“You can't get her to see what you're seeing. That's the trap—you're trying to manage her reality the way you learned to manage everything else. I spent years doing that with my daughter when she was sick, trying to force her to understand the danger so she'd make different choices, so she'd help me control the outcome. It never worked.”

“I would stop trying to get her to see it, and start with the doctor instead. In my work, the person losing capacity rarely signs on first; the safety issue is the stove, not the argument, so I would document what I notice and loop in her physician before the next crisis makes the decision for all of you.”

“You probably won't get her to see it, and I learned that the hard way. With my mother, the breakthrough came when a social worker with a clipboard asked the questions, not me; my job became translating, not convincing. Stop trying to win the argument and start building the practical case with her doctor, her neighbors, and anything you can document, because the stove doesn't care whether she admits it.”