If you have an elderly loved one that hasn’t written down their life story yet, they might be needing your help to ensure that they’re able to document their life both for them to reflect on as they age and for you and other family members to read when your loved one is no longer around.

If you know that your elderly loved one is going to have a hard time doing this on their own, be it because they don’t like writing or because they don’t have what they need to document like this at their senior living community, here are three tips for helping an elderly loved one write their life story. 

Use Audio Recordings To Give Them Some Privacy

Sometimes, your elderly loved one might have a hard time sharing their story with you, their family member that they love and want to view them in a positive light. So if your loved one has some questionable stories or pieces of their history, you might not get the full picture if they’re trying to share this story with you directly.

One way you can work around this is to have your loved one record their own stories with some kind of audio recorder. By teaching them how to record their own stories, you can help them have a bit of privacy as they think about and tell their stories. Additionally, by giving your elderly loved one a way to record their own stories, they can record their stories when they have energy and time. 

Consider Having Someone Else Record Their Story

Another option for potentially breaking past some of the stories that your elderly loved ones have already told you and getting into some new territory is to have someone else record their story.

By having someone who doesn’t know your loved one personally to record their story, they can use their own natural curiosity to pull out stories and feelings that your loved one may not have thought to share at previous time. Especially if you can find someone with a journalistic background, they may ask some great questions of your loved one to help craft a great story of their life. 

Turn Their Life Story Into A Memory Book

For some, the thought of writing out all of their life memories and stories can be intimidating. Especially for those who might have more visual minds, creating a memory book rather than a storybook could be ideal. 

With a memory book, kind of like a scrapbook, you can both see the images of their life and read the stories or snippets that help to bring everything else to life. And while you can help them make their own memory books like a scrapbook, you can also hire a service to take care of this part of the process for you and your loved one. 

If you want to help your elderly loved one to document their life story, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you in doing this.