Talking to Your Children About End-of-Life Care

Discussing the end-of-life is never a topic anyone wants to talk about. However, it is critical to think about how you want your end-of-life care to be managed and to make sure that you set up your estate planning to express your wishes. If you haven’t talked about your end-of-life care with your children, you need to make this an upcoming arrangement.

Consider how you want your medical decisions to be handled and who you want to be your power of attorney. Talk with an estate planning attorney to prepare the right legal documents to ensure that your wishes be fulfilled. Lastly, sit down with your children and talk about your end-of-life care. If this task feels like it’s too much to handle, we put together some information that will help you out. Having this conversation will be extremely helpful for both you and your family. 

Before you have this sensitive conversation onto your kids, you should make sure your family is ready for the conversation. For some people, discussing end-of-life care can be very complex and it will probably not be something your kids have thought about. Address the topic by first bringing it up and suggesting a time to talk about what your wishes are. By seeing if your kids would be alright with talking about the topic, it gives them time to prepare for what it will involve. 

Set up an allocated time to discuss your end-of-life care. This will give your kids their own time and place to think about the topic before they sit down with you. This can help make the talk less emotionally charged and will also give you some time to prepare. If your children react negatively about your end-of-life care, try to carefully emphasize that this is an important topic for anyone at any stage of life. 

Choose The Right Setting 

When you do sit down with your kids to discuss your end-of-life care, make sure you pick a suitable setting. A family party will probably not be the right time to talk about how you want your hospice handled or who your power of attorney will be if you end up incapable of decision making. 

Think about picking a quiet and comfortable setting instead, and make sure to allow plenty of time designated for the conversation. Before you start the conversation, make sure to prepare a little yourself. Go over all the details of how you want your end-of-life care to be handled from who will be in charge of decision making to what finances you want used. The more prepared you are, the easier it will be to explain your wishes to your loved ones. 

Listen, But Stick To What You Know 

When you discuss end-of-life care, it can be an emotional conversation for your kids. Be prepared for your wishes to be opposed. For example, if you have a legal order written up in your estate plan that requests the doctors do not resuscitate you, your kids might hesitate at this, not looking at it from your point of view. 

Make sure to be patient with loved ones and to hear out their requests and wishes as well. However, always remember that your medical care is ultimately your responsibility and you should be allowed to choose how things are dealt with at the end of your life. Listen respectfully but asset what you are asking for and why it is important to you. 

Talk To An Estate Planning Attorney 

When it comes to end-of-life care, you need more than a will to keep you safe. Talk to an estate planning attorney who specializes in elder law to make sure you have all the documents needed in order to fulfill your wishes. An attorney can walk you through the finer details of creating an estate plan, which will keep your assets safe, determine a power of attorney, and decide how your medical care should be handled if you are incapable of making these decisions. 

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