Caregiver is very nice and takes care of my parents who are in their 90s. Parents live in my house. When she asked for my WiFi password I was taken aback. Isn't she supposed to be helping my parents? I know there is a lot of downtime when parents are sleeping but I feel uncomfortable giving out my password. Not sure how to handle this. I need to educate myself on how I can better respond to her request.
Is she asking to use your computer or just your WiFi. There is a difference. I would have no qualms about giving my WiFi password (I've shared with visiting family) - but I don't allow anyone else to use my computer(s) or tablet(s).
Since I was a 24/7 caregiver for my DH - I needed the downtime with my computer/tablets or I would have gone bonkers. You can only watch them breathe just so much or go crazy.
While DH said I could watch TV while he slept, I preferred to keep the house dark & quiet for him. We both 'lived' in the living room when he was no longer able to sleep in our bed.
As long as your caregiver is ready to 'drop everything' when called, I see no problem with spending time online and unless you are extremely limited, it shouldn't affect you. If you are limited, just ask that she not download anything; say you're worried about infecting your network with viruses.
I hope my 2-cents worth helped.
I would have absolutely no problem giving a caregiver access to wifi. Yes, I would setup a guest network that isolates them from the primary network. But that's only because doing that takes about 5 seconds so why not? That way if they no need to come then I can change the password on the guest network without effecting the primary.
Why would they need internet access? Why not? I don't expect a caregiver to be eyeball to eyeball with the people they are caring for every second of the day. There's a lot of dead time between meeting needs. For the same reason, I wouldn't lock up the TV. As long as they are providing good care, I rather have happy caregiver instead of a bored one just watching the clock and waiting to leave.
(I subscribe to newspapers on-line - and find it is really irritating when I get stuck in a doctor's office for a long wait and can't access my email nor newspaper.)
If you're concerned that she might spend time playing Angry Birds that she ought to be giving to care, maybe just clarify a few ground rules about what online activities are and are not acceptable while she's on duty.
She will sometimes facetime her sister with Mom who acts like a zombie unless she has guests. I have seen how she perks up and gets excited chatting. I walked in unexpectedly more than once to find her letting Mom facetime with my brother who lives in another state.
So the question really is, do you trust the caregiver with your parents' care? Are your parents happy with their care? If yes, trusting her with a wifi password is a given.
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