I teach a counseling course to students of Psychology, Social Work, and a variety of other majors. One of the concepts that I emphasize is that giving advice is at best ill-advised and at worst destructive to autonomy. What people do when asked for advice is usually to freely give it, thinking they are doing a good thing. You wanted an answer didn't you? Here's what I tell them:
1. Ask one thousand people how to hammer a nail and you might get only a few variations of "pound the nail with the round end of the hammer." But ask those same people what you should do to stop being depressed, or how to decide whether to leave a marriage, and you'll get close to one thousand different answers. That's because they are answering from the perspective of "that's what I would do if I were you." Of course, they aren't you. So anything they recommend is particularly useless, and may be the exactly wrong thing to do.
2. What happens if they take your advice, follow it to the letter, and it doesn't work out well? Folks with damaged self-esteem will blame themselves, thinking they didn't "do it right," or that fate interceded and they have no real power. Either way, they have learned nothing. They didn't come up with the answer, so by definition they won't get the self-satisfaction. They might also blame you for screwing things up!
3. What happens if they take your advice and it works out perfectly? They will again have learned nothing. When yet another situation arises in the future, they will again seek advice, not knowing how to think through to a solution that best suits them. They may credit you, or falsely credit themselves.
4. I am not talking about young children here. Kiddos need advice on a host of mundane issues as they learn the basics of behavior and applying solutions to problems. But even with children, the primary goal is for us to teach them how to think and decide, not what to think and decide. As children age, they should be given ever-widening levels of choices, decision-making and freedom, based on their maturity and readiness.
5. I am not talking about advice on mechanical, concrete things like how to build a dog house or what immunizations one should receive.
Just remember that your undivided attention, your demonstration that you care, is the gift above all others: it means you value them, that they matter, that they are worthy. Sure you can help them explore options, consider alternatives, estimate the consequences of this versus that path. Just avoid telling people what to do!
1. Ask one thousand people how to hammer a nail and you might get only a few variations of "pound the nail with the round end of the hammer." But ask those same people what you should do to stop being depressed, or how to decide whether to leave a marriage, and you'll get close to one thousand different answers. That's because they are answering from the perspective of "that's what I would do if I were you." Of course, they aren't you. So anything they recommend is particularly useless, and may be the exactly wrong thing to do.
2. What happens if they take your advice, follow it to the letter, and it doesn't work out well? Folks with damaged self-esteem will blame themselves, thinking they didn't "do it right," or that fate interceded and they have no real power. Either way, they have learned nothing. They didn't come up with the answer, so by definition they won't get the self-satisfaction. They might also blame you for screwing things up!
3. What happens if they take your advice and it works out perfectly? They will again have learned nothing. When yet another situation arises in the future, they will again seek advice, not knowing how to think through to a solution that best suits them. They may credit you, or falsely credit themselves.
4. I am not talking about young children here. Kiddos need advice on a host of mundane issues as they learn the basics of behavior and applying solutions to problems. But even with children, the primary goal is for us to teach them how to think and decide, not what to think and decide. As children age, they should be given ever-widening levels of choices, decision-making and freedom, based on their maturity and readiness.
5. I am not talking about advice on mechanical, concrete things like how to build a dog house or what immunizations one should receive.
Just remember that your undivided attention, your demonstration that you care, is the gift above all others: it means you value them, that they matter, that they are worthy. Sure you can help them explore options, consider alternatives, estimate the consequences of this versus that path. Just avoid telling people what to do!
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