Homeschool while caring for the elderly

by Kathy Kuhl     Now I understand better what some of you manage: homeschooling a child who learns differently while carrying for an aging relative. I’d known folks living this life. But for the last two years, I’ve been helping an elderly loved one. 

Some of you have a parent with dementia in your home. Their confusion and delusions can break your heart and upend your life, to say nothing of your homeschool. It is hard. Even if you only face a physical decline, their medical care, physical care, and paperwork are burdens. 

After a talk I gave in Phoenix in July on “Staying sane as you homeschool,” one such mom had a question. She was homeschooling while caring for an elderly parent with dementia.

In my talk, I had mentioned I was helping my mom. So she asked what advice I had for her.

My ideas felt superficial. Find support, I said. Get someone to watch your kids, so you and your spouse can go on “dates”—even if it’s just to the hardware store. Squeeze in a short walk. Call a friend. Exercise, even a little. Breathe. Pray, most of all.

My words felt so inadequate

So afterwards I headed toward the woman to apologize for not have more to offer. Before I reached her, two women came up to ask to pray for me. In my inadequacy, I was so grateful for this kindness. And it wasn’t a brief “God bless Kathy.” They prayed compassionately and thoughtfully. I thanked them.

Then I joined a circle of women who’d gathered around the first woman to encourage her. She told us she was one of three women in her homeschool group who were teaching at home while caring for a live-in parent with dementia. Those three were helping each other. It was beautiful to hear about. I knew they didn’t need me. The out-of-towner was optional. Community was not. 

We need community

Whether it’s in person or online, we need to communicate with other caregivers, with people who offer compassion and support. 

Brokeness and Hope

As parents of kids and teens with learning challenges, we see firsthand that there is brokenness in this world. We grieve that our wonderful children struggle academically, socially, emotionally. When our parents decline, we grieve their loss of abilities, the tension, sometimes the worsening of relationships. Others grieve the good relationships we never had.

I’ve got two books to recommend. Though this topic is beyond the normal scope of this blog, I’ll include them for two reasons. This could be you now or someday. You may know someone struggling with this now. 

Dr Leslie Kernisan and Paula Spencer Scott, When Your Aging Parent Needs Help: A Geriatrician’s Step-by-Step Guide to Memory Loss, Resistance, Safety Worries, & More (2021). I wish I’d read it sooner. It covers the medical, cognitive, legal, family, and community aspects and resources. It’s readable, clearly structured, with example stories, and good summaries after every chapter.

What it lacks is made up in Kathleen B. Nielson’s book, Making Good Return: Biblical Wisdom for Honoring Aging Parents. Nielson helps us understand how to think about aging and dying. She considers five essential truths and how we can respond to them. Nielson’s book helps us consider our mindset. That can help us keep going and engage more compassionately. 

A perspective that recognizes brokeness and beauty

I don’t see how to get through raising a special needs child or caring for an aging parent without depending on God. And I don’t mean a search for warm feelings, or a pie-in-the-sky wishfulness. A Biblical worldview equips us better than anything else to:

• Explain the brokenness in this world: of disability, of the decay and decline that precedes death.
• Explain the beauty visible in every human and in the world.
• Uphold the value of every human because of their being in the image of God, capable of creating, loving, seeing and making beauty. Even when those days are in their past or future, our kids and their grandparents are image-bearers.
• See the reality of God’s presence with us and our loved ones.

I suggest you all read both books soon. If you wait until you really need them, it’ll be harder to find the time and energy to read. When I had a parent to assist daily in hospital or in rehab, keep up with her house an hour away, and search for a good care facility, it was hard to have the energy to read.

(That’s why I’m not blogging as often nor pulling together newsletters as much. I’d love to have a virtual assistant to help put out newsletters and post blogs I write. But even without paying myself, Learn Differently LLC can’t afford that.)

So like you, I’m doing what I can. You are blessing your children as you help their grandparents. You are modeling faithful love in hard circumstances.  

If you’re caring for an aging family member while you homeschool, what’s helping you keep going? Please leave a comment below.