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Comment by rotexo | Hacker News Reader

I am facing a similar issue with my aging parents. They are both 70+. They both get respiratory issues every year. My Mom in particular is convinced she is healthy and doesn't need to worry about it. I understand why she is resistant towards the notion that she is vulnerable (I have similar issues confronting my own aging, and I am roughly 40 years younger), but it still pains me to discuss this with them. I lose my patience, which isn't helpful. I am growing more and more fearful that they will put themselves at risk, become infected, and then not survive when the hospitals are overwhelmed.

If anyone has any ideas about how to communicate about this with them, I am all ears.

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I went through this today. In German there‘s a really great Podcast „Coronavirus-Update“: https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/podcast4684.html

30 min/weekday a science journalist talks to Christian Drosten, a world-renowned expert on Coronaviruses, who explains things in a very concise manner. Yesterdays episode was „We have to protect the elderly“, where Drosten talked about the high risk for the sick and elderly and trying to fully get this point across to his own father over the weekend. He also mentioned that we should work on hopefully achieving a broader societal awareness of this over the next week or two.

I talked to my mother and father a bit first, sent my mother a link to this episode and told her to put me on speakerphone. We then listened to it together and discussed it a bit afterwards. I found this to be really helpful.

My mother was in denial until 2 weeks ago, when she went a bit hysterical for a day and has been concerned (but okay) since. My father was mostly in denial until today. He also bailed out soon after the podcast ended, because it was a bit much for him. But overall he took it quite well and is taking it more seriously now.

Overall I am very happy with the way this went. Sorry, this isn‘t very helpful if you don‘t speak German. But maybe you are able to find a similar thing in your native language.

It's a good podcast. Since some may have a limited command of the german language, they made a full transcript: https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Coronavirus-Update-Die-P...

Your self-awareness, self-accountability, and emotional IQ to ascertain the likely source of her resistance are all extremely admirable.

It sounds like you need to convince her of two things: (1) she is vulnerable; and (2) she must change.

How about focusing on #2?

Instead of asking her to change for herself, perhaps suggest this could protect friends and others around her who may be more vulnerable. An appropriate analogy may be secondhand smoke. Maybe her lungs are resilient enough to withstand the toxic effects of smoking, but what about the lungs of all her loved ones?

Hopefully others can chime in with better ideas. I hope you and your family, and we all, can remain safe and healthy during this crisis.

"If anyone has any ideas about how to communicate about this with them, I am all ears. "

First of all, respect them. Even if they might be wrong, they are adults, who have the right, to make their own decisions. You can stress the point, how worried you are and provide them with a good article etc., that in this case some caution is advised, but try not to push them.

Also, eventually everybody has to die. When you are 70+ it can happen any moment. I can understand to not want my last years to live in fear of every disease there is. And there are plenty of them, which are especially dangerous for old people, because .. they are older and weaker.

By appealing to pathos aka emotions. Most intelligent people resent this style of persuasion.

Your parents are on death's doorstep as is everyone in their later years. It may be more meaningful to figure out what experiences you'd like to share with them in the limited time you have left instead of trying to prolong their existence at the cost of straining the relationship.

In other words don't put off whatever you might potentially regret not having done if they were to pass away suddenly - with each passing day, the inevitable conclusion every human being shares only draws closer.

I think the most important thing is to ask CLEARLY for what you want. Do you have a specific list of social distancing practices you would like them to implement? Do you want them to stockpile supplies? How many supplies? What is on your shopping list?

"Please take this seriously" is not a request. It's barely even english. It also contains an out of context judgement which you should also try to avoid. Use objective observations instead. So rather than saying "I think you're irresponsible", tell them the actual concrete things they said or did, that led you to that assessment. Something like "I notice you rode the bus during peak hours five times last week." is an example of an objective observation, devoid of judgement or criticism.

Many thanks to everyone for their thoughts. It will take me some time to digest it all.

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