Before it Becomes a Family Feud: The Power of Elder Mediation 

Kathy (00:00)
Today’s episode of Surfing the Quicksand, we’re talking about something really interesting and kind of niche, a field that I had never heard about until recently. And now that I know about it, I want to tell everyone in the world about it. We’re talking today about elder mediation. So, not elder law and not litigation and not a very formal way that most of us might think about navigating through conflict, but a very different way to helping to manage.

Kathy (00:30)
conversation and futures when we’re not all on the same page, whether that’s in the same generation or in between generations, and family conflict has stymied us. I’m speaking today with an elder mediator who is also an elder attorney. We’re not talking about her attorney work today, but I do always want to say that surfing the quicksand is for entertainment purposes and

Kathy (01:00)
Nothing you hear today should be considered legal advice. With that, welcome to Surfing the Quicksand. I’m your host, Kathy Vines.

Kathy (01:17)
When we’re in midlife, many of us are very much involved in caretaking and other issues when it comes to our aging parents. And something that comes up when we are in that space for almost all of us is stress, which can lead to conflict, which can lead to more stress, which can lead to more conflict. I’m talking about intergenerational conflict, within the same generation conflicts, siblings.

Kathy (01:46)
Parents, parents and parents, siblings, all of that. And not many of us are equipped to handle and navigate all of that through ourselves before things can get really messy or before some really important decisions need to be made. Now, we all have heard about elder attorneys, and we know that there are legal routes that we can go for lots of things, both from preparing and mitigating risk and dealing with things that are still kind of maybe a someday possibility.

Kathy (02:15)
But also, there’s that moment where we’re in it, we’re in the mess, and sometimes we need help for that. Today I’m introducing you to somebody with a field that I actually didn’t even know existed before I met her, and you may not either. And that’s really why I thought it would be important for us to talk about. It is elder mediation. Now we’ve talked about mediation once before in terms of divorce and custody hearings and things like that, a way to

Kathy (02:42)
deal with and settle and come up with solutions before it really gets to court and litigation, a way to help preserve relationships before it gets too bad. And it’s that same concept. But now we’re talking about issues with parents and siblings and all sorts of other things that may go on during this stressful and conflict borne time of life. I’m introducing you today to an attorney who’s also an elder mediator, Sherri Elder.

Kathy (03:11)
Thanks for being here, Sherri

Sherri Elder (03:13)
Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.

Kathy (03:16)
Now, I did not misspeak. Your last name is Elder. And so if anybody thinks, Kathy just flubbed that up, no, it is an amazing, amazing coincidence that a woman with the last name of Elder has been spending her whole life working with elders in such an important way. I want to talk a little bit about your background and your experience, because I also feel like your education experience is kind of unique. Tell us more about that.

Sherri Elder (03:42)
Yeah, I have a master’s in social work and a law degree, and I’ve worked as an elder law attorney for 30 years now. And recently I have gotten the training to be a mediator, and then I went on to get additional training to do elder mediation. And so that’s what I’m doing now. I’m still practicing as an elder law attorney, but now I’m doing elder mediations for families.

Kathy (04:10)
Now I first want to do a little bit of clarification, right? So you can be an elder attorney and you can be an elder mediator. And I think it’s true that you’re not going to do both for the same person or the same parties. Is that right?

Sherri Elder (04:27)
That’s correct. As an elder mediator, I am not working as an attorney. I’m an impartial third person. I’m not a social worker either. I’m an impartial third party. Mm-hmm.

Kathy (04:38)
And so you might work with people, you in fact you probably work with people who already have an elder attorney somewhere else.

Sherri Elder (04:49)
Yes.

Sherri Elder (04:50)
Sometimes they do, and sometimes I help them find other elder attorneys if that’s what they need. Yes.

Kathy (04:57)
When you think about the kinds of situations that people might think of for a mediator. And like I said, I never even thought of a mediator before this. I wanna I want us to spend some time talking about examples and and who might use them and why they might use them and what might you get out of them. That’s gonna be the bulk of what we’re talking about today. But I wanna first talk a little bit about why was this shift for you important.

Kathy (05:27)
What what drove you to pursue this education and certification?

Sherri Elder (05:33)
Well, I I I have a master’s in social work and I always kind of wanted to do mediation, but I had a f a couple kids and I was busy raising them for a long time, as we all have, and many of us at least. And now that they’re off, they’re still living with me, but they’re working on becoming more independent and need me a little bit less. It’s my time to do something I wanna do. And I love practicing law, I love being an elder.

