Helping or supporting?

I have often heard people say, I was only trying to help – after things have gone pear shaped and they’re the ones getting the blame. One of my parents’ favourite expressions was that someone was more of a hindrance than a help. The common denominator here is the word help. I’m always suspicious of people who offer to `help’ because I think their motives often come from a desire to take over or control the situation: to do things their way: to fix it! That’s not to say that they don’t mean well. Very often these deeper motives are unconscious and come from a place of wanting to feel better about themselves. But that’s not a lot of use if the people or person they’re helping ends up feeling frustrated.

I much prefer to use the word support. Supporting someone means listening to what they want, rather than charging in with what you want to do. In an earlier blog I mentioned the incident when my brother, who was blind, had been waiting for a friend at the side of the road. Suddenly a well-meaning passer-by grabbed his arm and led him across the road, then walked off leaving my brother to make his own way back through the busy traffic to where he’d been waiting originally. The man probably thought he was helping but, in fact, he was hindering my brother and actually endangering his life. I have no doubt that the man truly believed he’d done his good deed for the day whereas the reality was, he’d made my brother’s day much more difficult.

And that, for me, is the difference between helping and supporting. Supporting is empowering: helping is often taking over and therefore dis-empowering. It’s like the old saying: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day: teach him how to make fishing nets and you feed him for life. (Also read woman for man – I don’t want any gender stereotypes here.) Giving the fish is helping but it’s making the person dependent: teaching how to make nets is supporting them to become independent.

So, what other differences are there between helping and supporting?

• Supporting is about being open to whatever the other person wants: helping is often about trying to impose your ideas on them.
• Support is about allowing them to make their own decisions and letting them make mistakes without saying I told you so or using the dreaded word should/n’t!
• Support is about offering your opinion: helping often looks like giving advice and then being offended if they don’t take it.
• Support is encouraging them to be the best that they can be, independent of you or anyone else: helping often ends up with the person becoming dependent on the `help’ being given.
• Support is listening actively, that means really hearing them without judgements: helping is usually about talking to someone and telling them what you think they should do.
• Support is asking how the person wants to be supported: helping is often comes from a space of really wanting to help so it’s coming from that person’s own desire to do good rather than hearing what the other person actually needs or wants.
• Support is altruistic: helping is egotistic.

Many years ago a dear friend of mine had a very difficult birth with her second child. I phoned her and asked if she wanted anything but she told me that her mum was with her and she just wanted some time to recover. But I didn’t hear that. I really wanted to help my friend. So, going against what she’d told me, I got in my car, drove almost an hour to her house and turned up unannounced offering to do some shopping for her. My ego thought I knew better than she did about what she wanted. And I was then hurt and shocked that she wasn’t grateful for the fact that I’d ignored her and had arrived on her doorstep when she was in pain, depressed and just wanted time with her mother and new baby.

Needless to say we lost touch for many years but, thanks to social media, we are in contact again and, if you’re reading this (you’ll know who you are) I apologise from the bottom of my heart for not hearing you. It was my totally selfish desire to help and I was wrong. No excuses. It’s that simple.

So next time you find yourself offering to help someone, just take a minute and then ask, `Do you want some support?’

And, even more importantly, don’t be offended if they say, `No!’