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Setting Boundaries® with Your Aging Parents: Finding Balance Between Burnout and Respect
This important book from the author of Setting Boundaries® with Your Adult Children (more than 40,000 sold) will help adult children who long for a better relationship with their parents but feel trapped in a never-ending cycle of chaos, crisis, or drama. With keen insight and a passion to empower adult children, Allison charts a trustworthy roadmap through the often unfamiliar territory of setting boundaries with parents while maintaining personal balance and avoiding burnout. Through the use of professional advice, true stories, and scriptural truth, readers learn how to apply the "6 Steps to SANITY": S -STOP your own negative behavior
A -ASSEMBLE a support group
N -NIP excuses in the bud
I -IMPLEMENT rules and boundaries
T -TRUST your instincts
Y -YIELD everything to God Resources are available at the ministry www.settingboundaries.com
A -ASSEMBLE a support group
N -NIP excuses in the bud
I -IMPLEMENT rules and boundaries
T -TRUST your instincts
Y -YIELD everything to God Resources are available at the ministry www.settingboundaries.com
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
26 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 22, 2018
The author quotes from several different books, but wrote this in a way that is helpful and relevant for those in this particular situation.
June 4, 2011
Very helpful, and I need some help. But there is a middle ground between a wonderful relationship and a toxic one. I guess if one is as stressed as I am, the leaning is toward toxic.
page 33: "The parents who were allowing their son to supplement their income while they were giving financial support to their drug-addicted daughter clearly had their own enabling issues. These parents all had choices, and as adults, they need to remain accountable for those choices...Are we as adult children responsible to take on the consequences of our parents' actions? We may wonder whether our aging parents are responsible for the consequences of their choices. But their age, physical handicap, and financial status are not excuses for them to be irresponsible or disrespectful. Are we truly helping our aging parents--as countless generous caregivers around the world are doing--or are we contributing to their problems by enabling them to comfortably continue negative behavior?
And what about consequences that may occur as a direct result of new boundaries we might establish? When parents set firm boundaries with adult children, their primary goal is almost always the same--to cut the apron strings and launch the adult children into an independent lifestyle. But their isn't the case with our agin parents. Instead of going from dependence to independence, it's often the opposite."
page 34: "We love our parents, and we want to do what is best and right for them. But in our zeal to do what we think is right, we may end up making poor choices. The road to setting boundaries with our parents is paved with a multitude of variables we must consider. The issues are seldom black-and-white...
[Timothy S. Smick]: Unlike parents of young children, who anticipate each step of early childhood development, adult children of senior parents must deal with an unpredictable calendar of physical aging. Some seniors have the capacity to live engaging and active lifestyles. At age 90 they are capable of running their own lives and sometimes try to dominate their children's too."
page 35: "Some adult children...have parents who live independently. Other parents live with their children, or they are in assisted-living facilities, or they have full-time care at home. Some parents are widowed, others are celebrating many decades of marriage. Some...are kind and loving, others are manipulative, bitter, and toxic. Some are open...others...stubborn as mules...But all of the adult children who struggled with their parents had this in common: They felt powerless, as though they had no options or choices in their difficult situations with their parents...
When I talk with adult children about their aging parents, they often mention honor and respect. In fact, setting boundaries with parents requires addressing the subject of honor. Scripture provides a clear mandate: "Honor your father and your mother... (Exodus 20:12).
...The question isn't whether we are to honor our parents...When we establish healthy boundaries with our parents, boundaries that will stop their inappropriate behavior and prevent situations that cause pain for everyone involved, aren't we honoring them? Aren't we honoring them when we hold them accountable and speak the truth in love? Does simply telling our parents no imply that we are dishonoring them?
Many people struggle with the answers...heart attacks, depression, divorce, and stress-related illness in baby boomers are soaring."
page 36: "Regardless of our age or circumstances, God does not want us to live with undue stress. He does not wish for us to burn out, to be unable to care for own well-being, let alone the well-being of others.