Sherri Elder (06:02)
attorney, but I am I’ve always felt called to do the elder mediation as well. So now it’s my time to get to do something I want to do.

Kathy (06:16)
Well, I I love that because of course this is makes it a a double episode here where it’s also a midlife woman in transition, especially reclaiming a professional purpose that she felt a calling for a much younger at a much younger stage. And I I love hearing that you have found the space to pursue the education and the certification and and I really quite frankly launch a new business, right? This is

Kathy (06:42)
I think for the most part when th people are thinking about working with an elder attorney, they’re probably thinking pretty local, right? You’re in Indianapolis, they might Google elder attorney, Indianapolis area, and find you. But chances are the person who’s sitting by me is not gonna find you and not gonna work with you necessarily. you’re probably not licensed to work in all sorts of states and things like that. But as an elder mediator, you can work everywhere, right?

Sherri Elder (07:13)
Right, there’s no jurisdictional issues here. I can do it in any state and I can do it by Zoom or if a family so chose they could pay for me to fly out and stay and work with them locally too.

Kathy (07:28)
Yeah. I think that’s really interesting, right? The idea that this is work that can be done doesn’t matter if you’re licensed in a state, right? If you need some resources and you find somebody great, whether it’s you or one of the other rare people in this space, you you can meet via Zoom, you can talk on the phone, you can do some things that bring resources to you quickly, as opposed to, yeah, if I’m getting an elder attorney, I probably want it to be the person who’s downtown on Main Street that I know I can walk in if I have a problem. Yeah.

Kathy (07:58)
So let’s let’s start diving into elder mediation. Now I I was imagining a couple of different kinds of scenarios and and talking about that kind of those situations when I introduced you, right? There’s intergenerational, like me and my parents having issues. There’s kind of within the intragenerational, me and

Kathy (08:25)
You know, I and my siblings are not getting along. I and my siblings are not on the same page. there can be other complexities and other parties in the mix. I’m imagining we don’t my siblings and I aren’t on the same page about what to do about care. my siblings and I aren’t on the same page with my parents about

Kathy (08:49)
how we should manage financial resources as we continue down a path of declining care. We we we collectively mom and dad own a own a vacation home and we’re not all on the same page about who’s gonna get it and what’s gonna happen to it and all of that. Let’s let’s start about what are what are some examples

Kathy (09:17)
that you believe are prime conversations. And I wanna talk first about the plot line, not necessarily the dynamics first, but the plot lines of like, yes, this might be a situation where you call an elder mediator.

Sherri Elder (09:32)
Okay, well the vacation home is one definitely. there could be a situation where there’s a large number of siblings, and this could be either before or after mom and dad are gone deciding what to do with that vacation home. If there is a large number of of siblings, I’ve had a case where there is as many as nine siblings trying to decide what to do with a vacation home, and some of them wanted to keep it.

Sherri Elder (10:02)
It was very sentimental to them. Some of them wanted to sell it. Some of them that wanted to keep it couldn’t necessarily afford to keep it. And they were trying to decide what to do and couldn’t come to terms with how what to do with it. So there were many variations on what could happen to it, how they would keep it, if they would rent it, if they would put it into an LLC, all those things could happen. So that was a prime

Sherri Elder (10:31)
situation where mediation could help them come together and have a conversation and that’s what we call it in elder mediation we call it a conversation so it’s not quite so intimidating and and think of all the possibilities and then come to a decision together on what to do with that vacation home.

Kathy (10:55)
You know what’s interesting is the first example you brought up like didn’t even involve an elder in the room right? This is some aspect of what you

Sherri Elder (11:02)
Yeah. Right.

Kathy (11:03)
do is related to the elder’s estate and the elder is gone. Is that right?

Sherri Elder (11:10)
Yep, but another situation would be for care of an elder where say dad is living at home right now and there might be a child that’s helping care give for him, or giving him care. And another child might be in a state that’s three states away and hears something or

Sherri Elder (11:35)
maybe comes and visits and sees something that’s alarming and assumes that dad needs to be in a nursing home. And so we have one child thinking that dad can stay home safely and one child thinking dad needs to be in a nursing home and dad maybe wanting to be in at home. And that would be a perfect time to do mediation also if they can’t come to a decision. And they can look at what

Sherri Elder (12:02)
The different choices are because staying at home versus going to a nursing home are pretty d drastic choices. There’s a lot of things in between. And in mediation we can help look at what the interests are. And the interest instead of the positions, interests would be everybody wants dad safe. And that really is what we we bring everybody together around the interests. We want dad safe. Then we look at

Sherri Elder (12:31)
So we we try to get rid of the positions. I want dad at home. I want dad in the nursing home. We try to get everybody to look at the positions. We want dad safe. Okay, for dad to be safe, what needs to happen? So then we have a broad spectrum of things that could happen to keep him safe. That’s how we help try to make the decision based on that in that situation.

