Hi, I’m new on here. My mum is 67 and was diagnosed about 1 year ago with Alzheimer’s type dementia, although she started with symptoms about 4 years ago. She does not talk about it. She does not know that her children, that’s myself and my sister know. The problem we are experiencing at the moment is that out of the 4 grandchildren (all aged under 7) she talks so badly about the eldest. She calls him names and says he’s naughty all the time, she tells us things that he has done (which he hasn’t, as the stories are muddled). She says she doesn’t like him. This is very hard for my sister to hear. When mum has said other things we can sort of brush over things but this is very upsetting and we just don’t know how to deal with it. Please someone advice us on this situation if you have had experience. We just need some help.
Mum angry with grandchildren - how do I deal with it?
- Thread starter Duckling
- Start date
Hi
Welcome to Talking point
I have not been on the Talking point for a long time
I cared for my Mother with dementia for around 7 years.
My mother also showed those symptoms of not liking my Middle daughter.
She did it also to my friend's son.
mum use to make up so much fabrication about her, but my daughter understood about mums AZ .
Maybe its time for your family to be open with your mother about the
Alzheimer ’s.
Am sure someone else will come in give you better advice than I.
Welcome to Talking point
I have not been on the Talking point for a long time
I cared for my Mother with dementia for around 7 years.
My mother also showed those symptoms of not liking my Middle daughter.
She did it also to my friend's son.
mum use to make up so much fabrication about her, but my daughter understood about mums AZ .
Maybe its time for your family to be open with your mother about the
Alzheimer ’s.
Am sure someone else will come in give you better advice than I.
I am working with people with Dementia now in a nursing care home.
I would like to see the change to the stigma of AZ/dementia.
Dementia is not a mental illness its a brain disease.
My mother put up such a barrier of not excepting outside help because she thought people would think she was Crazy.
Would tell me not to tell anyone, even when at a memory clinic.
It was only after caring for my mother fulltime & me trying to understand the difference between mental health illness & dementia.
I realize what a stigma was attached to dementia?
this was back in 2003.
More awareness is happing positive changes are happening.
Hope you don't mind me asking, but why is it that you can't openly talk to your mother about her diagnosed?
I would like to see the change to the stigma of AZ/dementia.
Dementia is not a mental illness its a brain disease.
My mother put up such a barrier of not excepting outside help because she thought people would think she was Crazy.
Would tell me not to tell anyone, even when at a memory clinic.
It was only after caring for my mother fulltime & me trying to understand the difference between mental health illness & dementia.
I realize what a stigma was attached to dementia?
this was back in 2003.
More awareness is happing positive changes are happening.
Hope you don't mind me asking, but why is it that you can't openly talk to your mother about her diagnosed?
My mum who had Vascular Dementia took an incredible dislike to all young children and she became very vocal about it, to her they were all misbehaving and they needed a good smack!. it got so bad that I dreaded the school holidays when we would run into children everywhere and the poor things were doing nothing wrong except perhaps running around. At the same time she would get over excited about babies in prams. She did take an instant dislike to my friends 7 year grand daughter and I had to ask my friend not to bring her to our home anymore. Thankfully this phase did not last long.
I can't speak for Duckling, but my OH is 84 and still carries that stigma. She is afraid of becoming a burden if she is seen as losing her mind, she was always so intelligent and was brought up to believe in education and speaking properly. It's sad, and actually the moments around Christmas 2017 when she briefly became aware of how bad her memory was getting were the hardest moments to take.
Sorry, @Duckling, welcome to the forums. These confabulations are normal, though the anger is something beyond my experience. You may want to speak to your mum's GP about changing her medication, as I understand certain meds are good at controlling moods. Someone with better ideas will be around, that is the beauty of Talking Point.
Hi I can totally sympathise with your situation as my Mum started this 4 or 5 years ago but for us it was my nephew who began taking out a nice girl that Mum had never met but constantly made up stories about even saying she’d seen her in thier garden next door in her nightie when the poor girl wasn’t even there that day.
Nothing we could say would change her mind, it then changed too nasty stories about grandson and all consequent girlfriends. A particularly bad event was when she said no my niece had hit her definitely not true as poor girl lives 2 hrs away. It is very hurtful especially as she has always been a doting Grandmother but we have to just ride out the storm and we now have a saying for these episodes “all things eventually pass “ but I can see how when the children are small it must be horrible, Best wishes just remember to take a deep breath and keep calm .
Thank you for your replies.
I want to be more open with my mum but she has always been a private person in regard to her health issues. I worry that I would make things worse by talking to her in more depth about it. She has accepted more help from the immediate family more recently. It’s like we all know but can’t talk about it with her.
It was a terrible time for my dad and her sister to even get her to have investigations and get a diagnosis.
Like in your comments she doesn’t want anyone to think there’s anything wrong.
I’m grateful for your replies
I want to be more open with my mum but she has always been a private person in regard to her health issues. I worry that I would make things worse by talking to her in more depth about it. She has accepted more help from the immediate family more recently. It’s like we all know but can’t talk about it with her.
It was a terrible time for my dad and her sister to even get her to have investigations and get a diagnosis.
