What should kids do if Mom stops us from preventing Dad to drive?

If you petition for Guardianship, just be sure that you are prepared for the Guardian to make all decisions that you might not approve of. I was at my wits end with problems with my mother. Its too involved to explain. Suffice to say that the social worker from protective services advised me that when a guardian is appointed; you have no control if they have to be placed in a facility if they are not competent to live at home without 24 hour care. At this point, the patient/patients can be placed in any facility/long term care or skilled nursing facility decided by the guardian. And it could be one of the worst facilities; but the guardian has control. You would have relinquished your rights to choose. It is just a thought to consider if your parent/parents were deemed incompetent to live at home without 24 hour care. After I was told all this, I decided to not attempt guardianship as I wanted control over where my mother would be placed. She ended up in one of the best skilled nursing facilities that I had chosen. Just a thought if it comes to that. Take care and hope some things get resolved. This is never easy.

But, Pink, if the guardian is any good, they will attempt to work with the children before just choosing and moving them. The guardian will want a good working relationship with them. We shopped and shopped, the guardian provided us with places that she thought would be suitable. Ultimately we made the decision on one of them.

We needed the guardian because of a very high level of dysfunction that included the twisted sisters picking a place that my mom and her hubby would share a very small apartment, so expenses would be lower for both. The guardian nipped that idea in the bud quite quickly. She understood immediately that even with assisted living type help combined with my Mom's level of care that her hubby would not be able to provide the necessary care, even with the limited amount of time they would be together alone (now they are only permitted to have lunch together, a facility decision because of mom's sundowning behaviors), especially with a move that often causes a sudden, drastic decline in the one with dementia.

When my twisted sisters paid the required deposit, they had not even talked with mom's hubby about it, and he is perfectly competent to make his own decisions. And they did not have his POA's nothing! He was quite flabbergasted by this and hurt.

Pink & Glad, DHS told me that if I filed a report with them & they were deemed unable to live alone that they would help me to try to become their guardian, not DHS, but if I don't file a report & the doctors office, neighbor or other reports them as needing assistance then DHS would get guardianship themselves & they would put them both in a home they want them in plus put their home & all properties up for sale & take complete control of their entire estate & us kids would have no say about anything.

Sounds like a scare tactic to me. In my state, DHS would only do that if there were no assets, nothing to pay a private guardian.

Jan,
Step back from this blog for a while...............come back when your head has cooled off..............decisions this HUGE need to be done with a cool head and a calm heart. No, I did not read all 34 postings. I browsed thru a few and made me very anxious. That is why I suggest you step away from the blog, and connect with your spiritual Higher Being / pray / see what legal options you need to take. If you cannot think, ask for help from someone local that can be with you during this difficult time. Keep us posted, don't "stay" away, ok? Hugs, Mulata88

Well, finally Dads license was revoked. Thank goodness. I convinced my brothers to not help Mom & Dad for a while. Mom lies & tells everyone thT she handles everything herself, that she doesn't need help, so I told my brothers thT we should make her literLly handle it a all in order to force her to see thT she can't do it all. It is hard not to step in & help, but she is beginning to see she can't. She had spoken very mean to my oldest brother & my sister & told them she didn't need any help from any of us & didn't wNt us coming around butting in & now that she has begun to see the truth she apologized. I have stopped taking her everywhere she wants to go, stopped cleaning that filthy house & cooking meals ahead for her. Now we have an excuse when she wants us to do something. Normally she only asks us to do the things that cost money so she doesn't have to pay. My parents can afford everything within reason & us kids are all on fixed incomes so they can afford it better than we can. I told siblings to not allow her to just use us when money is involved. We love them both & are ready to step in in an emergency, but Mom has to see for herself that she is not capable of handling it all. She still drives him to stores & sends him in to buy stuff & people are taking advantage of him & money is disappearing in large amounts. She gets furious at Dad, but he can't help it. His dimentia is too bad now. This may sound bad, but she is slowly starting to realize that she does need help & that we were just trying to be there for them. This is how it had to play out, because it is better than arguing & fussing about things.

Thanks for your update. It's good to know that he's no longer driving. I hope your mom will accept help. It could be that she's just not mentally able to process accepting it.

she's clearly in denial about her husband's ability to do things keep saving those incident reports and then show them to her if she doesn't change her mind that I suggest taking her to court and getting her punished for refusing to do anything and if possible try to get guardianship because if she keeps doing things like this she's putting others at risk it's better to be safe than sorry and do something you would rather not because if you don't do something and someone gets killed it's your fault and I'm sorry if I'm being a little bit hard on people for in your position but sometimes you have to do what is right and not just what is easy