Dear Eric >> I am a 76-year-old man. My best friend is a woman who is 75. Her son and daughter-in-law have an 11-year-old and two little children under 3. The son very frequently asks her to provide child care for overnights and weekends. They are very active and seem to always have plans for ski and bike trips, hiking and camping trips, out-of-town concerts and visits with friends.

Although my friend is pretty active and we enjoy outings ourselves, we are often not able to do the things we want to do because she gets scheduled to provide child care. She loves to spend time with her grandchildren but overnight and weekend visits with two very young kids are very physically demanding and exhausting for her. Because of a prior serious injury to her shoulder, lifting and carrying her grandkids also is very difficult and stressful for her. She seems to be unable to say no to this level and frequency of child care and is afraid she might end up not being able to see her grandkids at all.

Do you have suggestions on how to limit her son’s frequent requests for extended child care help?

— Concerned for Overworked Friend

Dear Concerned >> Loathe as I am to offer secondhand advice to those who haven’t asked for it, if she wants to make some changes, there are some options. She may want to start setting limits on how and how long she provides child care. Maybe overnights need to be phased out, or she might need to decline more. She can talk with her son and daughter-in-law about her desire to remain an active part of their lives while recognizing the ways her capacity is changing. You can offer these as suggestions to her, but this has to be her doing and her decision.

I wonder if some of the frustration you’re feeling on her behalf is more solidly rooted in not getting all that you want from this friendship. That’s fine to feel, but you’d be doing her and yourself a disservice by presenting her with another problem to solve, rather than supporting her as she works through this.

As her best friend, it’s possible that you know her son and daughter-in-law and their kids. If that’s the case, you might offer to help her with child care.

Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com.