Thecompanioncoaching — A coaching practice | thecompanioncoaching.com
Ninety minutes, six agenda items, one written page at the end — this is the format that turns a vague complaint about unfairness into assigned tasks.
Send the agenda with the invitation at least a week ahead, and state the end time. Siblings who know a meeting ends at 8:30 are likelier to come and likelier to stay civil. Attach your one-page record of the care week — hours, tasks, broken nights — so nobody is seeing the numbers for the first time in the room.
Minutes 0-10: the care week in numbers. Read the sheet aloud without commentary. The figures do the persuading: 20-30 hours of tasks, 5.5 hours of unbroken sleep on most nights. Resist the urge to add adjectives; numbers cannot be argued with the way feelings can.
Minutes 10-25: the medical picture. Diagnoses, medications, recent appointments, what the GP has said about the coming year. Unequal knowledge of the medical history is one of the two main drivers of sibling conflict, so this block is not a formality — it is half the point of the meeting.
On narrow screens, swipe or scroll the plate sideways.
Minutes 25-50: the task list. Read every task aloud and let siblings claim them. When you hear 'I live too far away', offer the remote list: finances, appointment booking, research, a scheduled weekly call. When you hear 'she seems fine to me', invite the doubter to one full day of care. Small fixed commitments beat grand vague ones.
Minutes 50-65: safety. Name one contact person and write the escalation list — who is called first, second and third if the parent deteriorates. Care plans with a named contact and a written escalation list are associated with 20-30% fewer emergency admissions.
Minutes 65-90: close on paper. Write the one-page split — task, name, hours, start date — set the check-in for 3-4 weeks ahead and photograph the page for everyone. If a sibling arrives late, do not recap; hand them the page at the end and let them choose from the tasks still unclaimed. Starting on time is how the next meeting gets attended.
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