[serious] How to tell an 8-year-old that her grandfather is losing his mind

[C0ckney]

sorry to hear that, loin. i've had relatives who suffered with dementia/alzheimer's. it's tough for everyone involved.

there are some good posts in this thread from BU and bebro among others. i think ken really hit the nail on the head wrt to your niece. that's roughly what my grandmother said to me about my great aunt when i was young (maybe 7 or 8, i can't recall exactly).

[The Mad Monk]

I would explain this and that at times people will seem frustrated at Grandpa, but they aren't angry at him and are just frustrated because his illness.

This. Exactly this.

You know your nieces, better than anyone here. Tell them the situation as you see it, in a way they can understand.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

You know, it's likely to be misleading, though - after Gramma went stupid on us, you should have heard my mother and aunt *****ing about it down at our house like they'd been betrayed.

I asked; Momma said she did feel betrayed - her mother had always been the rock of their existence, and it felt like she was letting them down. You definitely get some anger at your lames for being so lame... I mean, one time during an ice storm that had knocked the power out, we were looking after Gramma and Daddy at the same time, and she got so frustrated I caught her in the stairwell where no one would hear, hugged her and said quietly "Someday the lames will all be gone and you'll be free." -And we both cried a little.

--Two years later, all the lames were indeed gone the next time freezing rain knocked the power out - and I really missed them; they'd given me something to do and it was SO much more boring without them. I never had a lot of trouble with the anger/frustration myself, uncharacteristically; I spent a lot of time gripping elbows and repeating myself, doing my family duty, but I wasn't the responsible one under pressure, like Mom. Just a helper.

-The girls don't need to know about any of that, unless they're needed to grip elbows...

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Hey loin - how's all this played out so far?

[loinburger]

He's in assisted living now, so things are going much better - he has more than one person to remind him about stuff, which has taken the burden off of my sister-in-law which means that my nieces aren't seeing my sister-in-law getting stressed out as much about her father's condition

Most of the other people in the assisted living home also have memory problems, and so he said that he and his friends have a hard and fast rule: if you start to tell a story and somebody says that you've already told the story before then you stop telling the story

[rah]

Damn I wish that rule worked with my able minded relatives.
My mother in law is in a similar situation and it has helped my wife and her siblings considerably.

[Berzerker]

I got that problem, I'll catch myself repeating stories and stfu mid sentence lol

[DaShi]

There's an excellent Adventure Time episode on this topic that you might want to have her watch then talk about.

[giblets]

Wait, is Kidicious a grandfather now?