Sometimes The Best Help Is To Just Let It Go

Help is an action that we often overvalue because we think that it involves kindness, solidarity, hospitality etc. But the problem is that often it is not a simple collaboration between human beings for a common goal, but it turns out to be taking over a task that we think the being helped cannot. not realize. Or that he could but would do it too slowly and not reach the level of perfection that we are capable of achieving.

We could call this “toxic aid”. It is an attitude of solving the other person’s problems without giving them the opportunity to face their own challenges. In addition to preventing the development of his qualities, we also send him a clear message: you cannot do this.

In this way, we arrive, with the best of intentions, at what is called personal cancellation. That is to say, the reduction in the capacities, opinions, skills, attitudes and aptitudes of the person being cared for.

For society, help always seems to be something positive, but if we dig deeper we realize that there are a multitude of cases of people with deficits in their abilities because a “good samaritan” solved for them many challenges for which they actually did not need help.

Today, behind the term “soft generation” we find all those people who had over-protective parents, who did their homework, who solved whatever social problem they had and who eliminated everything. contact with what could bring them frustration.

Help that doesn’t help either side

Doing things for others is positive as long as it is collaboration or cooperation. For example, if two people have the common goal of starting a business, it is important that they collaborate: one chooses the furniture of the company, the other is devoted to advertising etc.

It is an example of true collaboration that enriches both parties, because both benefit from this common goal and thanks to this, the company has more chances to prosper.

Because helping someone in a unidirectional way can be harmful because it negates the abilities of the person being helped. Additionally, it can fuel false thoughts:

• Whoever receives the help may think that he really needs it.
• That the other person has an obligation to help him.
• That it is important to the person giving him help.

Thus, neither party benefits from this aid. One because they get the message that without the other person, they can’t do anything and it’s a deadly shot for self-esteem. And the other because he sows the seed of anxiety by thinking that he cannot refuse the favors that the other person asks of him or by thinking that without him / her, the other person will not achieve anything.

Obviously, the personal relationship between caregiver and caregiver can deteriorate considerably. Know that the caregiver will always be anxious and waiting for the needs of the other, putting them in priority over their own, which can result in rejection.

Helicopter families

This exists in some families where there are helicopter, toxic or over-protective parents. These parents cannot stand the thought that their child is in pain, but their concept of suffering is totally wrong.

These are usually parents who had a difficult childhood and don’t want their children to go through the same thing. Thus, they polarize education to the extreme of absolute protection: they solve all the problems for them, even those that their children could solve on their own. These children are therefore arriving at an age where they should be able to have an independent life, but they are completely lost.

What’s going on ? The child does not learn. His parents live for him, he was never wrong and he was never frustrated, rectified or learned from these mistakes: yet it is the only way to really learn.

The development of the child is stagnant when in reality there is great potential to explore. Once in adulthood, we find people who are not resolute people. People who often suffer from self-esteem problems: they tell themselves that they are not able to face the problems without outside help.

They become people in need and this concerns all areas of their life. Thus, they tend to choose spouses who behave in the same way as their parents, and their capacities continue to not develop.

What help is really helping?

If you really want to help, or in other words, collaborate with someone, the idea that should guide you is what lies behind the desire that one has for that person to develop and gain self-confidence. Helping her means fueling her self-esteem, emphasizing what she does well, fueling her resolution by giving her possibilities and abilities by talking to her about similar problems.

It is important to be patient and accept that life brings frustrations with it. And that no one dies for all that.

If we remove the barrier for the person we want to help, we will not allow them to find the solution on their own. This will prevent him from acting, from breaking his head, from trying, from looking for alternatives, etc. Because we do everything for him and we bring him everything on a plate.

For example, if your child cannot find a job but every month you pay him rent that allows him to live more or less well, why would he start looking for a job? He doesn’t need it! But that brings a real problem … If you continue like this, what will happen to him the day you, as parents, will no longer be of this world to pay him his rent?

Collaborating, in this case, means helping to write a curriculum, to choose a profession, to look for a job, so that he experiences things and finally becomes an actor in his own life. Do not you think ?

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