Kathy (12:55)
Love the the formulaic approach to listen, we can we can break down the conflict, we can break down our options, we can break down our understand what the emotional drivers are behind where some of the conflict lies. I really the idea of starting with interests and ideally.

Kathy (13:23)
Have a unified shared interest, right? And and I’m sure maybe sometimes that actually we’ve we discover, we we actually don’t have the same interest. Forget about we already know we don’t have the position same position. That’s why we’re in this problem in the first time. But is that is that like a critical part? So if you’re working with someone and you find out, my gosh, we actually don’t or can’t find a common interest, what would that what would that mean to ongoing conversation?

Sherri Elder (13:51)
It’s important to know what everybody’s interest is, because that interest needs to be addressed. And so even if it’s not a common interest, we need to know what they are so we can address them. Because we still might be able to find a solution that addresses everybody’s interests. If we don’t know what somebody’s interest is and they’re just saying what their position is, the position really doesn’t tell us.

Sherri Elder (14:19)
How to address the interests. And there might be many

Kathy (14:21)
Can you go?

Sherri Elder (14:22)
ways to address the interests. Yeah.

Kathy (14:25)
Can you go back to the the vacation

Kathy (14:27)
home example and give me some examples of like this would be an interest versus this is a position?

Sherri Elder (14:33)
Well let me do something a little bit easier. Let’s say there’s

Kathy (14:36)
Yes.

Sherri Elder (14:36)
two people fighting over an orange. They both want the orange. Now, if you you ask one person why they want the orange, maybe they want the orange so they can grate the skin so they can make a cake. The other person might want to eat the middle of the orange. If that’s the case, their interests are very different.

Sherri Elder (15:03)
One wants the outside of the orange, one wants the inside of the orange. They both can have what they want. We just have to peel the orange. Very easy.

Kathy (15:15)
So I like that. And and I appreciate you, you know, giving us an orange and saying like, right. I yeah, we can do lots of different things with the orange. So we may have different interests that represent that. And we or whereas I want to eat the inside and you also want to eat the inside. Okay, well now we’re talking about a different conversation. It’s about how do we compromise on the inside as opposed to, you know, I could have the inside, you could have the outside. You probably need the outside first and then give me the inside.

Kathy (15:45)
Right. So getting to that baseline of understanding is really helpful. you know, it’s I there’s there’s a there’s a book I love out in the world called Managing Difficult Conversations and it’s by Sheila Heen and Doug Stone. And I, you know, I came across this book 20 something years ago, and it’s still a little bit of my Bible when it comes to interpersonal relationships and dynamics, but so much of that is understanding, you know, like what what’s behind

Kathy (16:16)
the conflict and the understanding for you, what’s underneath it, and you can’t necessarily assume that somebody else is coming at it from the same direction that you are. let’s let’s shift a little bit and talk. I I do want to come back to more examples, but I want to talk about that because this this comp conversation of interest versus position is so interesting to me. So when you are navigating a conversation with multiple parties trying to get their interests, do people

Kathy (16:44)
tend to know right away the answer to that question, or is that harder work?

Sherri Elder (16:49)
No, they don’t always know. You you need to keep asking the question why? Why?

Kathy (17:00)
I expect sometimes people get surprised at what comes up for them.

Sherri Elder (17:03)
Yes, and another part of elder mediation that’s different than just a normal divorce mediation, for example, is I meet with each party individually beforehand. So I want to try to get an understanding of everybody’s understanding of the issue, what they think the issues are, and their position and interests. So I might help tease that out a little bit at the beginning.

Sherri Elder (17:32)
I also talk to them about conversation guidelines. if we’re in a situation where a family’s com communication has broken down, chances are they have difficulty with conversations and might talk over each other, they might not use I statements, they might have just difficulties in general with conversations. So we talk about that and I also ask them to think about a 30-second

Sherri Elder (18:03)
speech that they might want to give to their family to begin with. So I already have a little bit of an understanding what their interests might be. And I’ve already helped them tease out that a little bit ahead of time before we come together as a family. And when I do that, I meet individually with the elder always, if it’s if it’s at all possible. And I meet either by phone or Zoom with the others and

Sherri Elder (18:31)
Whichever mode of communication I use with one, it’s with the others as well. So it’s either by Zoom with everyone or by phone with everyone.

