Within our family, we have begun to notice when the kids are disconnected and start to lose interest in the lives of our elderly loved ones. In other words, sometimes one of our senior family members will reminisce about the old days and talk about someone in our family, whom we’ve never heard of, and unfortunately – not going to hide this – sometimes it’s boring to listen to.
Yeah, that sounds harsh. We have guilt with it. Some stories are cool and funny. Most stories we listen to just because we feel like we must. As adults, we can act engaged and humor our elders, but when we see our nieces or little cousins roll their eyes, we put our feet down. How hypocritical!
There is a higher level of disrespect than when we were kids. It’s almost as if the senior is “in the way” of the child. The topic may not be interesting, but that doesn’t mean we turn cold and act as if that senior doesn’t matter. How rude!
Well, it’s all kind of rude. We aren’t blatantly saying, “this story is boring! Stop telling me about someone I don’t know during a time I was not even born into!” Even still, we do feel inconvenienced every time these stories come up and that makes us feel awful.
This is a form of ageism. Could we be ageists and not know it? During our search to find out, we stumbled upon a really cool article on the signs of ageism and how to correct it. You should read it too by clicking here, because after reading this, we decided to squash our own behavior and start teaching our youth to find more interest.
First, let’s understand why our seniors do this.
- They truly are reminiscing. It’s good for their memory and cognitive function to recall times when they were younger. Sure, you may not enjoy hearing this every time you visit them. The stories are repeated, too. That’s a good thing. We want to be in a position where we allow them to talk freely about their past.
- It’s their way of engaging in conversation. You see, elderly people get lonely. For many, they have had social lives in their youth. They had friends, sleepovers, parties, and lots of events to partake in. As they got older, they grew tired. Friends of theirs passed on. Kids grew up and moved out of the house. Their once active social life faded away.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re at a family gathering and you’re sitting by a firepit with siblings and cousins around your age. You are all sharing stories. Now let’s bring in a senior in your family, who decides they want to sit by the fire and enjoy your company. That’s beautiful! What typically happens is, because you younger folk are all involved in your own conversation, your senior loved one gets a little “ignored”. This isn’t to say as if they are invisible, but they aren’t as included in the conversation. What we’ve experienced is that they involve themselves in the story sharing. What you’ll notice is that your siblings and cousins go quiet to hear your senior speak. You aren’t responding to them as you would each other. You may not be rude, but you don’t necessarily think their past is related to the vibe you were all feeling.
How to Get Interested and Vibing
Ask them for photos. You and the kids in your family are more likely to find an interest in your senior’s stories if there are visuals.
We did this for one of our aunts, who is in her 70’s. She loves to hang around us and tells us how much she loves her “kids”, meaning those of us from age seven to over 40. We’re younger than her, so she sees us all as her children. We love when she comes around, but it does change the vibe we have.
How to Correct Your Ageism
One night she was sharing a story, and we asked her if she had any photos of this place she was talking about. Guess what? She had a lot of them on her phone! We all huddled around her to look at the photos and hear more of her stories. What she was saying was fascinating and we wanted to know more. Whatever vibe we had going on previously was outmatched by the new vibe she just brought in. Our conversation thereafter ended up being about how prideful we were to be in this family with someone who had amazing stories and pictures to tell.
That’s one way to get kids involved with your seniors, too. Bust out the photo albums. Scan them into phones. Make collages. Get visual with your elders!