by admin on December 28, 2009
Earlier this month, the Shoreline Eldercare Alliance (SEA) gave a presentation on loss and change at Peregrine’s Landing in Clinton, Connecticut. The evening featured excellent speakers and an attentive audience.
The emphasis on “change” was an especially helpful one. It is easy to think of aging as simply decline and inevitably negative. This perspective reinforces our tendency to try to try to deny aging and to fight it — in ourselves and others.
Yet to see aging as a normal change as we go through life makes it easier to discuss, to plan for, and to adapt to. Elder mediators can help with conversations about “change” and how it affects us and our loved ones.
by admin on December 28, 2009
Earlier this month, the Shoreline Eldercare Alliance (SEA) gave a presentation on loss and change at Peregrine’s Landing in Clinton, Connecticut. The evening included excellent speakers and an attentive audience.
One of the points that hit home to me as a mediator was the perspective that our society has an especially difficult time discussing death. We use euphemisms to describe it (e.g., “if something happens to me.”) We avoid discussing our own end-of-life wishes, leaving our loved ones to make educated guesses about what we would want but never expressed. We refuse to acknowledge that death is inevitable for all of us.
Elder mediation can help families have difficult — but important — conversations about death. These conversations can happen far in advance of death, when the family is gathered as death is near, or at any time in between.
by admin on December 28, 2009
Sometimes one party to a dispute contacts me to pursue mediation, fully convinced that the mediation process is the right way to resolve a conflict as effectively as possible. At times, another party to that dispute is reluctant to pursue mediation and asks me to serve as an arbitrator.
Most people have had little or no experience with either process. Some have heard a little about divorce mediation but have never heard about mediation used in any other context. When we discuss the differences in these conflict resolution processes, the distinction that is often the most important is the question of control.
In arbitration, the parties ask the arbitrator, within limits that they set out and agree to, to resolve their case for them. The arbitrator is then in control. In mediation, the parties work with the mediator’s help to decide their case. The parties are always in control of their own dispute.
by admin on December 28, 2009
“ADR” is short for Alternative Dispute Resolution. Lawyers, in particular, know the term as one that describes alternatives to litigation. ADR certainly includes arbitration and mediation, and may be used to include certain types of fact-finding, negotiation, facilitation and related processes for conflict resolution.
“DR” stands for Dispute Resolution. This term is an explicit recognition that the processes that were once “alternatives” are now much more likely to be the norm. Very few lawsuits are tried to conclusion with a verdict and judgment to end the case. The vast majority are concluded some other way: including forms of Dispute Resolution such as mediation and arbitration.
by admin on November 28, 2009
In Parts I and II, I wrote about the holidays as a time when families might be together face to face for the first time in a number of months. Changes that might not have been obvious on the telephone become clear or statements from a local sibling that Mom needs more help may be hard to ignore when seeing her in person. The idea of having a conversation about an aging loved one’s needs can itself be hard to face. Yet starting to talk about current and future living arrangements, care, and safety is essential.
How and where to start? Start with immediate needs. Address what must be done right away to improve or maintain the situation. It is probably not necessary to decide everything at once. Start with a genuine conversation, not an ultimatum or an intervention. Try to find out as much as possible about what the elderly person’s preferences and dislikes are. Then you can start to identify and analyze the options.
by admin on November 27, 2009
Last time, I wrote about the changes in an aging loved one’s emotional and physical health that family members might notice at the holidays. If a face-to-face holiday visit is the first one in a number of months, a decline in health may be both obvious and startling.
The prospect of a difficult conversation can be so daunting that the conversation is postponed. It can be tempting to try to delude yourself that a decline is a temporary setback when you actually know that it isn’t or that nothing needs to be discussed right now because there is no crisis — yet.
In fact, the most valuable action is to start a conversation, which is likely to be the first of many. Sometimes the conversation is not as bad as the dread of it and it is a relief to the older person to start to address his or her changing needs. Often the conversation that is started earlier rather than later will allow for a deeper exploration of preferences and a wider review of options.
by admin on November 26, 2009
Today is Thanksgiving and some families are gathering together, face to face, for the first time in many months. The general press talks about how large a role family dynamics — or dysfunction — can play in these get-togethers. The holidays are also a time to witness change in an aging loved one. A physical or mental decline that was not so clear in photographs or telephone calls can be seen firsthand. An adult child who has lived near an aging parent may have faithfully described the change to a distant sibling who now sees and understands it for the first time. Or a fresh eye can see the cumulative change of many months that has escaped someone who has lived with it day to day. For some family members, the change and all that it suggests for the future can be difficult to bear. Some will react with denial, some with fear or sadness.
Most helpful, but sometimes most difficult, is to candidly and carefully consider what these changes mean for that loved one’s emotional and physical well-being and what they will mean for the family as a whole. Those conversations can be challenging, but essential.
by admin on November 11, 2009
Family businesses possess great strengths — and potentially devastating weaknesses. One weakness involves the challenge of planning for a day when some or all family members leave the business.
On November 1, 2009, the New York Times ran an article by Charles V. Bagli titled “Flipping a Coin, Dividing an Empire.” In it, he described the buy-out agreement of three Elghanayan brothers to divide up a $3 billion real estate empire built over four decades. Mr. Bagli captured the situation in a nutshell: “Compared with property breakups of some other New York real estate families — often long, messy affairs replete with blood feuds, lawsuits and ugly recriminations — the Elghanayan brothers’ split has been relatively swift, smooth, and secretive.”
The brothers had drawn up a detailed partnership agreement after they were forced, twenty years ago, to resort to binding arbitration (with their father serving as arbitrator) to resolve a family business conflict when a fourth brother left the family business. The process they created involved a coin toss, a reverse auction, and other details based on game theory principles.
Even that detailed process proceeded with horse-trading, some tension, and some sadness. But, by planning ahead and creating a process that they understood and freely adopted, the brothers did some valuable conflict management. They reduced the scope and severity of a potential family wealth conflict and then, when the agreement was needed, they had a far easier conflict to resolve. One that they could put to rest without destroying their wealth, their company, or their family.
by admin on October 31, 2009
Many, perhaps most, families find it difficult to talk about estate planning. Parents may be uncomfortable with the idea that their adult children would have any input in the planning process. Without that input, parents may make decisions that seem wise, but are based on mistaken beliefs and impressions. Some may be uncomfortable informing their heirs why they have made the plans that they have made — or even the broad outlines of what those plans are.
The October 29, 2009 New York Times special section on Wealth & Personal Finance included an article by Deborah L. Jacobs, “Clauses Aimed at Keeping the Heirs Quiet.” After reviewing recommended steps to deter will contests, it cautioned that estate planners say the best way to avoid an estate settlement conflict is to do some smart estate planning conflict prevention, “taking steps during life to preserve the peace.”
“For example, rather than leaving relatives guessing about the motives behind your decisions regarding who gets what, you may want to spell out your reasoning in your estate-planning documents — or have a frank discussion beforehand.”
The candid discussion has the advantage of not taking the heirs by surprise when the contents of the will and related documents becomes known. But the very idea of the discussion is a daunting prospect to many. A mediator can help by facilitating conversations about family wealth and, in that way, preventing family wealth conflicts.