As we go through our lives, control over our environment is our constant challenge. The art of raising children mostly involves allowing them choices that they are able to handle. Over-protective parents don’t let their children make choices. Over indulgent parents never give their children the feeling that they deserve their successes. Both ends of that spectrum create adults who constantly seek control. They don’t have it in their own lives, so they try to take it from others.
As the saying goes, the rest of us learn the ability to control what we can, the confidence to deal with what we can’t, and the wisdom to know which is which. Thus we stumble through our lives, having made peace with our fates as best we can.
In Later Life
Then in old age, the things we can’t control return, sometimes with a vengeance. Christmas is the time when people get together, and the conversation inevitably devolves to discussion of what’s really wrong. The question is, when we discover a tragedy, how should we react?
For example, you’re talking to a friend or relative you haven’t seen all year, and they drop one of the usual bombs on you: cancer, dementia, divorce; one of those terrible things that make your heart drop to your boots, and you think, “What can I say?” So, what do you do? You start giving them advice, of course.
Don’t
Just don’t. You’re falling prey to that old instinct we all have when we are in an uncertain situation, which is to take some kind of control. You think you’re saying something to help them in some way, but really, you’re just looking for a way to make yourself feel better.
And you aren’t doing them any good. If you have any experience with teenagers who feel they have no control over their lives, their favourite solution is to ignore any advice they are given.
So, when doddery old Uncle Dave starts telling you about the time he ducked the police roadblock on New Year’s Eve, 1962, don’t inform him he already told you that story. He takes pleasure in the telling. Just sit back and let him enjoy himself. If Cousin Jean is worried about adverse reaction to her dementia medication, unless you have an actual telephone number you can give her (thus putting the control back into her hands), don’t start playing Consulting Physician.
Listening
Take control by giving the person what they really want, which is usually a sympathetic audience. They also want validation of their emotions. They want reassurance that their experience is shared by others. They don’t want advice.
The Bottom Line
So, when a friend or relative wants to discuss their tragedy with you, resist the temptation to ease your own uncertainty by taking control away from them. Try to figure out what they really want. Give it them that.
You’ll end up feeling better.
P. S.
And yes, I am aware of the irony of giving people the advice not to give advice.