The coronavirus crisis has made our lives more difficult, more complex and challenging. This is especially true if you have a senior living with you at home. Taking care of your elderly parents is one thing; but elderly care, working from home, and dealing with this whole crisis is another.
We live in a time when we worry a lot about ourselves and our loved ones. With this pandemic, life is much harder. Imagine this: you are taking care of your elderly parent, you are working from home, your partner is quarantined somewhere else, and you have kids to take care of. Juggling all these things can be too much for one.
There are millions of people battling through this situation. While balancing your work and elderly care sounds challenging, it does not mean that it isn’t doable. There are many ways of pulling this thing off. One sure way is to seek outside help.
It is important to ask for recommendations, browse online, and search for local businesses at the moment. Hire a home care agency to take care of your elder. There are well-recognized businesses like At Home Care Service that can provide the support that you need during these difficult times.
Working at home, worrying a lot of things and taking care of a senior can put one in incredible stress. It is important that you have a strategy to manage all these things. Here are some things you can do to reduce the stress and take care of things (work, family, and others) while struggling to survive this coronavirus crisis.
Communicate with your parents
Communication is critical in this time of COVID-19. You are not the only one undergoing a lot of stress at this moment. Your elderly parents are stressed too. The overall mood of the bad news that is going on around us affects our parents too. It is only natural that they worry too about their children’s well-being. So they have the tendency to be secretive about their health state and all, because they don’t want to be a burden to their children.
With this in mind, it is important that you make the first move. Communicate with them and try to make them understand all the things that are happening. Try to make the mood as calm as you can. Make time to talk with them daily.
Set up a routine too so that your parents will not interrupt with your work. Set up a predictable daily schedule, like a time for taking medicine, getting dressed, watching TV, exercising, engaging in certain activities, and others. When making a routine, consider your parents’ likes and dislikes. Have them engage in activities that they enjoy most, which are beneficial to their overall well-being.
Establish boundaries
Establish some boundaries between work and home duties. If you are now working at home due to this pandemic, it is important that you make your parents understand that you are still working, that you are still busy even if you are just at home these days. Educate them with the nature of your work so that they won’t disturb you while you are video-conferencing or typing something on your laptop or computer.
It helps if you provide some clues that you are not to be disturbed at a particular hour. For example, when you are using headphones and looking at the computer, that means you are working and should not be disturbed. If your parents are living elsewhere, set a time when they can call you or have a video chat with you. Tell them your work schedule.
Communicate with your colleagues and boss
Be open with your colleagues, managers and boss. Make them understand your situation. Let them know if you are taking care of an ailing or aging parent. Do not assume that they already know your situation. They’ll understand you better and will probably be more lenient with you if you are open to them about your eldercare responsibilities.
Taking care of an elderly can be unpredictable. You’ll never know when an emergency will happen. So it’s important that you communicate with your co-workers. Give them a heads-up if you will miss a web meeting or if you are offline as of the moment. However, make sure to make up for any missed calls or meetings.
Mind your health
It goes without saying that you need to mind your health too. Sometimes, when we take care of ourselves, we forget to take care of ourselves. You need to manage your stress. You need to be healthy and strong more than ever, if not for yourself, then for your parents and family. You cannot afford to be sick, especially in this time of corona.
While you are juggling work and elderly care, don’t sidetrack your well-being. Remember that you need to continue earning a living not only for yourself, but for your elderly at home as well. So stay hydrated, eat well, meditate if you must, get some fresh air, exercise, practice social distancing, and limit your exposure to negativity.
Just stay healthy so that you can take better care of your parents and do your work exceptionally well at the same time.
