When Communication Experiences a Setback

David Solie, MS, PA
February 25, 2005

In this new collection of extracts from his book "How to Say It to Seniors", David Solie offers advice for the times when our best efforts to help a senior run into trouble. The extracts are reproduced here with the author's permission.
Robert Griffith, Editor.

We are now acquainted with the developmental drivers that motivate older people and the issues underlying the unique ways they express themselves. We've learned how to listen with the ear of a legacy coach. We feel committed to this new role and inspired to make it work in ways that benefit members of the older, younger, and our own generations.

We may have enjoyed some resounding initial successes. Suddenly our elders are responsive, communicating, and reveling in the attention we've focused on them. They blossom, as we expect they would. We feel energized in our coaching mode.

Then perhaps we hit a snag, a bump in the road in our communication with the elderly person. We ask an open-ended question and get stonewalled or bullied with a response like, "Why are you asking me that? That's none of your business." We hear a new detail in a repeated story that intrigues us and we seek more information, only to get a shrug and a yawn. We try the plant-and-wait technique - and find we're still waiting for answers to important matters several weeks, even months after we first asked. Our developmental agenda demands we get the ball rolling, sew things up, and complete the task, so we begin to doubt our newfound abilities as legacy coaches; we may even start to doubt the wisdom of such an approach. What do we do when these new techniques don't work, our patience runs thin, or time is short?

The Parent Trap

When we begin our work with older adults, we need to be aware of the risk of reliving what I call the Parent Trap. The Parent Trap is a reminder that, as we raised our kids, we could not take their developmental surges personally. We needed to see a two-year-old's tantrums or a teenager's aloofness in the context of overall developmental growth and not as a personal affront. The more we manage our expectations about certain developmentally induced behaviors, the more successful we'll feel as parents - and as legacy coaches.

As [the movie] About Schmidt suggests, there are rarely any neat endings to life. Just as many of us were ambivalent about our parenting role - after all, there was a lot of good stuff and some really bad stuff most of us had to deal with - we must realize that legacy coaching demands a similar kind of commitment to the well-being of another individual. As parents, we didn't back down from the challenges of raising our kids. As legacy coaches, we must commit to the effort it takes to establish and maintain good connections with our elders.

Not every communication technique we read about will work. Sometimes the technique will work and sometimes it won't. One of my colleagues, Arthur, spent hours researching, selecting, and then buying a vacation package he thought both he and his recently widowed father would enjoy. His father seemed agreeable, only to call him a week before departure date to tell him he was backing out. Exasperated, Arthur hung up the phone without even asking why. A few days later, Arthur's dad called back to suggest an entirely different kind of vacation. Arthur chose to ignore his dad's "erratic" behavior and began to look at the signals he may have missed in their communication about taking a vacation together.

Arthur had always had a stormy relationship with this parent; they were usually at odds over many things. He admitted to me that his father never seemed to take the advice he offered and to this day he is distressed over his dad's lack of urgency, repetitiveness, focus on details, and profound ingratitude on matters more weighty than where to spend leisure time. He once took these traits about his dad as a personal affront for all the effort he makes on his behalf. Dad "keeps him at arm's length" and "changes directions" in his thinking without informing him that Plan A was not to his liking. Arthur now sees this behavior as his father's way of maintaining control and resisting intrusions into his life.

What's the message Arthur might have taken away from his dad's abrupt change of plans? There's a wide range of what we call normal in people, and what Arthur perceived as normal - that where they vacationed was less important than simply being together at the agreed-upon time - was not Dad's vision of what was right for him. Perhaps Arthur didn't pay enough attention to earlier signals or ask the right questions; perhaps he did, but Dad truly did change his mind and didn't realize the repercussions of doing so. To his credit, Arthur never made his father feel bad about the lost deposit or the scheduling chaos he had to sort out; he accepted the situation and vowed to himself to respect his father's wishes - and to listen more attentively in future exchanges.

Sustaining the Commitment

Many of us who work with older clients or interact with elderly relatives have this dilemma: We want to give them a meaningful gift, something they will like. But they have everything they need and end up unhappy or returning whatever we buy. I thought a friend of mine came up with the perfect solution to buying Christmas gifts for his mother. Since she was very difficult to please and returns were inevitable, he decided to take her to a major department store and let her pick out whatever she wanted. He flew to her city, took her to a store, and, after much fussing and trying on and discussion with a very patient salesperson, she made her selections. Accompanying her to the cash register, he described to me his feelings of satisfaction as he surrendered his credit card and gave her a wink and a knowing look that said, "Well, isn't this wonderful? Aren't I clever to have thought of this solution and aren't you pleased?" This mood vanished when she caught his eye and his mood and said, "You should have thought of this sooner!" Bam! Talk about a shot to the gut . . .

The point is we must realize that occasionally we'll get blasted for our best efforts. Committing to the job of legacy coach is 90% of the battle and promotes the discipline that causes us to stick with it, through thick and thin.

Changing the Model

Understanding developmental conflicts of old age is one thing; using communication techniques in live settings is something else. Be aware that, according to behavioral psychologists such as B.F. Skinner, a behavior we are trying to extinguish may actually intensify in response to initial intervention. That is, the behavior, attitude, or assumption we are trying to change can actually get worse before it gets better, if it improves at all. Our first efforts at communication, rather than providing the soothing interaction we anticipated, may prove provocative.

How should we respond if our efforts blow up in our face?

1. Back off and reexamine. We need to view our efforts as objectively as possible. Did we present the idea in a rushed way? Did we withhold key information that might be relevant?
2. Return to a more neutral position than we initially took, or drop the subject entirely. Realize that the elderly person may have been in a different mental orbit and not ready to absorb new information.
3. Don't take a negative reaction personally. We may need to figure out an alternate strategy to get our point across.
4. Redraft the plan. Don't try to rehammer the same points that backfired the first time around. If a communication issue is important enough, we need to reframe it in different language or at a less hectic pace than we originally did. If the elderly person still isn't receptive, drop it.
5. Keep our goal in mind. Were certain words, topics, or assumptions more provocative than we'd anticipated? Select other options and see if they get a better reaction.
6. Look at the timing. Were we in a bad mental or physical place when the subject was mentioned? Try a different venue or another time and see if the response is better. In many instances we try to get something accomplished and don't realize the setting is just not appropriate. For example, bringing up medication issues at a family celebration might seem to us to be a supportive way to do it, but might draw fire rather than appreciation from the elderly person to whom the comments are directed.
7. Be sure to prepare for the encounter. Doing our homework allows us to create a nonlinear environment in which a conversation can work. Presenting unpleasant or undesirable choices in the heat of battle or in the midst of a life-changing decision is often counterproductive.

Breakthroughs and Setbacks

As with any personal relationship, ours with our senior friends, colleagues, and relatives can be fraught with the typical highs and lows of daily living. Sometimes our efforts to connect will be rewarded, sometimes we'll be rebuffed. As legacy coaches, we need to create a supportive environment for every senior we know. The payoff for us is enormous: The longer they live, the more time we have to facilitate the discovery of their legacy and benefit from its wisdom and insights. If we communicate easily and well, this process is not a chore, but a blessing.

You can buy David Solie's book "How to Say It to Seniors" at Amazon.com; click here

Source

• David Solie, MS, PA. How to Say It to Seniors: Closing the Communications Gap with our Elders. (2004) Prentice Hall Press, New York.

Related Links
How to Talk With Your Elders
How the Elderly Communicate (1)
How the Elderly Communicate (2)

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