to become angry and it’s easy for you to to start to feel resentment towards a sibling or whoever it is that you believe should be helping and is choosing not to. They’re not the one with the problem. They don’t perceive it as a problem at all. You as the caregiver are the one who is experiencing the frustration and the annoyance or the resentment of that family member who is choosing, because it is a choice, who is choosing not to be the primary caregiver.
[10:26] And the only thing that we can do is work on your response to that particular situation.
[10:33] And another good episode to listen to is 132, How to Stop Family Conflict in Caregiving.
Juggling Multi-Generational Caregiving
[10:41] So I recommend you go listen to episode 132, and I think the other one was 152. And now the last question is, how do I juggle the needs of my multi-generational family, caregiving for a loved one with dementia? And I think this is a really good question. And yet again, if you listen to many of my episodes, I will start with you have to look at your specific station and your relation in this whole big picture. Because if it is a multi-generational family, I would presume that you are the wife of somebody or the husband of somebody and you have have children in the house and an adult parent that you’re taking care of in one situation. And we always have to remember that if that is your particular station and your particular situation, your relationship with your husband is primary. Your relationship with your spouse is primary. Even in relation to raising your children, it is subsequent to that relationship. Without that relationship being intact, there’s no home for those kids. So you have to focus on your relationship first, and then you have to add those other layers on top of that.
[11:53] What that means, though, practically is you need help. You need help and structure and support in the house. You need to consider joining a coaching group. I do have a group coaching program where I help multi-generational families navigate this so that everybody knows how to interact with that person living with dementia. There are things that you have to actively do. It may mean things like an adult day program, or it may mean things like considering bringing a paid caregiver into the house, tapping into church to help you with this process. But you have to start with the primary relationship, which more likely in a multi-generational situation is going to be a husband and a wife combination.
[12:39] And everything flows from there. And then you have to build in respite. We do this when our children are little. We will eventually get to a point where we leave the kids with someone and go away with our husband or our wife in order to build and maintain that relationship so it remains intact. This means even more doubly now as being pulled in two separate directions as a multi-generational family. You have to build in rest. You have to build in time for you to go away with your spouse. You need to find somebody who can stay with the kids. You need to find somebody who can stay with the adults, or we need to find a place for the adult to go for a period of time so that you can build in this respite early and often. We do not do this early enough, and we do not do this often and enough. Dementia and dementia caregiving is a marathon. It is not a sprint. It is not something that we’re going to get done quickly, necessarily, unless the ward comes, you know, the person can pass away very quickly, or we could be doing this for several years. So what I teach people to do is come from the mindset, this is going to be a two to three to five to eight year journey. And you have to begin with the end in mind, you have to think from a long term perspective related to being in a caregiving situation.
Conclusion and Resources
[13:57] So I hope these short little question and answer episodes were beneficial to you. Yet again, if you haven’t joined my Facebook group, it’s called Christian Dementia Caregiving. You can subscribe to the YouTube channel, which is also Christian Dementia Caregiving. Subscribe to the podcast. And please, if you’re really struggling and you need some help, message me on Instagram or on Facebook, the word audit, and set up a 20-minute conversation where I will coach you through whatever struggle you have right now and set you on the right path so that you have a place to go and so that you don’t just feel like you’re treading water. Like I end all of my broadcasts, may the Lord bless you and keep you, and I will see you in the next episode.