We need to believe that a better life is possible. We can stop feeling like gerbils spinning on the wheel of life and going nowhere fast. We can address and eliminate our overwhelming sense of guilt. We can stop being martyrs, doormats, and control freaks. We can stop responding emotionally and learn to respond rationally. We can nurture truly loving and respectful relationships with our agin parents that honor them and God without losing ourselves in the process...We can find sanity...We must understand how we got to this place of burnout. We must understand how we get out."
page 39-41: Does the right thing include compromising the health and sanity of your own life and the life of your family as you care for your aging parents? That's a difficult question only you can answer. But if your answer if yes, what happens to your agin parents when you've gone past your breaking point? How does that help them?
It's true, we won't always have our parents. The time will come when God calls them home. How will you remember their last years--as a bitter battlefield of will and woe, or with loving memories for the season you experienced together? You build beautiful memories partly by setting healthy boundaries.
...How responsible are we for them? Cloud and Townsend address this: Some people were born to take care of their parents. They did not sign up for this duty; they inherited it. Today we call these people "codependent." ...Every time they tried to have separate lives, they felt selfish...Indeed, the Bible teaches that adult children should take care of their elderly parents...It is good to feel grateful to our parents and to repay them for what they have done for us."
Yes, it's good to feel grateful. However, does being grateful also mean we must willingly accept negative, harmful, and cruel behavior from our aging parents? In the passage above, Paul teachers that proper recognition should be given to those who are really in need. How do we know when our aging parents are really in need? Cloud and Townsend have more to say about this particular situation.
"But two problems generally crop up. First, your parents may not be 'really in need.' They may be irresponsible, demanding, or acting like martyrs. They may been to take responsibility for their own knapsacks.
Second, when they are 'really in need,' you may not have clear boundaries to determine what you can give and what you can't give. You may not be able to limit your giving, and your parents' inability to adjust to old age, for example, will dominate your family. Such domination can ruin marriages and hurt children. A family needs to decide what they want to give and what they do not want to give, so they will continue to love and appreciate the parent and not grow resentful.
Good boundaries prevent resentment. It is good to give. Make sure, however, that it is the proper amount for your situation and resources."
What is the proper amount? Have your emotion, physical, and financial resources been stretched to the maximum, leaving you burned-out, resentful, and just plain angry? Have you reached a point in your life where enough is enough? How do you determine if your parents are really in need? And when is it your responsibility to help them?
One of the most damaging myths we've come to believe is that setting boundaries is selfish, that we should never say no to our parents. Cloud and Townsend devote an entire chapter to exploding the common misconceptions we've come to believe about setting boundaries..."Don't boundaries turn us from other-centeredness to self-centeredness? The answer is no. Appropriate boundaries actually increase our ability to care about others. People with highly developed limits are the most caring people on earth."
Being a caring person does not mean being an overly submissive doormat or an overly controlling steamroller. Either of these extremes will eventually lead to burnout.
page 45: [In her book Parents, Teens and Boundaries: How to Draw the Line, Jane Bluestein...] "Few of us are especially adept at setting boundaries with anyone, and for good reason...
When you were growing up, were you told that other people's needs were more important than yours? Were you rewarded for self-sacrificing and people-pleasing? Were you taught to obey and then shamed, hurt, or punished if you didn't? Were you chided for questioning authority? Were you taught to avoid conflict at any cost? Were you often told that you were responsible for someone else's feelings or behaviors? If you answer yes to most of these questions, the price was your sense of self, which is the foundation for boundary setting.
Was your privacy respected? Was it OK to have your own feelings and opinions?...did you spend just a little too much time fending for yourself...These experiences, too, influenced your sense of where you end and where others begin.
How do you typically respond to conflict? If your pattern is either one of rebellion or one of compliance, you probably haven't had much practice setting boundaries.
As a child, did you experience verbal, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse? It's hard to develop boundaries when any part of yourself, including your dignity and sense of worth, is violated.
