How to Connect with Seniors in 2021, with Daphne Davis

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio. And welcome back everyone to answer for elders radio and we are so glad you have joined us in this holiday week and as we’ve all been through the holiday time and we are moving up on a brand new year and let’s just hope that two thousand and twenty one is a lot better for us. And we are again joined by our wonderful Daphney Davis from pinnacles senior placements. To Daphne, you know, I guess it’s time to say happy New Year. It is and home. My goodness, I am so excited to say Happy New Year, two thousand and twenty one. Let’s bring it in and have some fun with it. Yes, so tell us a little bit about you know, we talked a little bit about the adult family home scenario, but how have they been adjusting to the holiday season? And you know, we’ve got now another week left of holidays. There’s a lot of you know, it’s just different this year. What are your some of your suggestions on connection with our seniors? It is the big challenge of how to connect with people and I’d like to just kind of put a shot in everybody’s arm of shape of two thousand and twenty and figure out, okay, what am I going to step out and do that’s new? What am I going to do that I haven’t been a open to doing? Excuse me, I haven’t been open to doing or I needed the learning curve was too high. So that so that we can try and implement ways of connecting with our loved ones. And one of the things I know about was because at the holidays we usually have our favorite recipes, are favorite dishes that we have, and it’s generally living your Christmas without such and such a dish. And so maybe we could, you know, get the family, the extended family together, and we could do this via email, if your loved ones are email savvy, to having the recipe tree, to having everybody share, you know, from different categories of foods, the desert of fun, beverage, the main course, of side dish and is the favorite Phi and everyone go, Oh my goodness, we’ve had out a rest the people look here that we didn’t even know. I love the call of sorry, but that might be able to do. If you can’t do it via email, we always have snail mail, we still have stamps, we still have solo and that might be fun for someone to get a surprise in the mailbox too. That’s like, Oh, I wonder what some one so was thinking about. In terms of a recipe, I just had a friend who posted on Facebook a Bo oiled raisin cake with a boiled brown sugar frosting and I was like, oh my godness, how I used to make those and I haven’t thought about that and forever, but it brought back all kinds of memories. So you just don’t know what just sharing some recipes might do. Another thing that I came up was along the food line, is that maybe you could cook together, have the zoom on, be in your kitchen, have your mom sitting in her living room at the assistant living and having her just chat with you as you’re making, you know, some kind of a recipe. Maybe you’re making high and you haven’t done it for a long time, or maybe it’s the left saw that you get up and she can say no, I think you’re rolling that too many times. Don’t touch it so much. It’s going to get stiff, you know, and half a mom in both in that. Yeah, not the same ay and he is so important. And I think too, it’s the time of tradition and and there’s so many traditional family recipes out there, especially if your family may have some ethnic ties, two different cultures, different things like that. I think one of the things that we sometimes take for granted up for is the recipes of family recipes, and I know now that my mother’s passed away, there’s several things my mom used to make that I never got the recipe for and I sit there and I think I don’t even know how to make that. I wish I could have it again, but obviously I don’t have the ability because she’s not with me anymore. I didn’t take the time. So if your loved one is around like that, you can actually carry on the family traditions, which I think is powerful. I love your idea about zoom. That’s a great idea. Yeah, I think that’s really good and I promise you there are people. If your loved one is in an assisted living there are people, the activity director, all kinds of people who would be happy to set up the zoom. They would be happy to teach your mom how to do that or to get the camera set just right. Don’t be agreed to ask for their help. They want to do this for you. It is a way of elevating the spirit of the whole building. So, through your little request, could you know your mom is now going to tell her friend down the road, down the down the hallway, I got to come my daughter how to make less so today and I got what yes, and who I couldn’t run off to. You never know. The other thing I want to encourage thinking of assistant living. There are still some activities going on. Assistant living buildings have gotten so very creative in how to have their residents get involved and they’re still being very safe, but they’re giving their heart, they’re thinking outside of the box. Sometimes it may feel a little bit like you’re in kindergarten, but encourage your loved ones to participate, even if they feel silly, even if they’re like, oh, that is not anything I’m interested in. Really encourage them, challenge them. Say Oh, mom, just do it for me. Dad, I know you’ve never done watercolor before, but the throwing watercolor at a easel today. Go throw some paint, you know, whatever it is. Encourage them to step out. Otherwise we get stuck in a Rut and two thousand and twenty one. Let’s