Today a friend told me that she went to a nursing home to drop something off to a resident. The older woman/resident was stoked to see my friend and she asked her to please stay for a while. It broke my heart to hear that these people just want company! I think it would be the best of both worlds for people who are not socially confident to practice communication skills by making an older human’s day and visiting to chat.
3 comments
It would be good practice, not everyone will be to your taste, but many will.
Those old folks will have a lot to offer and in many cases their stories may be lost if nobody hears them.
At some point they were the same age as you and probably have some great advice too.
My mum was a nurse in a nursing home and all my life from small she’d take me to sit with the residents whose families didn’t visit. A full 8 hour shift chatting to different residents.
Did that once or twice a month for over a decade. I like to think it made me a pretty outgoing bloke. I definitely think there’s a unique value in learning how to talk and connect with folks who have such a generational divide and a lot of times ethnic divide to yourself. If you learn to connect with them you can connect with anyone.
And boy do old people love talking. And they have a lifetime of stories and wisdom to tell. Definitely teaches you to be a good listener and makes you genuinely interested in learning about others.
Can’t recommend enough, you’ll feel good about keeping the old timers company, learn a lot about the world and be able to connect with pretty much anyone
Great suggestion. This is a really win win for both the volunteer and the nursing home resident. We have so much to learn from the elderly.