Clearly, Boundary Setting 101 is not typically a part of a child's education. If anything, most of us have been conditioned to not set boundaries as a way to avoid the negative reactions of others. The ability to set boundaries to take care of yourself begins with the belief that your "self" is worth caring for. If we've learned that taking care of ourselves results in conflict, rejection, or abandonment, it's likely that we'll shut down when we need to set a boundary, rather than take that risk." end of Bluestein's book
page 46: Bluestein again: "Doormats function as though they had no boundaries. They are agreeable, nice, FINE. (At least until their resentment builds up to one nasty tolerance break, after which they can make the meanest Bulldozer look pretty tame.) Doormats are terribly accommodating, but do so at the expense of their own needs. They tend to be on the losing end of most conflicts. However, by not sticking up for themselves, they not only avoid many conflicts, but they also get to "look good," be self-righteous, and validate a self-perception of helplessness and victimization. So when you think about it, there's a great payoff for being a Doormat, but there's also a high price to pay in the loss of one's self.
Clearly, these patterns have nothing to do with boundary-setting, although Doormats often function in the hope that being "nice" enough will inspire the people around them to figure out and accommodate their needs. Boundary-setting always takes one's own needs into account and relies on honest and direct communication (rather than manipulation and clairvoyance)...If most of the people in our lives operated on some form of win-lost method of conflict resolution, either by violating and disempowering (as a Bulldozer) or by self-abandoning (as a Doormat), it can be hard to imagine win-win solutions that consider the needs of all parties involved."
page 61: Many of our parents could benefit by changing and accepting the consequences of their choices. But the plain truth is that we must first accept the responsibility for our own choices...
Our biggest issue isn't our parents' financial problems or what may become of them in the future if they don't make plans now...It's not their old age, general stubbornness, or toxic behavior. It's not the mess we think they're making of their lives. Yes, these issues are important, and we have every right to be concerned about them. But when it comes to setting healthy boundaries, none of them are our biggest issue.
Our biggest issue is not any choice our parents make. Rather, our biggest issue is the way we respond to the choices they make. The biggest issue is us...
We need to realize that we are in control of our choices regardless of how we feel. And we need to make some changes.
page 66: The positive changes that can improve your situation probably won't happen on their own. But here's thegood news. You can initiate change! You always have a choice, and choice and change go hand in hand.
page 68: Our excuses also enslave our aging parents by preventing them from becoming responsible for their actions and learning from the consequences.
"It's just so hard for seniors today." "If I don't help, who will?" "I'm only trying to help." "No one understands my parents." "They just need to find the right treatment program."
The excuses must end.
page 69: [Dr. Laura: "The obvious question is, 'What makes some people hold on to being a victim and others choose to improve their lives?' The answer is control. When you are a perpetual victim, the past is in control of your present. When you are a conqueror, the present is controlled by your choices, in spite of the pain and the pull of your past."
page 71: Recognizing the difference between helping and enabling is a critical step in setting boundaries with anyone. Understanding what it means to be an enabler is equally crucial...
We help others when we do things for them that they cannot do for themselves. We also help others by empowering them to stop their own detrimental behaviors.
...we enable others when we do things for them that they can and should do themselves. We also enable them when we recognize that they have recurring problems and yet "help" them continue their detrimental behaviors...enabling creates an atmosphere in which others can comfortably continue their unacceptable behavior.
page 94: If you find yourself stuck...I encourage you to seek a...counselor...A word of caution, however, as you delve into your history and motivations. This is a means to an end--not an excuse to remain frozen in time. Life is far too short to spend it living in the past...sometimes to move forward you must first go back. But that doesn't give you carte blanche to throw yourself an extended pity party, make yourself the guest of honor, and invite everyone you have ever known to attend with you for perpetuity.
