How To Talk To Your Parents Or Loved Ones About Aging Prep By Susanna P. Barton, MS Gero

By Susanna P. Barton

There is a particular category of adult responsibility that lives in the same mental drawer as flossing daily, balancing a checkbook, and backing up your computer. You know it matters. You intend to get to it. And yet, somehow, it remains perpetually postponed.

Talking to your parents about how prepared they are for aging sits squarely in that drawer. Not a fun idea, like…at all.

The statistics, unfortunately, do not share our talent for procrastination. Roughly 70 percent of adults over 65 will need some form of long-term care. More than half of Americans do not have an estate plan. Only about one in three adults has completed advance directives—those crucial documents that tell doctors and families what to do when someone cannot speak for themselves.

Even more striking: many who do have documents have not had the conversations that make those documents usable. A power of attorney, after all, is only as effective as the person who knows it exists – and understands what to do with it. So, the issue is not just preparation. It is coordination. It is communication. It is, in many ways, family choreography under pressure.

The good news is that there is a better way to begin.

Start with a Shared Lens

Before launching into what can feel like a high-stakes interrogation – “Do you have a will?” or “What the heck do you expect us to do with all those Humel figurines??!!” rarely land well over appetizers and chardonnay, promise – it helps to create a shared starting point.

So the first thing you want to do is watch my  2026 TEDx Talk: “Aging Isn’t a Crisis. It’s a Design Challenge We’re Ignoring.”

It reframes the entire conversation. Aging becomes less about decline and more about design, something that can much more easily be shaped with intention rather than freaking out reactions in crisis. It also has the useful effect of making you not the only one raising these questions. A neutral third party – especially one on a TEDx stage – can do wonders for lowering defenses.

Take a Snapshot (Preferably Together)

Next, invite your parents to take the GeriDrama Risk Score I’ve developed. What? Yes, a risk score carefully designed to assess a person’s readiness for aging. It will give you a surface indication of how much geridrama may be lurking under the water.

Think of the GeriDrama Risk Score as a handy dandy diagnostic tool, but without the fluorescent lighting and waiting room magazines. It offers a quick read on how prepared someone is across the key domains: legal, financial, healthcare, home, and communication.

You might consider taking it yourself first. This is important! There is nothing like a little shared vulnerability to set the tone for this important conversation. No matter our age, we all need to know where we stand on the grand planning spectrum.

Compare Notes

Once the results are in, resist the urge to “grade” anyone. Instead, approach it the way you might discuss a weather report:

• Here’s what looks clear
• Here’s where there might be some storm clouds
• Here’s what we might want to keep an eye on
• This framing turns what could feel like a critique into a collaborative assessment.

The Conversation Itself

At some point, of course, you have to talk. You have to have THE talk. This is where the rubber hits the road when it comes to righting someone’s second-half bus before the wheels fall off and crisis after crisis occur.

It’s also the part most people avoid — not because they don’t care, but because they care bunches and bunches and would prefer not to get it wrong. The key here? Stay curious. Practice active listening. Ask good questions. Synthesize the information. Be present. You are not there to solve everything in one sitting. You are there to open the door to ongoing conversation.

Here are ten questions that can help:

• What stood out to you most from the TEDx talk?
• How prepared do you feel overall for the next 10–20 years of life?
• Do you have legal documents in place, and are they up to date?
• Who would step in to make decisions if you couldn’t—and have you talked to them?
• How are you thinking about paying for care if it’s ever needed?
• What does “aging well” look like to you personally?
• Would you prefer to stay in your home, or have you considered other options?
• What would you want us to know about your healthcare preferences?
• Where is all your important information kept if we need to access it quickly?
• What is one thing we could do together in the next month to feel more prepared?

If the conversation feels a little uncomfy or awkward, you are probably doing it right. Discomfort, in this context, is often a sign that something meaningful is being addressed and important strides in mitigating GeriDrama are being made.

What Happens Next

The goal here is not to emerge with a perfectly organized binder and a ten-year plan (though if that happens, congratulations, you are an outlier). The goal is momentum.

Choose one or two immediate actions like updating a will, completing advance directives, or organizing key documents in a death binder. Decide to make an appointment with an elder law attorney. Choose a day to begin decluttering. Decide to visit a continuing care community you’ve always wanted to tour.

Then begin setting up an important framework for progress:

• Set a specific follow-up point (“Let’s revisit this in a month”).
• Then make sure the right people are looped in – the future decision-makers, not just the current conversationalists.
• Begin assembling a shared system for important information—what many now call a “Grand Planner” or “In Case Of” file.
• And, perhaps most importantly, recognize that this is not a single conversation. It is a series of conversations, evolving over time, ideally with increasing clarity and decreasing urgency.

Families who talk about these things ahead of time tend to navigate what comes next with more steadiness and less guesswork – and facts, much less GeriDrama. And that’s not because they have eliminated uncertainty, but because they have reduced confusion and put love, respect, and independence at the forefront.

Which, in the landscape of aging, is no small accomplishment. Facts!

Susanna Barton, MS Gero, is a member of Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan’s subcommittee on elder care. She has worked as a professional writer in Jacksonville for nearly 30 years and is the founder of the Grand Plans online community, podcast, newsletter, and blog.  Her book Grand Plans 2.0: How to Mitigate Geridrama in 20 Easy Steps and its accompanying workbook, the Grand Planner 2.0, are available in local stores and on Amazon. For more information, visit http://www.mygrandplans.com. You can hear her 2026 TEDx talk on Aging as a Design Challenge here.