You want to help your parents do their estate planning. After all, it’s going to have a drastic impact on you. One thing you’re concerned about is that they never discuss what they want for end-of-life care, meaning you’re not sure how you’ll make those decisions when the time comes.
Naturally, people tend not to enjoy these conversations. They avoid them. How can you get your parents to talk to you about this?
One thing you can do is to make it a priority to do your own estate planning and talk to your parents and loved ones about the end-of-life care that you want. When they see you doing it, it can inspire them. It also creates an easy avenue to talk to your parents because you can talk about the decisions you’ve been making and ask if they’ve thought about the same things.
Another tactic is just to be direct and ask permission from your parents to find out what they want. Tell them it’s important to you. They may not feel comfortable, but they’ll have the conversation for your sake.
Beyond that, you can also just focus on being compassionate and listening. Show them that you care. Acknowledge their concerns and the issues they worry about. Pick a comfortable setting for the conversation. The more you can do to make the conversation easy to have, the smoother it will go.
Remember, end-of-life care is a crucial part of estate planning, but it is just the first step. Make sure you know all of the various options you have.
