By Dee Jaye Clark, www.TheRelationshipNavigator.com

We are now living in a time where more and more adult children do not live within close proximity to their parents. This may be due to going off to college in a different state, marrying someone who already lives in another city, accepting a job promotion that carries the individual across the country, or a myriad of other reasons. Yet, the parents continue to thrive in the same home community.

Years pass and you begin to notice that your mother’s memory is beginning to fade, or your father fell and has not been the same since. How do you approach a conversation about them moving to be closer to you?

Try the following:

1. Casually bring up the idea; start off by saying something like, “Ma, would you consider moving near me?” Remember, this is not the “closer” conversation. You are merely broaching the subject and planting the idea to be revisited later.
2. Conduct research on something that is important to your loved one and you know it would be a selling point to slant the case in your favor. If your father is a deacon emeritus at his Episcopal church, find out how deeply he could get involved with the local denomination near you. Your great aunt is part of an elite knitting circle, have the president of the group in your area make a call inviting her to stop in upon her next visit.
3. Medical facilities, physicians, and insurance coverage may be a concern for your loved one; again, do some preliminary research to ease their worries.
4. Employ the team approach by having your grandmother’s friends and other family members to subtly encourage a possible move too.
5. Gingerly see if your uncle is open to selling his house; if not, “sell” him on the idea of allowing a management company to lease his home then he would not have to be involved with the day-to-day tasks of a landlord, but reap all of the benefits.

I wish you success in your quest, and do not forget to throw in that your parents will be able to see the grandkids more often.

Dee Jaye is The Relationship Navigator, here to help us with the challenges that arise in our personal relationships and in the family dynamics of caregiving. While most of her guidance is geared toward romance, she and her brother recently embarked on a caregiving path for their parents, an experience which has broadened Dee Jaye’s scope of interest with regard to “The Relationship.”