The Parent Care Conversation: Six Strategies for Dealing with the Emotional and Financial Challenges of AgingParents (Paperback)

~ Dan Taylor (Author) "Tim Johnson's mom and dad were typical Depression-era parents..." (more)
Key Phrases: parent care issue, parent care plan, parent care solution, Reality Check Parental Myth, Social Security, Seven Springs (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A comprehensive and empathetic program for addressing, planning, and putting into effect long-term elder care

Long -term care for aging parents is a sensitive, often difficult, but ultimately inevitable issue with which all of us will have to cope sooner or later. The Parent Care Conversation offers a step-by-step approach for families to follow that will enable them to develop workable plans of action. By first addressing the emotional aspects of long-term care that take into account the parents’ feelings and wishes, then integrating the practical and financial components, this book will open the door for a critical exchange of information and honest discussion among adult children and their aging parents that has long been the major roadblock to successful elder care. Filled with factual information, useful tips, real-life stories, and practical exercises, The Parent Care Conversation provides a proactive and collaborative solution to the long-term care issues that eventually everyone must face.

About the Author

Dan Taylor is the creator of the Parent Care Solution, a unique process for planning for the long-term care of aging parents without financially or emotionally destroying the family. He is also the founder of the Parent Care Institute, an advocacy group active on both state and federal levels to bring awareness and changes to the topic of elder care.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (August 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143037641
• ISBN-13: 978-0143037644
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #176,306 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #41 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Aging > Eldercare
  #55 in	Books > Parenting & Families > Family Relationships > Grandparenting
  #100 in	Books > Parenting & Families > Family Relationships > Parent & Adult Child

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How To Approach and Deal With Six Important Conversations With Aging Parents, November 23, 2006

By	Norman Goldman "Editor of Bookpleasures.com" (Montreal) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

We hear so much about caring for aging parents these days that at times it feels that children are in a no win situation. Care-giving involves making difficult decisions which should be handled with as much thought and discussion as possible.

Thanks to Daniel Taylor, a 20 year veteran of the financial services industry, an attorney, and president of his own North Carolina-based advisory firm, for showing us an intelligent way in dealing with the emotional, practical, and financial challenges of caring for aging parents.

Taylor has put together an excellent guide book, The Parent Care Conversation: Six Strategies for Transforming the Emotional and Financial Future of Your Aging Parents where he presents a system that he developed that grew out of his own experiences in dealing with his father's care.

It is a system he has structured around the acronym CARE which stands for the following: challenges, alternatives, resources, and experience.
This system will aid children in opening up the doors of communication with their parents on key issues relating to their future care-even those which they were reluctant to discuss. According to Taylor, the CARE "hear and now" listening system focuses on the knack of asking the right questions now in order to avoid confusion and conflict in the future from chaotic decision making.

Taylor applies his system to six conversations that children should have with their aging parents: the big picture conversation pertaining to your parent's vision of their future: the money conversation where you wish to obtain an overall grasp of your parents' current and future financial needs: the property conversation which focuses on your parents moveable possessions and how they would want them to be distributed: the house conversation dealing with your parents plans to either stay in their home or move somewhere else: the professional care conversation and the kind of care they would want: the legacy conversation that will get parents thinking about their lives, achievements and the legacy they wish to leave.

No doubt, all of these issues are at times somewhat daunting, and as Taylor states: "talking to the elderly about aging is a lot like talking to the poor about poverty; no matter how delicately we approach the subject, we run the risk of scaring, offending, or outright alienating them merely by bringing it up."
Consequently, initiating the parent care conversations is not a matter in deciding when these conversations should take place but how they should be held.

Throughout the book, Taylor emphasizes that you must avoid the pitfall of coming across as intrusive where you bulldoze your feelings and opinions onto your parents. This approach is guaranteed to turn them off and probably shut them down completely. Instead, Taylor presents the parent care conversations in a way that is designed to open up the doors of communication between parents and children in order to arrive at a clear, mutual understanding of each one's respective feelings about the issue of future care.

As we live longer, the chances grow that parents will some day be in need of care. It is very common today where daughters and sons find themselves called upon to help care for their aging parents. This commitment may be of short duration or it may last for years. Roles are now reversed and responsibilities as well as feelings within the family can be complicated and confusing unless there is adequate preparation.

Written in a clear, upbeat, conversational style, The Parent Care Conversation: Six Strategies for Transforming the Emotional and Financial Future of Your Aging Parents will certainly prove to be of immense help to those of us who have aging parents and who have never broached the six conversations with them.

Norm Goldman, Publisher & Editor Bookpleasures

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must for Financial Advisors, March 1, 2008

By	Lewis J. Walker "Financial Planner" (Norcross, GA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a financial planner, boomers increasingly were asking for help with their elderly parents. I buy Dan Taylor's book by the case and give them to clients as part of the planning process. Not only is the book invaluable to boomers, it is useful when planning for WOOFs (well off older folks)to help them frame ideas to give their grown children clarity as to their wishes.

Lewis J. Walker, CFP, CIMC, CRC, PCS

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Book on Caring for your Elderly Parents that I've Read, March 28, 2007

By	Pete (Columbia, MD) - See all my reviews

In clear prose, Dan Taylor guides you through how to talk to your elderly parents and help plan for their future to maximize indpendent living. I took voluminous notes and rank it as the best book of its type and I have read at least 20 others.