Like in your comments she doesn’t want anyone to think there’s anything wrong.
I’m grateful for your replies
I could never talk to my mum about her dementia as she insisted that she didnt have it. I dont believe it was denial, she simply had no insight and could not comprehend that there was a problem. She would acknowledge that her memory wasnt what it once was, but said it was because of her age! I never used the D word around her and just referred to her "memory problems"
This is a very hard situation.
My mum had a crisis and stayed with myself and brother for alternate fortnights until we found her somewhere suitable (sheltered extra care).
At the time my children were 8 and 12, and my brothers children were 7 and 5. My 12 year old was old enough to understand what was going on, although found it hard going, grandma couldn't understand why she wouldn't do jigsaws with grandma when she got in from school, when she needed to do her homework. Grandma also thought she was in charge still, even though dau normally came home on her own after school. She was constantly criticising my son's table manners, meal after meal. He has dyslexia and one of his issues has been poor fine motor control, so his cutlery handling was poor. Whilst he understood it was extremely hard for him and led to tears. On several occasions he would ask if her could have something or do something and we would say yes, my mum is deaf and would sharply pull him up for what he'd done. She thought she could override as as the most senior in the house.
In my brother's house she would play with the younger one, and if the older one walked into the room she would pack the toy up. She was still reading bedtime stories to them as this was what she'd always done but wouldn't have anything to do with the older one. This caused severe issues, the 7 year old wasn't quite old enough to understand. (the background was that on the recent occasions she had seen 7 year old he had been very poorly behaved).
Some of these things sound trivial but week after week they aren't. For both families knowing it was only 2 weeks at a time made it bearable. We hadn't fully understood at this stage that arguing with a PWD doesn't work so we tried explaining things to her to no avail.
Many dementia sufferers do not understand there is anything wrong with them - it is part of the illness so - I forget it's name. Therefore it is impossible to talk with them about it.
I think you need to talk to the children at their level. ie grandma's brain doesn't work properly anymore, she still loves you, but her behaviour is a bit funny sometimes. There are books suitable for their age group.
If your mum's behaviour is causing upset and hurt, you need to make sure the child involved doesn't see her for a few weeks, this might break the cycle. Protecting the grandchildren is really important to me.
In our case once grandma moved out and came to visit for a few hours things improved massively.
My mum had a crisis and stayed with myself and brother for alternate fortnights until we found her somewhere suitable (sheltered extra care).
At the time my children were 8 and 12, and my brothers children were 7 and 5. My 12 year old was old enough to understand what was going on, although found it hard going, grandma couldn't understand why she wouldn't do jigsaws with grandma when she got in from school, when she needed to do her homework. Grandma also thought she was in charge still, even though dau normally came home on her own after school. She was constantly criticising my son's table manners, meal after meal. He has dyslexia and one of his issues has been poor fine motor control, so his cutlery handling was poor. Whilst he understood it was extremely hard for him and led to tears. On several occasions he would ask if her could have something or do something and we would say yes, my mum is deaf and would sharply pull him up for what he'd done. She thought she could override as as the most senior in the house.
In my brother's house she would play with the younger one, and if the older one walked into the room she would pack the toy up. She was still reading bedtime stories to them as this was what she'd always done but wouldn't have anything to do with the older one. This caused severe issues, the 7 year old wasn't quite old enough to understand. (the background was that on the recent occasions she had seen 7 year old he had been very poorly behaved).
Some of these things sound trivial but week after week they aren't. For both families knowing it was only 2 weeks at a time made it bearable. We hadn't fully understood at this stage that arguing with a PWD doesn't work so we tried explaining things to her to no avail.
Many dementia sufferers do not understand there is anything wrong with them - it is part of the illness so - I forget it's name. Therefore it is impossible to talk with them about it.
I think you need to talk to the children at their level. ie grandma's brain doesn't work properly anymore, she still loves you, but her behaviour is a bit funny sometimes. There are books suitable for their age group.
If your mum's behaviour is causing upset and hurt, you need to make sure the child involved doesn't see her for a few weeks, this might break the cycle. Protecting the grandchildren is really important to me.
In our case once grandma moved out and came to visit for a few hours things improved massively.
I am working with an elderly lady whos 91 years old still physically able to walk has
lucid moments.
Then after settling her down, explaining it all to her in why she is in a care home, without trying to upset her more
She tells me
" Am I going bonkers'?
" Do I still recognize my family"
( she does when she sees them)
I tell her No, you're not going Bonkers it's
your generation thought like things like that.
that's why I am here working with people with dementia.
It's just that you cannot retain new memory.
she smiles at me while her anxiety levels lower.
Her family, of course, find it very hard seeing her like this & want it to end, I can understand that, but her life is still worth living.
I count the lucky stars that I am born into this generation that is evolving changing understanding dementia.
.
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I get your point now.
It's like having cancer & still wanting a normal life, normal as in how life was before the diagnose.
With my mother, it was working around keeping her dignity respecting her wishes for as long as possible.
While Sorting out POA before it got too late.
something no one wants to think about.
I found this web site very informative over the years while we went through all the different challenging symptoms that my mother dementia gave her.
Just keep posting sharing