Kathy (18:40)
So really trying to keep consistency around how you’ve framed all the I I wanna call it pre work, but what do you what do you call that phase?

Sherri Elder (18:53)
just the initial phase, in maybe investigative phase. Mm-hmm.

Kathy (18:58)
Yeah,

Kathy (18:58)
okay, good. you just mentioned, gee, I’ll try and meet with the elder in person if I can. This raises a question of sometimes the elder may not be in a position to participate for all sorts of reasons. They are, you know, they’re in a state where they are not communicative or they’re in, you know, advanced dementia or something else there. Can we talk about that?

Sherri Elder (19:28)
Sure. I try, I really try to have the elder available and with us if at all possible. If it’s harmful, then that’s when I would not have an elder with us. But if somebody has dementia or is declining in some way, that doesn’t mean they can’t be with us. They might need a support person. They might have a caregiver that can support them.

Sherri Elder (19:55)
While they’re there, they might only be there for part of the conversation. There might be parts of the conversation that are not appropriate for them to be there. But I would really prefer them to be there and prefer to have their voice heard. just because they have dementia doesn’t mean they can’t tell us what they want or how they feel. My dad certainly can and he has dementia, right? So it just depends on where they are in their journey.

Kathy (20:22)
It’s it’s really again, it’s really easy for me to imagine kind of a best case scenario of everybody’s everybody is really clear on their own interests and positions. Everybody is really they respect the conversation guidelines and they’ve got their their their approach prepared and they’re not going to be

Kathy (20:48)
dismissive and they’re not going to interrupt in all of those things. I can’t imagine we’re ever in an ideal situation though.

Sherri Elder (20:56)
No, no. And I’ve been trained with conflict resolution and and I’ve had training in mediation and that’s why I’m there. This family generally, the families cannot have conversations by themselves. That’s why they have somebody guiding them and leading them and pivoting them and helping. I also have them I suggest that they use ouch as a way to indicate they feel somebody has said something out of line or

Sherri Elder (21:25)
hurtful or that they feel needs to address right away. And I ask them to say ouch and then to stop rather than jump in or start arguing. That way they know that I know that there’s something that needs to be addressed and that it will be addressed. But they’re to let every the person that’s speaking finish. And then we will address what happened.

Sherri Elder (21:54)
And that way the person that’s speaking can continue. And we that that’s one of the conversation guidelines is the ouch. Then we address it.

Kathy (22:02)
So

Kathy (22:03)
so interesting. So what I’m imagining is, you know, we’ve got two siblings. One sibling is going off on a rant and and invokes another sibling’s name negatively. So sibling number two just says ouch. Sibling number one keeps getting to talk and share their piece You’ve clocked the ouch, and you and sibling number two knows you’ve clocked the ouch.

Kathy (22:30)
Sibling number one kind of finishes their piece.

Kathy (22:35)
And then you kind of is it then that you’re addressing the ouch or that you’re kind of addressing the piece and then saying, by the way, let’s get back to that ouch.

Sherri Elder (22:44)
Well, usually I get back to the ouch pretty quickly and you know, I’m also addressing what’s happening. I’m not necessarily letting them go off on a rant right away. I mean, we have the conversation guidelines. We’ve already talked about re being respectful, we’ve talked about staying on topic, looking to the future and not so much to the past. I know they need to get things out and I do let them get a little bit out, but

Sherri Elder (23:11)
We’re really looking to the future. This is to make decisions together for the future. So that’s all part of my training is to help things move f forward, not backwards.

Kathy (23:22)
So you might interject if something’s really going off the rails.

Sherri Elder (23:26)
yeah. yeah.

Kathy (23:30)
I want to get back to that this kind of conversation breakdown, communication breakdown that’s already happening in a family before they say, we we we need to we need to we need to work with somebody else. We need to do something. what are what do you think people should be looking for or noticing in their internal family conflict?

Kathy (23:59)
That tells them it’s probably time for us to escalate to something, something else, mediation or otherwise.

Sherri Elder (24:09)
I think if they’re having trouble talking to their family members, they feel like they can’t talk to their family members, I think that’s a good sign that that mediation would be helpful to them. I think waiting until communication is gone is too long. I think most people who do elder mediation feel like they’ve waited too long and wish they had done it sooner. So sooner, the sooner the better.