Get in, do the work, and get out. Do not become a victim...Many of us have to deal with our past before we can set healthy boundaries in the present."
page 97: A dear friend of mine becomes a wreck every time her elderly mom comes for one of her indefinite visits. She spends weeks bracing herself for the onslaught of criticism...the hard hits invariably come, and she is left battered and bruised in the wake of her "loved one's" attention...I would want her, as long as her mom is so inconsiderate of her, to stop allowing the visits in her home--her personal sanctuary--and instead set a different place (pay for it all if she has to in order to have the control), outline the days, and then leave when the time is up...Her mom deciding the time, place and length of the visit, along with her snarky attitudes, doesn't make for the right sort of capitvating visit. Instead, the visit tends to end after a seeming hostage situation...collateral damage...The above story was included in a response...question on questionnaire..."
page 98-99: What is a toxic elder?...When they make decisions and choices that are detrimental not only to their own health but also to your health and the health of your family and finances, they are toxic. When they consistently damage your spirit with their words or deeds, they are toxic...Sometimes, respect means saying no, but toxic elders don't typically get the no in no. And some of us with toxic parents have never properly learned how to say no. Maintaining a relationship with toxic elders requires tough love, persistence, and creative behavior modification.
Page 100: Do any of these words describe your parents? judgmental critical manipulative...One of the most helpful resources I can recommend...is...by David Hawkins...Dealing with the CrazyMakers in Your Life...
page 103-104: Clearly, not all challenging agin parents are toxic. Some may be as confused as we are about expressing what they feel in constructive ways, and their frustration causes them to respond emotionally and at times irrationally.
page 129: [from Cloud & Townsend: An adult who does not stand on his own financially is still a child. To be an adult, you must live within your means and pay for your own failures] [re adult children]
page 148: website: six steps to sanity support groups
page 159: Let's say you have decided never to say yes to anything without taking time to think it through...Your mother wants you to take her to a doctor appointment tomorrow...You tell her you will look at your calendar and get back to her. You may know perfectly well you have the time and are willing to take her, but you wait a few hours...it tells her you have a schedule to consider and you cannot...automatically say yes to her every request. Second, it reminds her that your life is separate from hers. If you do actually have something planned tomorrow, ask if the appointment is urgent...offer to take her another time. If...urgent, discuss other transportation options.
Will you feel guilty telling her no? Probably, but get over it...Stress is what heppens when your insides are saying, I can't do this, and your mouth is saying, "Of course. I would be happy to."
If we truly want to find balance, we must become strong and take control of the things we can control. It's never too late to implement rules and boundaries--to make choices that will change our lives.
page 33: "The parents who were allowing their son to supplement their income while they were giving financial support to their drug-addicted daughter clearly had their own enabling issues. These parents all had choices, and as adults, they need to remain accountable for those choices...Are we as adult children responsible to take on the consequences of our parents' actions? We may wonder whether our aging parents are responsible for the consequences of their choices. But their age, physical handicap, and financial status are not excuses for them to be irresponsible or disrespectful. Are we truly helping our aging parents--as countless generous caregivers around the world are doing--or are we contributing to their problems by enabling them to comfortably continue negative behavior?
And what about consequences that may occur as a direct result of new boundaries we might establish? When parents set firm boundaries with adult children, their primary goal is almost always the same--to cut the apron strings and launch the adult children into an independent lifestyle. But their isn't the case with our agin parents. Instead of going from dependence to independence, it's often the opposite."
page 34: "We love our parents, and we want to do what is best and right for them. But in our zeal to do what we think is right, we may end up making poor choices. The road to setting boundaries with our parents is paved with a multitude of variables we must consider. The issues are seldom black-and-white...
[Timothy S. Smick]: Unlike parents of young children, who anticipate each step of early childhood development, adult children of senior parents must deal with an unpredictable calendar of physical aging. Some seniors have the capacity to live engaging and active lifestyles. At age 90 they are capable of running their own lives and sometimes try to dominate their children's too."
page 35: "Some adult children...have parents who live independently. Other parents live with their children, or they are in assisted-living facilities, or they have full-time care at home. Some parents are widowed, others are celebrating many decades of marriage. Some...are kind and loving, others are manipulative, bitter, and toxic. Some are open...others...stubborn as mules...But all of the adult children who struggled with their parents had this in common: They felt powerless, as though they had no options or choices in their difficult situations with their parents...