get out of our Rut. No matter what’s thrown at us from a covid perspective Lens. Get Out of our Rut. You know, step out, try something new. Maybe you, as a support to that, to your loved one, make your own personal little list of things that you want to do and share that with your loved one and get them to dream a little bit. I mean maybe. I mean I can’t believe this is even coming back, but I saw macromay already stuff at the hobby store. I’m like, that’s from its acally coming back. Yeah, it is. And I’m like, you know what our elders might have done at themselves the first time around, and they sure dood up again. I mean, who knows. I mean I don’t know if I really want to do it, but I’m willing to try and step out. If somebody said, yeah, we’re going to explore it, let’s step out. Next word again. The idea is not to be in your own little but hmm or and it’s also it’s amazing how many things that you could pick up again. And I’ve heard stories of families now because their folks are isolated one. Her father had not played the piano which just set in their house because he’s been getting older and you know, and he had a career and all this stuff and now he’s in his s and he walked over and he started playing the piano again, which is rising or, you know, different ways in which they can interact. I know that we have several seniors that are in community choirs that sing and they’re doing a lot of concerts online where they’re doing them virtually and different things like that. They can be fun and exciting and with, you know, just getting creative. And one of the things I’m so glad you did bring up is ours just the living communities. They are. They’re amazing and they’re going out of their way to do so many, you know, incredible things. I know one community up in Mount like Terrace, they set up a window area and a display area where the family could go stand behind I’d the window, and then they brought mom or dad in, you know, inside the facility there, and then they were doing photos, you know, shoots there, which is wonderful because you can still be quote unquote, together. No, you can’t touch, no, you can’t be there. You know, on a on a close level, but you can still interact and I think that’s really the important part, is being, you know, part of the spirit of the season, which is sharing in different ways, and I think that’s what this is giving us a new opportunity to explore. It. Is it definitely, it’s just it’s almost like finding your inner child. You know, it’s not exactly how we would do things as adults, but we can still be a little bit silly. We can still kind of say, Oh, I really wish them one this way, or we can just say, you know what, I’m going to be five years old today, I’m going to be six years old today, and I’m just going to have challenge yourself. And I know that we’ve, you know, exchanged our gifts and everything this year, but I wanted to just talk a little bit about as you’re thinking about interacting with your loved ones, think about doing things rather than having things, and one of them to talk about specifically is maybe your mom or dad had wanted to do something for years and years and years. Maybe it’s, you know, they’ve got pen pictures where they’ve got a box of pictures, but they’ve been wanting to go through and get organized. Maybe send them a care package or send a bit of it every once in a while in the mail that helps them to organize those pictures. You know, maybe it’s love, that idea of the photo album book. Maybe it’s something that’s got stickers that they can hold into that photo album book, the pictures, something simple and easy, but for them to look forward to, for them to go, Oh, I need this, this miss I wonder if my daughter can get that for me. Or maybe it is think that, you know, I go back to art all the time because it’s something on my heart. I want to learn how to water paint and I’ve never done it. Maybe there’s something in someone’s heart that they just never done. You know, maybe it’s to learn how to play the Harmonica. They can sit in their own room and learn how to play the Harmonica. Think out size of any options. For sure, there definitely are. There definitely are. And so I guess they move into this New Year. You know, again we started out with the joy and the hope and now it’s finding ways of implementing a little different lifestyle, a little different way of connecting. Maybe it’s to have your kids, you know, the grandkids on the zoom maybe they’ve learned some songs at Christmas time and have them say it on boom for GRANDPA and grandma. I mean those kind of things can happen any time of year, any time as well, and to be conscious about it. Yes, and I know that you were here always to help our families and certainly help them in their times of crossroads and transitions. And so definitely how do people reach you? But that’s pay has had our phone number and I hope you’re all getting this. Is Eight five, five, seven, three, four, one thousand five hundred and I encourage you to go to our website, also of Pinnacle Senior Placementscom and explore there. You can listen to Susanna and I are podcast are listed there. Have Fun at the website us. Yes, and we’re so excited to have you on this hour and coming up and our last and our next segment, definite will be with us and we’re so excited to say happy holidays to each and everyone of you and definitely will be right back right after this. The preceding podcast was provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio to contact pinnacles senior placements go to Pinnacle Senior Placementscom