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What to cover on the weekly call with your parent

The weekly call is the whole system when you live two hours away. It is also the call that turns into an interrogation if you are not careful, and into small talk if you are too careful. A written page fixes both problems: it lets you sound like a daughter or a son while still collecting what you need.

How to use this checklist

Same day, same time, every week. Predictability is worth more than length, and twenty minutes at a known hour beats an hour whenever you get round to it.

Keep one page per call in the binder. Date, time, how long you spoke, and three lines of notes. A year of those pages is a record you can hand to anybody.

Ask open questions and let the pauses happen. Who came by this week gets you further than are you eating properly.

Write down facts, not conclusions. What they said, what you heard, the date. Not what you think it means — that interpretation is not yours to make and it does not belong in the record. If something concerns you, call the doctor's office and tell them plainly what you observed and when, and let them decide what it is.

End every call the same way: read back the three things you agreed, and say when you will call next.

The weekly call checklist

Twenty-four prompts in two blocks. The first is the call itself, roughly in the order that keeps it sounding like a conversation. The second is the five minutes afterwards, which is the part most people skip and the part that makes the whole thing worth doing.

You are not working through all sixteen call prompts every week. Pick four or five and rotate them. Mail and appointments every week; the house, the money and the visitors in turn.

Keep the page in front of you but do not read from it. Glance, ask, listen, write two words, move on.

If the call goes somewhere better than your list, follow it. The list exists to catch what a good conversation misses, not to replace one.

  • Open with something that is not admin: what they watched, who they saw, what the weather is doing there
  • Ask who has been by this week, and write down the names
  • Ask what mail has arrived, and whether anything needs opening, paying or signing
  • Ask whether anything came from the doctor's office, the insurer or the pharmacy, and ask them to put it in the folder by the phone
  • Ask whether the pharmacy has been, and whether anything is waiting to be collected
  • Ask what appointments are coming up, and read back the ones you have in your calendar
  • Confirm the transport for the next appointment, and who is taking them
  • Ask whether anything in the house has stopped working this week
  • Ask whether the shopping is due, and what they would like you to bring or order
  • Ask whether there is cash in the house for small things
  • Ask if anyone has called them about money, insurance, repairs or a prize, and write down any name and number they were given
  • Ask who is due to visit before you speak again, and confirm the helper's next day
  • Ask what they would like you to do this week, and let them answer before you offer
  • Tell them one real thing about your own week, so the call is not only a survey
  • Read back the three things you both agreed while you are still on the phone
  • Say when you will call next, and put it in the calendar before you hang up
  • Afterwards — write the date, the time and the length of the call at the top of the page
  • Afterwards — write three factual notes: what they said, what you heard, what you agreed
  • Afterwards — note anything they repeated from last week as a fact, with the date, and nothing more than that
  • Afterwards — write down anything you cannot check on the phone, so you can look at it on your next visit
  • Afterwards — add any new name, number or account detail straight into the binder
  • Afterwards — put anything for the doctor's office on a separate dated card and call it in rather than saving it up
  • Afterwards — send your siblings the same two lines every week: what happened, what is next
  • Afterwards — diary the one job you took on, with a date, so it stops living in your head
Do this today

Before your next call, write the date and the time at the top of a blank page and put four of these prompts underneath it. That is enough. The page is not there to run the conversation, it is there so that at the end you have four facts written down instead of a vague sense that the call went fine.

Questions

My parent says everything is fine every week. What then?

Change the question from general to specific and recent. What did you have for lunch, who came to the door, what did the mail bring. Specific questions get specific answers, and you record the answer as given without adding your own reading of it.

Should my siblings and I call on different days?

Yes, and put it in writing. Three calls spread across the week is better cover than three on Sunday, and it stops your parent hearing the same questions three times. Each caller writes their own page, and all the pages go in the same binder.

What do I do with a year of call pages?

Keep them in date order at the back of the binder. When a professional asks what you have noticed and when, you can answer with dates rather than impressions, which is far more useful to them than a summary from memory.