Consider empowering younger family members to take on information-gath-ering roles. Monitor speaking time to break up old patterns and facilitate decision-making.

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Essential targeted communication tools

You know the personalities in your family. Target the communication style to those specific personalities. Pay attention to these aspects.

☞ Carefully plan family meetings. Do what mediators do to help your communication system to be more effective. Pay attention to timing and location, determine who should participate, spell out the discussion topics and invite expert advisers if needed.

☞ Fully explore intent with your parents. Be ready to gently but firmly discuss your parents’ values: Are those values consistent with the younger generation? For example, how will your parents deal with blended families or adopted children when the younger generation may want all heirs—bio and adopted—to be recognized by the estate?

☞ Learn new ways to make decisions.
Focus on allowing all family members to be
heard. Explore a consensus model instead of
voting, abdicating or dictating. With a con-
sensus, all family members feel that they can live with the final solution, even if it’s not everything they wanted.

Simple communications tools to remember

There are several general strategies that may come very naturally to you and could help to move family conversations forward.

☞ Take a walk in the other person’s shoes. Try to understand what’s going on for all your family members.

☞ Separate the person from the problem. Conflict is a shared problem that you can conquer together without placing blame.

☞ Remember optimism. Celebrate small successes and build on them.

☞ Break bread together. Sharing a meal can help reestablish bonds and open communication.

☞ Regularize family meetings, phone calls and emails. Keep everyone in the loop.

☞ Try a little humor. It’s not a funny situation, but if you can avoid taking everything so seriously, it will be easier to discuss issues.

Finally, always remember forgiveness. Fixing communication problems is not easy, especially when you’ve been hurt in the past or you’re currently embroiled in your family conflict. But by combining patience, open-mindedness and forgiveness, you will be on your way to more productive conversations and better decision-making. C

 

Rikk Larsen, co-author of Mom Always Liked You Best: A Guide for Resolving Family Feuds, Inheritance Battles and Eldercare Crises, practices elder and family mediation in the New England area ( www.elderdecisions.com).

Downsizing proves
desirable
By Vickie Dellaquila

WE ALL DO IT to some degree. It may be collecting certain items, storing thousands of photos or saving all of our children’s schoolwork, but at some point in our lives we may need to downsize and deal with those treasures. Tossing it all into the trash, an option for some, would likely be emotionally devastating for most of us.

 

When to downsize

Downsizing may not be a choice. If you’ve become an empty nester with more space than you can handle or if you have health issues that require a lifestyle change, you may be considering a move to a smaller home or a retirement community. You won’t be able to take all your possessions with you. Going through the process of downsizing yourself, if you are able to, is a good idea because you make the choices about what to do with your belongings. If you wait until you are physically unable to do this, the choices may have to be made for you.

Others choose to downsize just to simplify life. At any age, many life transitions present good opportunities for downsizing. For example, as your children go through stages of their lives, you can let go of some of the items that go with those changes. If your child is in high school, trim away those piles of elementary school papers that you haven’t looked at in years. Likewise, job transitions are also opportunities for recycling paperwork that went with your former job.

 

Physical and emotional toll

Expect downsizing to take time, and recognize that it will be both physically and emotionally draining. You shouldn’t try to do it by yourself. Be sure to line up the help of relatives, friends or a professional organizer.

☞ Attics, basements and garages tend to be collection areas for seldom-used things. Be very careful, because accessing those areas can be very strenuous.

☞ Downsizing involves making many decisions—often a mentally exhausting process—about what you want to do with your belongings. Then comes the real work. Items to be sold, recycled, trashed or donated to various charities need to be prepared, packed and moved out for pickup or transporting.