Tips for Making Family Favorite Holiday Dishes with Your Senior Parent
The holidays are coming, and for many families, that means it’s time to start making the foods that made holidays special. Nearly every holiday has some special foods attached, including those unique recipes that every family has.
As seniors get older, cooking and baking become tougher, especially for seniors with conditions like arthritis or conditions that affect their balance. But you can still include your senior parent in the annual cooking and baking of those special holiday foods. Cooking and baking together is a tradition that means so much. Share it with your senior parent as long as possible.
Some things that you can do to include your senior parent in the cooking and baking of your family’s heirloom recipes, and the foods that mean the holidays each year, are:
Get Home Care Assistance
Home care assistance can make cooking and baking processes easier. With home care assistance, someone will be there to put all their attention to helping your senior parent. So you can focus on the other things that you need to do while a care provider works directly with your senior parent to help them do the things they can manage. It will eliminate the awkwardness of having to tell your parent what to do, and ensure that your senior parent doesn’t cut themselves or hurt themselves when you are distracted with something else.
Buy Pre-Prepped Ingredients
You can make cooking and baking easier for everyone when you buy pre-prepped ingredients. You senior parent might consider that cheating, but anything that makes the process easier is just being efficient, not cheating. Buy pre-cut vegetables, pre-measured baking supplies, and use other prepared items that can help streamline the cooking process. Spice mixes and other ingredients designed to make cooking and baking easier are a great alternative to doing everything yourself, and they will make it easier to include your senior parent.
Assign Tasks Your Senior Parent Can Do
Set your senior parent up for success by only giving them tasks they can easily do. If your senior loved one can’t easily chop vegetables or stir heavy things like cookie dough, assign them tasks that will be easier for them to do. That way they won’t get frustrated, and neither will you. You can ask them what tasks they would be comfortable doing to ensure they are working on things they can physically do.
Let Your Senior Parent Supervise