Sherri Elder (24:39)
I also think that elder mediation can be a way to avoid conflict in the future. And so it can just be used as a way to shore up communication, make sure everything is going well. You don’t have to be completely in, locked in tight with your communication before you you hire an elder mediator.

Kathy (25:05)
that’s really interesting. So it’s it’s before crisis mode. It’s actually an augmentation of your family dynamic skill set. It’s funny because I was thinking about the how do you how do you know it’s time? And I know so many, let’s let’s just say it, women who will say, I’m really struggling talking to my sister, talking to my mother, dealing with my dad, dealing with all sorts of things.

Kathy (25:35)
I’m gonna go to therapy to learn better skills on how to communicate with them. So it’s very common that the the that midlife woman, the sandwich generation, the elder, the one who’s the caregiver, all of that to say, I’m gonna go work on me to get my skills better because maybe I can still white knuckle my way through all this. I can’t change what my siblings are gonna do, but I can change how I respond. And

Kathy (26:04)
This this almost feels like permission to say you don’t you actually don’t have to be the one who does all the hard work on communication alone.

Sherri Elder (26:16)
Absolutely, absolutely. These are hard, hard, hard conversations. And in my experience at least, when we’re talking about these issues, caregiving of a family member, dealing with elder, all their financial stuff and dealing with later days in life. I mean, all these years later in life, you have all these things going on. The family dynamics come and rear their

Sherri Elder (26:45)
ugly heads and it’s hard. And I think that an elder mediator can help guide the family through that and all that stuff that comes up. Yeah.

Kathy (26:58)
You know, you mentioned

Sherri Elder (26:59)
Mm-hmm.

Kathy (27:00)
the idea that if you it’d be it’d be great if you do mediation before communication is completely dissolved, right? And I’m imagining kind of a n a going no contact scenario when you’re like, listen, we are you this this family member’s dead to me, or I we do we will not speak anymore. I’m not gonna put I’m protecting myself by not putting myself in their space. I have to assume that sometimes

Kathy (27:25)
Elder mediator is going to run into a little bit of that. If somebody’s in a no-contact space, how is mediation an effective tool to get past that?

Sherri Elder (27:42)
Well, we would invite somebody to come if they’re in in that situation, certainly. but we can’t force them, it’s voluntary. So if the family chose to move forward without that person, we would. but always I would invite that person to come. Yeah, definitely.

Kathy (28:05)
Yeah. You know, you you just mentioned the voluntary nature of it. And I wanna I wanna get kind of clarity is I feel like the purpose of mediation, which is voluntary, feels very different than the purpose of litigation, which does not feel very voluntary. Like okay, we we’re we’re we’re at an impasse, things need to be resolved.

Kathy (28:35)
I’m going to sue you. I’m gonna sue my siblings, I’m gonna sue my parents, my parents w whatever whatever all the things are. Is that is that right, first of all, the way I’m thinking about the difference between a difference between mediation and litigation?

Sherri Elder (28:46)
Yes. Yep. Yeah. Yep. If you’re sued, you don’t have a choice to continue. Yes. Although and and mediation is voluntary, although if you’re sued, you could choose to do mediation rather than continue the litigation.

Kathy (29:11)
Well, th that that’s inter and that is kind of similar to what I talked about earlier about kind of divorce and custody, or like, listen, we’re already in a legal situation here. We can add this dimension to either lessen the litigation impact or circumvent the litigation impact and see if we can get back on track.

Sherri Elder (29:33)
Yeah, and mediation is a lot softer than litigation.

Kathy (29:34)
How would you Okay.

Kathy (29:39)
Yeah. When I when I think about y litigation can feel like sc scorched earth, right? I I was I mean, I think I shared with you that I I was called for a jury where it was very it was one sibling suing the other siblings over the you know, being cut out of the inheritance by the parents and all all the things. It feels like litigation can be

Kathy (30:06)
a bad situation. We also had a litigation issue in my family some time ago where it really it was a bad relationship that ended up after that no relationship.

Kathy (30:18)
I I feel like mediation is part of I don’t I just don’t want it to get there. I I I don’t want I don’t want to end relationships. I I don’t want to never speak to a sibling again. Maybe mediation is a way for us to salvage the future.