When I talk with adult children about their aging parents, they often mention honor and respect. In fact, setting boundaries with parents requires addressing the subject of honor. Scripture provides a clear mandate: "Honor your father and your mother... (Exodus 20:12).
...The question isn't whether we are to honor our parents...When we establish healthy boundaries with our parents, boundaries that will stop their inappropriate behavior and prevent situations that cause pain for everyone involved, aren't we honoring them? Aren't we honoring them when we hold them accountable and speak the truth in love? Does simply telling our parents no imply that we are dishonoring them?
Many people struggle with the answers...heart attacks, depression, divorce, and stress-related illness in baby boomers are soaring."
page 36: "Regardless of our age or circumstances, God does not want us to live with undue stress. He does not wish for us to burn out, to be unable to care for own well-being, let alone the well-being of others.
We need to believe that a better life is possible. We can stop feeling like gerbils spinning on the wheel of life and going nowhere fast. We can address and eliminate our overwhelming sense of guilt. We can stop being martyrs, doormats, and control freaks. We can stop responding emotionally and learn to respond rationally. We can nurture truly loving and respectful relationships with our agin parents that honor them and God without losing ourselves in the process...We can find sanity...We must understand how we got to this place of burnout. We must understand how we get out."
page 39-41: Does the right thing include compromising the health and sanity of your own life and the life of your family as you care for your aging parents? That's a difficult question only you can answer. But if your answer if yes, what happens to your agin parents when you've gone past your breaking point? How does that help them?
It's true, we won't always have our parents. The time will come when God calls them home. How will you remember their last years--as a bitter battlefield of will and woe, or with loving memories for the season you experienced together? You build beautiful memories partly by setting healthy boundaries.
...How responsible are we for them? Cloud and Townsend address this: Some people were born to take care of their parents. They did not sign up for this duty; they inherited it. Today we call these people "codependent." ...Every time they tried to have separate lives, they felt selfish...Indeed, the Bible teaches that adult children should take care of their elderly parents...It is good to feel grateful to our parents and to repay them for what they have done for us."
Yes, it's good to feel grateful. However, does being grateful also mean we must willingly accept negative, harmful, and cruel behavior from our aging parents? In the passage above, Paul teachers that proper recognition should be given to those who are really in need. How do we know when our aging parents are really in need? Cloud and Townsend have more to say about this particular situation.
"But two problems generally crop up. First, your parents may not be 'really in need.' They may be irresponsible, demanding, or acting like martyrs. They may been to take responsibility for their own knapsacks.
Second, when they are 'really in need,' you may not have clear boundaries to determine what you can give and what you can't give. You may not be able to limit your giving, and your parents' inability to adjust to old age, for example, will dominate your family. Such domination can ruin marriages and hurt children. A family needs to decide what they want to give and what they do not want to give, so they will continue to love and appreciate the parent and not grow resentful.
Good boundaries prevent resentment. It is good to give. Make sure, however, that it is the proper amount for your situation and resources."
What is the proper amount? Have your emotion, physical, and financial resources been stretched to the maximum, leaving you burned-out, resentful, and just plain angry? Have you reached a point in your life where enough is enough? How do you determine if your parents are really in need? And when is it your responsibility to help them?
One of the most damaging myths we've come to believe is that setting boundaries is selfish, that we should never say no to our parents. Cloud and Townsend devote an entire chapter to exploding the common misconceptions we've come to believe about setting boundaries..."Don't boundaries turn us from other-centeredness to self-centeredness? The answer is no. Appropriate boundaries actually increase our ability to care about others. People with highly developed limits are the most caring people on earth."
