Anyone can get crabby but how do you deal with a senior citizen when they get this way?  How do you respectfully deal with someone from this age group who seems determined to be anything but congenial?  Here are 5 tips for coping with a senior citizen who is crabby.

Try To Figure Out Why They Are Crabby

Sometimes people assume that senior citizens are often cranky for no reason but, like anyone else, they often have reasons why they feel the way they do and why they act how they act.  Try to figure out why the senior citizen is cranky.  You may even want to directly ask them what is bothering them.  You might want to avoid the word cranky so that you don’t make things worse.  If you can determine why this person is cranky then you may be able to help the situation and their mood.

Focus On Their Good Qualities

This is easier if you know the person well but whenever you have to deal with a crabby senior citizen, remember their good qualities.  Focus on their kindness, their generosity, or the funny stories that they tell. Focus on whatever it takes.  If you do not know this person then imagine them as your favorite senior citizen and treat them with all the kindness and respect that you would treat your favorite senior citizen with.

Try To Understand Even When You Really Don’t

You may not always be able to help but you can try to understand.  If you cannot honestly determine what is making a senior citizen crabby then start coming up with possible reasons.  Maybe it’s because it’s not easy being a senior citizen in a world devoted to the young.  Maybe they have health problems.  Maybe people are not nice to them so they have become crabby in response.  Remember that they could be crabby for valid reasons so cut them some slack.

Remain Positive And Try To Cheer Them Up

Sometimes the crabbiness is only there for as long as people are cold and distant or rude.  If you are friendly then the crabbiness may dissipate before your eyes.  You can go so far as to try to cheer this senior citizen up or you can listen to what’s wrong and let them feel heard.  Sometimes lessening the severity of a mood like this is as simple as letting someone know that you care.

Don’t Make It About You

Sometimes people are just in a bad mood.  Sometimes people are going through things that they have to go through and there is no changing it.  You can attempt to cheer a senior citizen up or to make them more pleasant but sometimes you will not be able to change them.  Let that be okay.  It’s not about you.

These are 5 tips for coping with a senior citizen who is crabby.  A senior citizen is a person.  Sometimes they will be crabby.  You may be able to help or you may have to let it be.  Just remember that this, too, will pass.

T. Rheinecker writes about how to enroll in LVN to BSN programs.