Making decisions about care of your parents is one of the hardest challenges siblings face. Good communication is key to making decisions together. Since you feel that your opinions are not being heard or heeded, you need to let the others know that you want to be more engaged and give some ideas of how. Focus on what you want to have happen rather than on what you don't want others to do. The person who seems controlling may feel it is more efficient to take on the responsibilities for himself or herself and may not want to involve others or may not realize others want to get involved. Without criticizing, let your siblings know of your interest in helping with your mother's care. It may be useful for the siblings to make a list of the major tasks involved and to have a meeting (face to face, phone, or e-mail) that allows each person to see the whole picture of what needs to be done and share what he or she would be willing to do. It might be useful for each person to identify one thing that the other siblings are better at doing for your mother than you are. This gets the conversation off on a complimentary tone. It is useful to have this list as a basis for keeping track of what is getting done.

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