Q. How do you make aging parents “happy”? How do I contend with all the gripes that nothing is good enough?

A. The place to start is with accepting the fact that you are not and never will be powerful enough to make someone else happy. You may do things that please or displease your parents, but ultimately each person is responsible for his or her own happiness.

That said, it is important to acknowledge that there are significant physical and emotional challenges that come with aging. Bodies ache; vision and hearing capabilities diminish; physical and emotional energies flag, and thinking processes slow down. As friends and spouses pass away, one’s own incapacity and death becomes a short-term reality rather than a distant future possibility.

All of these factors can lead to feelings of depression and hopelessness. Understand that you can’t change your parents’ current reality. We don’t come with “Rewind Buttons”; so it is utterly impossible to turn back the clock to a happier, healthier time.

However, there are some communication strategies that might help you listen compassionately without feeling the need to fix everything that isn’t right in their lives.

There are three steps you can take to address specific issues while you are in the middle of listening to their gripes:

Listen to what they have to say, and then paraphrase and repeat the complaint. Don’t judge, and don’t jump to a solution or a conclusion. Just listen until they are done talking. Sometimes people aren’t expecting a solution – they just really want to be heard and understood. You can test this by paraphrasing back to them what they just said to you. This can sound like:
“So if I’m hearing you right, what you are telling me is (fill in the blank by giving them a synopsis of the complaint.)” or
“So what I think you told me is _______________.”
Respond by acknowledging their feelings. Say something like:
“That must be so frustrating for you.”
“I can see this is really upsetting you.”
“I am really sorry that this happened and that it is creating such a problem for you.”
You have two choices for the third step. You can react or you can redirect.
If you choose to react, it means you will either help them figure out how they can fix or change the situation themselves, or you will accept the responsibility of fixing it yourself. If you want to help them maintain some control of the situation, ask open-ended questions that will help them come to their own conclusion. Questions might sound like:

“What would you like to do about ______________?”
“Who might be able to help you with_________________?”
“What kind of skills would a person need to help you __________?
And if you feel like it is a genuine complaint that requires your intervention, you could say something like,
“I would really like to help. Please tell me what you would like for me to do.”

If it isn’t something that can be fixed, you can redirect the conversation to a different topic. This can be as simple as changing the subject. You can do this any number of ways:
“Oh, I just remembered . . . I got a letter from _________. Would you like me to read it to you?”
“Would you like to see what’s coming on TV tonight?”
“We haven’t talked to ___________ in a long time. Would you like to give her a call?”
“I just got a craving for ice cream. Would you some too?”
“The flowers are blooming. Would you like to go for a drive to see them?”
“It’s almost lunchtime. Would you like for me to walk with you to the dining room?”

As much as we would like to fix things for our parents, aging, incapacity and death are a part of the life cycle. We can listen compassionately. We can love unconditionally, and we can offer emotional support, but the choice of how they view their past and current life experience is ultimately their decision.