Sherri Elder (30:41)
Exactly what mediation is, elder mediation for sure, is an alternative to litigation and it’s a way to mend fences and mend relationships and to continue with a positive relationship because in my experience I don’t litigate, but in my experience when I’ve seen I’ve certainly seen families who have, and that causes a lot of estrangement and hurt feelings and

Sherri Elder (31:11)
Yeah, yeah, and that’s the opposite can happen with mediation. It doesn’t always, but it certainly has a better chance with mediation.

Kathy (31:23)
Yeah, it just it feels like it starts with a base of I believe and I want a a positive outcome that either strengthens the family or at the very least doesn’t further destroy the family. And I’m afraid without it.

Kathy (31:48)
We only have bad options from here.

Sherri Elder (31:51)
think it’s not even I believe then I want, sometimes it’s just I’m willing.

Kathy (31:57)
Hm. Yeah, I’m I’m Yeah.

Sherri Elder (31:58)
Yeah, ’cause not everybody comes into mediation. I mean, I think they

Sherri Elder (32:02)
just have to be willing.

Kathy (32:04)
Yeah. I a willing is willing is really powerful, right? It’s I haven’t shut the door, right? I’m I’m

Sherri Elder (32:11)
Mm-hmm.

Kathy (32:12)
I’m open to being convinced. I’m I’m open to seeing if it’ll be I’m dubious, but I’ll give it a try. whether that’s in word or deed they’ll they’ll they show up and do some of the work. I wanna I wanna ask about a little kind of a nitty-gritty aspect because you were talking about

Kathy (32:33)
You know, we’ve got interests, then we’ve got positions, and then we’ve got kind of options. And you know, we talked about, dad, dad wants to live at home.

Sherri Elder (32:44)
Well.

Kathy (32:44)
Sibling in California saw something, heard something, and says it’s time to go into a home. And and sibling who’s local is like, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here every day. Dad’s fine, or dad’s okay for now. One of the factors is can we even afford to put

Kathy (33:03)
Dad, it like now this is outside of just interests and positions. Now we’re talking about like, is it an option? You sure nursing homes exist. Is that an option for us? How does that part of the of the formula or that part of the work together come into play when you’re working with a mediator?

Sherri Elder (33:25)
Well when I’m looking at the issues, the financial side of it would be an issue that we would have to look at. sometimes parents don’t disclose their finances at all to their children. They keep it very tight, tight to their vest, and sometimes we need to bring that out and let the kids understand what’s happening. That might be a homework assignment that we have is to investigate that.

Sherri Elder (33:54)
sometimes one child knows the finances and the other one needs to be brought up to speed. Sometimes there might be a need to bring in an elder law attorney to talk about whether Medicaid’s a possibility and you know what that entails, what what type of Medicaid planning might they need. Again, I’m not the elder law attorney in that situation. I’m the mediator, so they would need to go to a different elder law attorney.

Sherri Elder (34:21)
So sometimes we have mediation and we bring up more issues and they might have homework assignments to gather different information and we might have another mediation session where we’re bringing in this information to present to each other or the siblings to present to each other or mom or dad to present to the siblings.

Kathy (34:42)
So interesting. So first the clarity I’m getting is like you’re not doing that work. You’re hosting the conversation where the the work that needs to be done is being discussed. And then the assignments about how that work is going to get done or the external resources we need to bring in gets flushed out. I love that you brought up the fact that sometimes the parents or the elders have not shared financial situation. I think

Kathy (35:12)
You know, the the quiet generation has that has that name for a reason. I run into this more often, you know, I’m sure it’s a huge part of your world, but I run into these conversations a lot where people will say, I have no idea how much money my parents have. I don’t know what’s going on with their bills, I don’t know if they’re in good shape. I don’t know. Or I don’t know what’s going on with dad’s health. he doesn’t tell us anything and he won’t give us access to the portal, right? That keeping their information.

Kathy (35:40)
so close to the vest is can be a really I I think I I find that to be so common conversation I have with some of my friends and clients around what they’re struggling with.

Sherri Elder (35:55)
to that in my everyday practice.

Kathy (36:00)
So in a mediation conversation, you can’t force disclosure, but the idea is that we’re having a conversation where the notion of some transparency, maybe not even a hundred percent transparency, but more visibility and transparency is so critical to moving forward that that can implore a parent, hopefully.

Kathy (36:29)
To be more forthcoming.

Kathy (36:37)
Throughout all these conversations we’re talking about, I I I’m hearkening back to your your social work degree, right? How

Sherri Elder (36:43)
Mm.

Kathy (36:43)
do you how do you find your social work background shows up as a mediator in conversations?

