establishing trust

when you talk to an elderly, be candid, tackle the issue, do not try to hide. see things from their point of view and make sure you do not allow any opportunities to occur whereby the elderly can misunderstand you.

that was the message i iterated to bee today.

you see, bee and i brought mum out to johor today. before heading up, i asked mum to wear diapers. and by the end of the day, her diapers was heavy with urine. and given that she had to frequently get in and out of the car and sit on the wheelchair, some of the urine spilled onto the wheelchair as well as on the car seat. naturally, the stench of urine fill part of the car, particularly at the back of the car closest to the boot where i kept the wheelchair.

bee felt uneasy and used mandarin to tell me about the stench. candidly, i would tell my mum about the stench and how bee was able to smell it, etc. bee was not happy about it. to him, by using mandarin, he was trying not to upset mum. he did not see my point of view to assure mum that we are ok with it. to me, i do not take mum to be a fool. i was sure she was aware of the stench. i was sure she might possibly feel apologetic about it. i was sure she can see, sense, hear and sensemake what we were talking about to some extend. and so from this perspective, i have to make sure nothing gets misunderstood. to me, her tensions with my sis-in-law was, to a large part, due to the fact that my sis-in-law speaks in mandarin (she was from china). and her inability to fully communicate with mum resulted in a deep sense of distrust on my mum's part. i do not want to see the same happen between bee and mum.

in fact, i explained to bee that he should use such opportunities to built confidence. talk about it. bring it up candidly. assure her that he is ok with it. assure her that it can be cleaned and managed easily. put mum at ease. and if he can do all these, it would assure mum. it would built her confidence. it would bridge the current polite gap that still exist between them. and it would certainly help me manage mum's ability to be comfortable with bee.

there are lessons to be learned. the intentions may be good but more importantly, it is the perception that one needs to manage. it is about seeing things from the other person's point of view. cos if this is not well managed, no amount of good intentions can sustain or built a relationship.