(Part 3 of 3) When is it Time to Have a Family Meeting?

In Part 1 of this three part series we brought to the surface the idea of having a “family meeting” between senior-parents and their “adult children”, while in Part 2 we delineated the components that make up the basis of the family meeting. Now, in this Part 3, we discuss the need for subsequent follow-up of the family meeting, and the importance of maintaining a pro-active posture and a positive attitude.

The end of the family meeting should have produced a “re-cap” of the meeting, and a conclusion the recommended certain actions and preliminary milestone dates for those actions. For example, you may have mutually agreed (the senior-parents and adult-children) that the senior parents were to get their wills updated and have the drafts available for a family review within a reasonable timeframe. Additionally, there may have been discussion about the prospect of having the senior-parents selling their current home and relocating to the same town as their adult-children. This consideration may require a real estate agent’s analysis of the market potential for the sale of the home, and the adult children’s efforts in their locale to identify housing alternatives for the senior parent. There will be many other issues that require exploration from both parties (which we will call the “stakeholders”.

So, given the fact that there is much work ahead, it is advisable to develop an action plan that will extract the minutes (notes) from the family meeting and identify and schedule various tasks that the players will have responsibility to research and achieve results. The action plan should be overlaid onto a monthly calendar so that you can clearly view weeks and months of activity and plan accordingly. Communication between the stakeholders is crucial to insure that all tasks are being attended to and progress is being made. In the computer age, it’s possible to link them via e-mail contact and the use of a simple spreadsheet file to serve as the calendar/action plan; however, nothing replaces verbal communication and personal contact.

Over the period of ninety to one hundred twenty days after the initial meeting, if possible, it will be beneficial to plan a second meeting to have the stakeholders review their progress and determine if they need to modify the action plan and milestone dates on the calendar. For example, if the relocation of the senior-parents to the adult-children’s community has been discussed, what do you do if a real estate agent confirms that the market conditions are limiting and may take up to twelve months to sell the home, when you initially projected a six month sale?

You need to be flexible and so does your action plan. Adjust the schedule, milestone dates, and task list when unpredictable circumstances arise. The players must also prepare a contingency plan should that circumstance be a crisis. Crises may come in many forms and fall upon either the senior-parents or adult-children. The most difficult crisis to confront will be a dramatic change in health condition of the senior-parent that may even require hospitalization.

Concluding Remarks

Senior-Parents and their adult children who take a preemptive, planned approach to the aging process will truly benefit by the organized structure of a family meeting. Stakeholders who have been closer over the years will be more receptive and comfortable with this process than ones that have had distant relationships. A third-party moderator can buffer the emotional aspects to facilitate a productive family meeting.

Philip D. Shapiro, M.H.A. is the Developer and Executive Director of Promenade on the River, an active senior living community (www.promenadereno.com) and the President of Traditions Integrated Care Communities, a senior living consulting firm, both based in Reno. Phil can be reached at 775.345.6941

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