Sherri Elder (36:52)
it shows up as an attorney and a mediator in conversations all the time. this this type of work is very emotional for my clients, for the people I mediate with, and I’m managing emotions all the time, whether I’m an attorney or a mediator. So in

Sherri Elder (37:20)
in that way I’m using my social work degree all the time and have been for years. Yeah.

Kathy (37:27)
I it’s n it’s not that other attorneys are not capable of of of such emotional control and things like you don’t need

Sherri Elder (37:33)
Go.

Kathy (37:33)
a social degree to do that. But I think what it speaks to is not that you have a social work degree, but that you were somebody who started out in life thinking a social work degree was something important to you. Like there was already something in you that decided that that the social sciences aspect to interpersonal dynamics is is par a critical part of life.

Sherri Elder (37:58)
Yeah, I really like that.

Kathy (37:58)
Did you know did you know when you were starting

Kathy (38:00)
out that you would become a lawyer? How did that happen?

Sherri Elder (38:02)
No, no, I actually met my husband in high school and in college. He told me he wanted to be an attorney and I told him we’d had to break up because I wasn’t living that lifestyle. And then I ended up being an attorney and he’s not. And

Kathy (38:16)
So funny.

Sherri Elder (38:18)
yeah, I d I had no idea I’d be an attorney. No idea. No idea. But I love it. I like what I do. I love what I that I get to help. And I think you’d find that elder law attorneys tend to be

Sherri Elder (38:31)
A little bit more touchy feely than other typical attorneys.

Kathy (38:36)
I bet that’s true. If I think about the ones that I know, for sure that comes up. But they they are I you know, I think there are there are estate planners and things like that, people who work on this, but they’re working with young families about difficult conversations about what their future might hold and who’s gonna take care of your kids if you’re gone and all those things. You don’t that’s not a checkbox kind of conversation. You’re already dealing with heavy things from the very beginning, even in the abstract, let alone, boy, we’re in conflict right now.

Sherri Elder (39:05)
Yeah, definitely.

Kathy (39:07)
And

Kathy (39:08)
patience is a virtue always. And and I think patience comes up even more often when you’re dealing with when you’re dealing with an elder population, just with things like technology frustrations and cognitive cognitive processing and all sorts of other things. Patience has to be a part of this too. Good. I I I wanna switch to the quicksand three shortly, but I wanna ask is there any

Kathy (39:37)
Aspect about mediation with with elders and and in this space that I haven’t asked you about that you think it’s important that we talk about

Sherri Elder (39:49)
Just think it’s important that the word gets out because this is not something or this is a newer thing, and there are not a lot of attorneys out there that do it. There are not a lot of people, it you don’t have to be an attorney to be an elder mediator. but there are not a lot of people that do it out there, and I think that the word just needs to get out there that that it’s a possibility to to find someone to do this for your family.

Sherri Elder (40:18)
And that you can get help with this.

Kathy (40:22)
It’s it’s absolutely important. And it’s I again, it’s the reason I wanted to do this episode, right? I when I learned about it, I I was just instantly gobsmacked that this is a resource out there

Sherri Elder (40:31)
huh.

Kathy (40:31)
for people and a tool really to help families move forward. And and you you kind of had mentioned that that that notion of like, you know, this is about moving forward and not about focusing on the past. You kind of talked about that in that investigative phase. I mean, like w we’re about moving forward, not about

Kathy (40:50)
who did what and how did we get here and you always and you never. It’s really about what what can we do and what’s possible. And to know that that’s an option for people that they may never have thought of before is really empowering. And I’m so thankful to you for spending time today and talking a little bit about it. I want to switch to the quicksand three and then

Sherri Elder (41:09)
Cool. Okay.

Kathy (41:12)
we’re going to come back and I want you to tell people more about how to

Kathy (41:15)
Learn more about you, learn more about your services. Again, we’ve talked about the fact that you can work anywhere and you work via Zoom and all the things, which makes you a highly, highly attractive resource for everybody who’s in my listening audience. So okay, so quicksand three. First question is when you are procrastinating or avoiding something, what’s a tip or technique that you use to get yourself unstuck and going?

Sherri Elder (41:43)
So what I do is I list things that I need to do that day or have to do that day. And I put whatever it is that I’m procrastinating as number one. And I’m not allowed to go down the list until I finish number one. And on the list might be something I enjoy, like reading. I might have something on there and the list continues. That list, I don’t get to go down it until I finish number one. So I have to go down. And it might include something that I absolutely have to do for a client, like by

Sherri Elder (42:12)
the end of the week or whatever. So I have to do it in order. And that usually helps me.

