In the past few months, I've come across several people in my circles of acquaintances (kids I went to school/college with, T-Tappers, etc.) who have kids with issues that instantly remind me of Hunter and Ethan. I offer encouragement, advice, recommendations for whom they should seek out to get professional opinions.... and I get nothing. No thanks, no nothing, just silence.
Do I stop saying anything?? Stop wasting my energy helping people who are either so far in denial that it wouldn't matter what I said, it's not gonna matter?
It's frustrating.
....and then there were 5.
11 years ago
5 comments:
Are they asking you for advice? If not, they probably don't want to hear it. That is what I have found with pregnant women.
I was talking to a woman at work that was describing her son to me, a few years younger than my son. I could see where her son and she were headed so I offered advice, seeing I've been through it before and thought I could save her some grief. She looked at me like I had antennas growing out of my head. She looked offended. I thought, I guess we all have to figure it out on our own. Oh well, at lease I tried.
Yeah, it's hard to know. When I have problems, what I really need is empathy and nurturing. Sometimes I want advice too but it's really mostly care and concern that I appreciate.
That has nothing to do with the discussion we've been having...but then that's just a discussion, not someone telling me what I should do. I'd probably react badly to that.
Well, two women were asking for opinions from those in similar situations--and one of those was a high school friend who e-mailed me about it privately.
One was a college friend, and he voiced concern over one of his kids extreme behavior, lining things up, temper tantrums, etc. I met up with them when I was in Grand Rapids a few weeks ago, and mentioned something to his wife about maybe having their son evaluated by the school to see what they thought--but my friend kind of brushed it off.
I was in denial, too. But at least I was willing to listen to advice. LOL.
sometimes when people are asking for advice, they only wanna hear what they want to hear, ya know?
Tell them what they don't want to hear and all of a sudden your the bad guy. That sucks, I know.
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