Being a caring person does not mean being an overly submissive doormat or an overly controlling steamroller. Either of these extremes will eventually lead to burnout.
page 45: [In her book Parents, Teens and Boundaries: How to Draw the Line, Jane Bluestein...] "Few of us are especially adept at setting boundaries with anyone, and for good reason...
When you were growing up, were you told that other people's needs were more important than yours? Were you rewarded for self-sacrificing and people-pleasing? Were you taught to obey and then shamed, hurt, or punished if you didn't? Were you chided for questioning authority? Were you taught to avoid conflict at any cost? Were you often told that you were responsible for someone else's feelings or behaviors? If you answer yes to most of these questions, the price was your sense of self, which is the foundation for boundary setting.
Was your privacy respected? Was it OK to have your own feelings and opinions?...did you spend just a little too much time fending for yourself...These experiences, too, influenced your sense of where you end and where others begin.
How do you typically respond to conflict? If your pattern is either one of rebellion or one of compliance, you probably haven't had much practice setting boundaries.
As a child, did you experience verbal, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse? It's hard to develop boundaries when any part of yourself, including your dignity and sense of worth, is violated.
Clearly, Boundary Setting 101 is not typically a part of a child's education. If anything, most of us have been conditioned to not set boundaries as a way to avoid the negative reactions of others. The ability to set boundaries to take care of yourself begins with the belief that your "self" is worth caring for. If we've learned that taking care of ourselves results in conflict, rejection, or abandonment, it's likely that we'll shut down when we need to set a boundary, rather than take that risk." end of Bluestein's book
page 46: Bluestein again: "Doormats function as though they had no boundaries. They are agreeable, nice, FINE. (At least until their resentment builds up to one nasty tolerance break, after which they can make the meanest Bulldozer look pretty tame.) Doormats are terribly accommodating, but do so at the expense of their own needs. They tend to be on the losing end of most conflicts. However, by not sticking up for themselves, they not only avoid many conflicts, but they also get to "look good," be self-righteous, and validate a self-perception of helplessness and victimization. So when you think about it, there's a great payoff for being a Doormat, but there's also a high price to pay in the loss of one's self.
Clearly, these patterns have nothing to do with boundary-setting, although Doormats often function in the hope that being "nice" enough will inspire the people around them to figure out and accommodate their needs. Boundary-setting always takes one's own needs into account and relies on honest and direct communication (rather than manipulation and clairvoyance)...If most of the people in our lives operated on some form of win-lost method of conflict resolution, either by violating and disempowering (as a Bulldozer) or by self-abandoning (as a Doormat), it can be hard to imagine win-win solutions that consider the needs of all parties involved."
page 61: Many of our parents could benefit by changing and accepting the consequences of their choices. But the plain truth is that we must first accept the responsibility for our own choices...
Our biggest issue isn't our parents' financial problems or what may become of them in the future if they don't make plans now...It's not their old age, general stubbornness, or toxic behavior. It's not the mess we think they're making of their lives. Yes, these issues are important, and we have every right to be concerned about them. But when it comes to setting healthy boundaries, none of them are our biggest issue.
Our biggest issue is not any choice our parents make. Rather, our biggest issue is the way we respond to the choices they make. The biggest issue is us...
We need to realize that we are in control of our choices regardless of how we feel. And we need to make some changes.
page 66: The positive changes that can improve your situation probably won't happen on their own. But here's thegood news. You can initiate change! You always have a choice, and choice and change go hand in hand.
page 68: Our excuses also enslave our aging parents by preventing them from becoming responsible for their actions and learning from the consequences.
"It's just so hard for seniors today." "If I don't help, who will?" "I'm only trying to help." "No one understands my parents." "They just need to find the right treatment program."
The excuses must end.
page 69: [Dr. Laura: "The obvious question is, 'What makes some people hold on to being a victim and others choose to improve their lives?' The answer is control. When you are a perpetual victim, the past is in control of your present. When you are a conqueror, the present is controlled by your choices, in spite of the pain and the pull of your past."
page 71: Recognizing the difference between helping and enabling is a critical step in setting boundaries with anyone. Understanding what it means to be an enabler is equally crucial...