Kathy (42:18)
And I you know, and you the you can we can procrastinate on lots of things, but what I’m hearing underneath

Sherri Elder (42:23)
Okay.

Kathy (42:24)
it is it’s it’s also a priority. It’s not just like, I put off doing this thing. It’s like I’m procrastinating and it’s important and and y you must have good self discipline to let

Sherri Elder (42:32)
Mm-hmm.

Kathy (42:35)
yourself not go to number two until you’re done with number one. I love that. Number question number two, if

Kathy (42:41)
if anything was possible, time and money and resources and time and history and skills weren’t an issue, what’s a career or a job you might have liked to try?

Sherri Elder (42:52)
I this is kind of selfish, but I’d love to be a travel guide because I love to travel and it would mean that I’d have to go to these places first and learn all about them in order to guide other people there. Yeah, all over the world. I love to travel.

Kathy (43:05)
That is fun. And and you

Kathy (43:07)
know, that you you still have much life ahead of you where that is still a possibility, even if you just focus on focus on one region

Sherri Elder (43:11)
Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Kathy (43:15)
and say, this is gonna be my jam. third question, when life is chaotic, how do you recharge or hit the reset button?

Sherri Elder (43:24)
Well, have two things that I do. First, I like to bring my three-legged dog to the gym and work out with weights. I do that pretty regularly. I have a personal trainer and she has a private gym and she loves having my dog go there, and it’s my dog’s favorite place in the world to go, and it makes me really happy to see her smiling and happy there. and then I have a very close friend who’s also an attorney and

Sherri Elder (43:51)
We like to talk on the phone in the mornings when we’re getting ready. So maybe we’re brushing our teeth and doing our hair and getting dressed and we just talk about things and it helps us de stress and and get ready for the day.

Kathy (44:04)
Gosh, I love that. I l I I love that. I think I’ve been focusing a lot on kind of female friendships and especially in mid-age and what that means and how do they start and how do we preserve them and all those things. So I love that idea. Thank you for sharing that.

Kathy (44:21)
Okay, well let’s talk about people want to learn more about you, about your services, about elder mediation. How what do you want them to know about you or the field or anything so that they can find out more if they’ve got an issue? Either they’ve got a crisis they’re thinking about, or like you said, they see it as potentially an investment in better communication in the future for their family.

Sherri Elder (44:46)
Well they can look it up my website, it’s elder-legal.com. Or they could look me up on LinkedIn, Sherri Elder or Elder Law LLC. or they could do a Google search. There’s not a whole lot out there. on the I mean, the o there’s not any any organizations specific to elder mediation out there right now.

Sherri Elder (45:14)
but they could do a Google search for someone near them that does elder mediation. Or I can travel, like we said, or do Zoom. and I think there’s other people out there that do that too. I I don’t know if they’d find anybody near them or not.

Kathy (45:34)
This that’s great. I’m I’m gonna put all that information in our show notes so people can can check that out as well. And I do think this idea of gee, there’s not a lot of people out there. There isn’t an organization or a professional association or other things like that. I have to believe the important word here is yet, right? This I can’t imagine a world in which this doesn’t grow.

Kathy (45:58)
Both in terms of people like you who say, I see the need for this all the time and I have the skills and I’m gonna do this work, as well as just a demand as we continue to have baby boomers age and as we continue to have complexity and family lives far apart from each other and has different experiences more so than ever before. I have to believe we’re in a yet mode for elder mediation.

Sherri Elder (46:24)
Yeah.

Sherri Elder (46:25)
I hope so. Yeah.

Kathy (46:27)
Sherri, thank you so much for being a part of Surfing the Quicksand. This was such a great episode, and I’m grateful for you to give us your time and expertise.

Sherri Elder (46:36)
Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

Kathy (46:40)
If you’re like me, you just listened to that conversation with Sherri and thought I had no idea that this was even a thing. And now that I know about it, boy, am I gonna have my ears open for my own family, for families of friends and people I know if they’re in conflict to say, have you thought about elder mediation? Have you thought about bringing in somebody who knows what they’re doing to help?

Kathy (47:10)
Facilitate positive conversations and options for the future. I hope you check out a little bit more about Sherri’s page or go follow her on LinkedIn or wherever it is that you can stay connected with this kind of information. Never know when you might need it or someone you love might need it. I know for me, I’m never going to forget it after this conversation. Thanks so much for being here.