10 Questions to Ask Your Parents Right Now
This conversation primer starts a dialogue with your parent about aging. The goal: establish a collaborative tone and a precedent for talking about aging.
The questions below serve as a first step in an ongoing dialogue with your parent about aging. Think of it as you pointing out where the door is, and opening it wide.
The best time to use this tool is when you are proactively thinking about how you can support your parent, while they are still living independently and are relatively healthy. By asking your parent questions about their experience of supporting their own aging parent, you can explore how their past experience as a caregiver impacts their decision-making within their own aging process.
Asking thoughtful questions to understand their experience helps you establish that you are a team in approaching their aging process. Together, you can identify their vision and goals for how they want their lives to look as they age, and explore how you can support them in the process.
Crucial Note: How these questions are asked is as important as the questions themselves. Ask questions with curiosity, openness, and a lack of judgement. This is an opportunity for you to connect and collaborate with your parents.
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10 Questions to Ask Your Parents About Aging:
When did you first see signs of your parents aging?
Did your parents talk to you about what they wanted their lives to look like, if they lost their independence?
What was your role in your parents’ care and healthcare decision-making?
How did you feel about this role?
Are there things that you wish had been handled differently?
How does all of this impact how you think about your own aging?
Are there things you want to avoid? Or things you want to make sure you do?
Is there something you are particularly worried about?
What are your goals for this stage of life?
How can I support you in achieving them?
Post-conversation Reflection:
How did this conversation feel? What did you learn about your parents that you weren’t aware of before? How does this information inform how you show up for your parents moving forward? If this conversation was awkward, uncomfortable, or felt totally foreign to you, that’s okay! Normalization only comes from practice and repetition.