Getting the Year off to a Great Start for Caregivers

Brittany encourages setting boundaries – and being prepared for the unexpected

Brittany in Illinois has been a caregiver for about 10 years – and watched her mother and aunt work as caregivers for years before that.

She encourages caregivers to care for clients as if they were family – but also to set good emotional boundaries. Those two goals may seem to be in conflict. How do you treat the client like they are family, but also set emotional boundaries?

“It’s definitely hard,” she said. But clients are often experiencing difficult times – like health setbacks and loneliness. She wants to help them while she is with them, but she also wants to be able to stay upbeat for her next client – and for her own family. That requires her to limit how emotionally involved she gets with any one client.

“I don’t want to carry it to the next client,’ she said. “I leave the negativity – anything negative that is happening, like if they’re in hospice or anything like that – I have to leave it there at that house and not carry it with me.”

For a long time, Brittany found it nearly impossible not to get too attached to her clients… but with experience she has found that it really helps to limit how much she thinks about the client during her off time.

“My husband and I, we both tell each other, ‘leave work at work,’” she said. She and her husband have a ritual of spending a few moments at night, after the kids are in bed, where they tell each other about their day. That’s a moment when she might share her worry about a client’s health problem, but then once she gets it off her chest, she just lets it go.

Understanding the clients’ frustrations

Brittany said that one value of maintaining some emotional distance is that it helps you not take it personally if clients get frustrated or upset.

Some clients have mental health challenges or dementia, which may be affecting how they respond to mild disappointments. Others may just be frustrated that they can’t do their own chores and errands – and so they react with irritation if things aren’t done exactly the way they wish.

For example, Brittany said that she used to take it personally when she did shopping for clients and then they would complain about something, like the brand of crackers she picked out.

“I have my days where it does still bother me,” she said. “It makes me feel like everything that I do isn’t good enough… But at the end of the day, it’s okay. It doesn’t really bother me because I know that she has what she needs.”

She has had a client who was schizophrenic and could be frustrating to work with at times.  “There’s been quite a few times where I literally just wanted to throw my hands up and walk away,” she said. “But I pushed through it and you know, I told myself, no, if this was my mom, if this was my grandma, I would not leave her in this situation. I pray and pray about it. I say ‘God give me the strength to get through it with this client, because it’s not her fault, she has a clinical condition.’”