How Family Caregivers Strengthen Each Other and Create Stability

Monin, the secondary caregiver to her dad, who cares for her mom (diagnosed with dementia two years ago), provides emotional and practical support, often fielding multiple texts a day to help him process his questions, make decisions and manage his fears.

Depending on the intensity of the care recipient’s needs and the pressures facing the family, secondary caregivers can be the ones driving to appointments, preparing meals, tackling household chores or simply offering much-needed companionship. In many other cases, secondary caregivers may not provide hands-on care, but they offer an emotional ballast and help primary caregivers feel less alone in decisions that can feel overwhelming.

Kevin Corcoran played a crucial support role as a secondary caregiver, providing weekend and evening relief for his wife, Rosanne, who cared for her mom during her 12-year journey with vascular dementia. During her final six years, Rosanne’s mom moved into their house in the Philadelphia suburbs. Kevin played a crucial role behind the scenes, stepping in to handle household tasks and anticipate daily chores like meals, errands and the needs of their two daughters. By sharing these responsibilities, Kevin allowed Rosanne to devote her full attention to her mom without sacrificing her presence in her family’s life, striking a delicate balance between caregiving and family connection.

6 ways to step into a secondary caregiver role

Secondary caregivers often offer help at pivotal moments, providing backup when primary caregivers are drowning in other responsibilities, family obligations and the sheer demands of regular care. Psychologist Julia Mayer, coauthor of The AARP Caregiver Answer Book, knows the role well. When her older brother became the primary sibling to handle their dad’s care, Mayer took on the secondary role. Despite living three hours away from Long Island, where her dad and brother lived, she made the trip nearly every other weekend, balancing a full-time clinical practice and two teenagers at home.

“As a secondary caregiver, my role was never to take over but to fill in the gaps, making sure my brother could keep going and my father’s care never skipped a beat,” explains Mayer. “Caregiving breaks when the load goes unshared. Backup caregivers help keep families functioning and connected during caregiving journeys.”

Here are practical ways to make the most of this role and meaningfully support primary caregivers, helping them sidestep burnout without overstepping as a secondary caregiver.

Finding ways to contribute: Not all support from secondary caregivers comes in the form of hands-on care. Sometimes it arrives through quieter channels: the sibling who lives two states away and calls every evening to keep their parent connected, the adult child who manages insurance paperwork or a family member juggling young children who checks in regularly and handles small tasks as they arise. These forms of involvement may look modest, but they knit a family’s efforts together.

Even simple acts, such as tracking appointments, troubleshooting a bill or staying up-to-date on symptoms, all contribute to shared responsibility and give the primary caregivers a mental break. “These contributions help distribute the emotional workload and reinforce that caregiving is a family effort, not a solo responsibility,” says Monin.

Offering emotional support is as important as practical help: One of the most meaningful roles of being a secondary caregiver is being a sounding board. Primary caregivers often need a safe place to release frustration, process tough moments, and find time to laugh in otherwise painful situations. “Simply knowing someone was walking beside him — emotionally, if not always physically — lifted an enormous burden for my brother,” says Mayer.

Monin adds that the most powerful thing a secondary caregiver can offer is empathy, listening without judgment and resisting the urge to fix things. That simple presence can reduce a primary caregiver’s sense of isolation more than people realize.

Adopting consistent, open communication is essential: When multiple family members are sharing the work of supporting a primary caregiver, communication becomes the glue that keeps the whole system steady. Mayer notes that consistent updates, whether through quick phone calls, brief emailed summaries after appointments, an ongoing text chain or a weekly Zoom check-in, help everyone stay on the same page. This steady rhythm of information lowers the temperature on misunderstandings, reduces the tendency for far-away relatives to question decisions without context and gives each person a clearer picture of what the primary caregiver is navigating day-to-day. “It also helps ensure that choices reflect both the care recipient’s wishes and the practical limits of the household doing the heavy lifting,” says Mayer.

Providing respite care when it’s needed most: Mayer’s regular weekend trips with her dad gave her brother crucial, uninterrupted time to rest, reconnect with his own family, and recover from the relentless demands of caregiving. “That relief wasn’t optional — it was essential,” she notes, “especially after the strain of caregiving began to affect his work-life balance .”

Respite doesn’t have to be a full weekend. Even small breaks can make a world of difference. “Sometimes the most important thing I could do was give my wife a few hours to nap, get outside or just spend time with the kids,” says Corcoran. “Those small pockets of relief kept everything running.”

Being one step removed can sometimes be an advantage: Having some distance from the daily intensity allows secondary caregivers to step in as calm, neutral mediators during tense moments. Mayer, for example, could navigate conflicts or emotional flare-ups between her dad, brother and other siblings without being swept up in the immediate stress, offering perspective and smoothing communication. Similarly, Corcoran could intervene when situational or sibling tension arose for his wife when caring for his mother-in-law, helping prevent frustration from escalating. “Secondary caregivers can often de-escalate situations more effectively,” Mayer notes, because their relative distance allows them to remain composed, listen actively and suggest solutions without the emotional overload that primary caregivers experience daily. This role not only eases immediate conflict but also supports healthier family dynamics over time.

Spotting the signs of burnout: Secondary caregivers can help prevent burnout by noticing early warning signs before a crisis hits. Primary caregivers try to “hero” the situation alone, waiting until a medical scare, a fall or a moment of emotional collapse before admitting they need help. From a distance, secondary caregivers can watch for patterns that caregivers might miss themselves, such as escalating irritability, persistent rumination over worst-case scenarios and hypervigilance, like constant worry about falls, wandering or driving risks even when precautions are in place.

“Secondary caregivers act as an early-warning system, observing signs of stress without judgment, helping the primary caregiver recognize challenges early and reinforcing that seeking support is a sign of strength, not weakness,” says Monin.