Humans as a species draw comfort from each other, something that might be hard to do in these next few weeks. However, none in your life will be more affected than your boomer.
Your boomers might be your parents, your aunts or uncles or your employers. In any case, they’re people you care about and interact with on a daily basis.
Due to events, you may find yourself trapped for an extended period of time with your boomers in an enclosed space. Maybe your boomers are having a hard time adjusting to this shift in their comfortable routine, and are starting to act out. Remember, you’re not alone. Here are some tips to help you and your boomer find some peace during these troubling times.
• Talk to your boomer.
Your boomers may understand that their favorite sporting events are canceled, their vacations have been postponed and their retirement savings are now worth about as much as a loaf of bread cost in 1965. But do your boomers really understand the details of the changes they’ll have to make during the current pandemic?
Sure, your boomer may have picked up on some words such as “droplets,” “sanitizer,” “toilet paper” and “apocalypse.” However, it’s a good idea to sit down with your boomers and explain what it means to social distance and why we’re doing it. Really try to hammer in the idea of “selflessness,” “helping those who need it” and “poor people deserve to be alive and see those they love also be alive.” These are not concepts that boomers have a history of understanding. At least not right away.
• Explain to your boomer who is the most at risk.
Now that we know who stands the most to lose if they catch this illness, you may have to have a serious talk with your boomers about their health. Remind them that those over 60 are at higher risk. And that’s not including factors like diabetes or heart and lung disease, which many boomers have even if they don’t know it. If your boomers are reluctant to accept your message, simply tell your boomer that it’s all the other boomers that you’re worried about.
Like Karen, from your tennis group? I mean, she’s two years older than you are, so I bet her family is really worried about her. Or Frank, the guy who had a heart attack about seven months after you had your heart attack? Well, I bet he’s pretty scared right now. So you should be careful for Frank’s and Karen’s sake. Not you guys. You guys are fine.
• Limit your boomer’s screen time.
Your boomers are restless. They’re bored. Their lives are normally enriched with activities and clubs such as swimming, bingo, bridge and grocery shopping. Suddenly, without these things, we may find that our boomers are restless and irritable.
And when boomers are bored they tend to turn to their screens – whether it’s 24-hour news coverage of people arguing from their preferred (and totally not at all biased or fear-mongering) news network, or simply a 10-year-old video of a cat meowing funny that they just discovered this morning that they’re playing on a constant loop from their Kindle Fire. These distractions could become a source of comfort to your boomers.
• Teach your boomers about technology.
Now could be an opportune time to teach your boomers all the tricks that they normally have you, the enabling millennial in their life, do for them. So now that you guys are stuck together for an indefinite amount of time, you can teach them how to set up the Wi-Fi, print documents from wireless devices and “make the television work so it can play movies from the DVD player, not from the Netflix.” You might find that with patience and diligent instruction, your boomers acclimate to newer technologies faster than you might think. Simply start by showing them where the ON button is on their favorite devices.
The ON button. It’s on the top. Yeah, that one. And then you just have to wait. Stop hitting the button and just wait. It takes five seconds. Well, that’s because you keep hitting the button! You know what, I’m just gonna take over. You guys can try again tomorrow.
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