We help others when we do things for them that they cannot do for themselves. We also help others by empowering them to stop their own detrimental behaviors.
...we enable others when we do things for them that they can and should do themselves. We also enable them when we recognize that they have recurring problems and yet "help" them continue their detrimental behaviors...enabling creates an atmosphere in which others can comfortably continue their unacceptable behavior.
page 94: If you find yourself stuck...I encourage you to seek a...counselor...A word of caution, however, as you delve into your history and motivations. This is a means to an end--not an excuse to remain frozen in time. Life is far too short to spend it living in the past...sometimes to move forward you must first go back. But that doesn't give you carte blanche to throw yourself an extended pity party, make yourself the guest of honor, and invite everyone you have ever known to attend with you for perpetuity.
Get in, do the work, and get out. Do not become a victim...Many of us have to deal with our past before we can set healthy boundaries in the present."
page 97: A dear friend of mine becomes a wreck every time her elderly mom comes for one of her indefinite visits. She spends weeks bracing herself for the onslaught of criticism...the hard hits invariably come, and she is left battered and bruised in the wake of her "loved one's" attention...I would want her, as long as her mom is so inconsiderate of her, to stop allowing the visits in her home--her personal sanctuary--and instead set a different place (pay for it all if she has to in order to have the control), outline the days, and then leave when the time is up...Her mom deciding the time, place and length of the visit, along with her snarky attitudes, doesn't make for the right sort of capitvating visit. Instead, the visit tends to end after a seeming hostage situation...collateral damage...The above story was included in a response...question on questionnaire..."
page 98-99: What is a toxic elder?...When they make decisions and choices that are detrimental not only to their own health but also to your health and the health of your family and finances, they are toxic. When they consistently damage your spirit with their words or deeds, they are toxic...Sometimes, respect means saying no, but toxic elders don't typically get the no in no. And some of us with toxic parents have never properly learned how to say no. Maintaining a relationship with toxic elders requires tough love, persistence, and creative behavior modification.
Page 100: Do any of these words describe your parents? judgmental critical manipulative...One of the most helpful resources I can recommend...is...by David Hawkins...Dealing with the CrazyMakers in Your Life...
page 103-104: Clearly, not all challenging agin parents are toxic. Some may be as confused as we are about expressing what they feel in constructive ways, and their frustration causes them to respond emotionally and at times irrationally.
page 129: [from Cloud & Townsend: An adult who does not stand on his own financially is still a child. To be an adult, you must live within your means and pay for your own failures] [re adult children]
page 148: website: six steps to sanity support groups
page 159: Let's say you have decided never to say yes to anything without taking time to think it through...Your mother wants you to take her to a doctor appointment tomorrow...You tell her you will look at your calendar and get back to her. You may know perfectly well you have the time and are willing to take her, but you wait a few hours...it tells her you have a schedule to consider and you cannot...automatically say yes to her every request. Second, it reminds her that your life is separate from hers. If you do actually have something planned tomorrow, ask if the appointment is urgent...offer to take her another time. If...urgent, discuss other transportation options.
Will you feel guilty telling her no? Probably, but get over it...Stress is what heppens when your insides are saying, I can't do this, and your mouth is saying, "Of course. I would be happy to."
If we truly want to find balance, we must become strong and take control of the things we can control. It's never too late to implement rules and boundaries--to make choices that will change our lives.
October 27, 2018
Way to much God speech in this book. Every other page is scripture and relying on God to solve all the problems of the world. Not impressed.
April 11, 2024
It was informative, but too much Christianity.
May 21, 2010
This just wasn't the book for me. I felt that the author spent a great deal of time quoting from other authors. I had read most of the other books so I really didn't learn anything new. However, if this is your first self-help book dealing with people, the SANITY steps might be helpful to you.
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