Helping vs. interference

[Gail]

What is the difference?

It seems to me that if one does NOT know the difference, it might cause some problems.

[Gerr]

Depends on which shoes you're in - the helper or the helpee (is there such a word?

[Gail]

LOL Well I guess each person contributes something to this relationship, whether healthy or not!

[Amelia]

Interference is stepping between to people fighting.

Helping is offering a hand up to the person on the floor bleeding.

:)

[Liz]

All help is interference, the difference is the spirit in which it is given and the spirit in which it is received. The tricky part is knowing the difference between helping and enabling.

[Woody]

Let me go along and 'help' you out a little further on this Liz. I think it is important that one knows the helpee before the helper helps. And you had be very sure before you pour out your help. Lest you lose friends with the helpee.

[GreatLakesGramma]

If it's some kind of emergency, like a person has just collapsed, and you know CPR, you should help whether you know the person or not.

But the kind of help that I think this question is about is when you do know someone who has a task or problem bigger than they can handle themselves. In that case, I believe that if you step in unasked and take over the situation, that is definitely interference. True help means that you wait until the other person asks. It's OK if you see a need and offer some specific kind of help, but you still wait to actually help until they accept your offer. Then you do that, and remember at all times that it is THEIR business, and THEY are IN CHARGE.

If, for example, you are helping someone clean their house when they have been sick, or taking care of a dying parent, you can offer to do a specific job, like folding the laundry or washing the dishes, but you don't just jump in and do it, you wait until they say yes. When you finish that, you can offer to do something else, or else ask what they would like help with next. But as soon as you start taking over and doing anything you think needs to be done, without getting their OK first, you're taking over.

When it comes to financial or relational problems, where the help that is needed is some kind of advice, you only give the advice they ask for, and NEVER, EVER tell them "you have to do..." I always, when asked for this kind of help, simply talk them through identifying the problem, finding the cause, then exploring all the options that might help. Then I leave it to them to decide which options they want to use, or if they don't want to use any. That is their business, not mine.

Sometimes the help someone really needs is just for someone to listen. Then you need to keep your mouth shut, and do just that, no matter what you think about what they're saying. If you're the type who can't keep your mouth shut, stay away from people who need somebody to listen.

[phkrause]

I'll go with the parable of the Good Samaritan, he didn't know the guy on the road, and even paid for his being taken care of. And he was not even liked by the guy who he helped!

pk

[phkrause]

Well I stay at a Holiday Inn CoAspen, I don't need to ask any ?s at all. LOL

pk

[Gail]

Great Lakes Grandma has got a BIG point!

When the help is unsolicited because it is actually not required, the action is saying, "You are not capable of doing a good job," or "I don't want you to do it because I want that task instead," or "You should be doing things the way I think you should."

To me, this represents at least a control issue.

[Woody]

Well I stay at a Holiday Inn CoAspen, I don't need to ask any ?s at all. LOL

pk

pk ... has staying at the Holiday Inn actually helped you? It never did anything for me.

[phkrause]

to bad Redwood it worked for me?

pk