Offering your support: expert, savior or facilitator

Parents are a well-meaning bunch when it comes to supporting their kids. We all want the best for our children, and will often go to great lengths to be "helpful." We would all do a better job if prior to every opportunity to help and support, we review the roles available to us and choose wisely. As you can imagine this consideration applies to all well-meaning people trying to help friends, family, even employees.

When someone asks for our help (hopefully we wait to be asked), we get to choose:


Expert--someone with all the answers, meant to give advice and see that things are done according to the expert view.
Savior--someone who is charged with saving others; make everything better for those who believe.
Facilitator--someone who helps people help themselves find the way.

If we act as experts--the last word on most topics for the best decisions, underlying that help is the message that we are the only ones that know--about how to live their life. This creates a dependency model that keeps others from growing up and solving their own problems.

If we act as saviors--the ones who will make problems go away, underlying is the message is that in order to solve their problems, they need only to turn to us to make things better-- and (worth repeating) creating a dependency model that keeps others from growing up and solving their own problems.

If we act as facilitators, we offer information, ask questions and listen, and help them come to their own conclusions.

Behavior follows belief, and making change doesn't make sense unless it fits into the values of the one who's changing. No one is an expert in anyone else's life. No one can be our savior if we aren't able to save ourselves. What  the facilitator gets is more time to work on their own stuff. And less stress (keeping us from experiencing what social workers call compassion fatigue). Too bad, though, it's always clear what others should do with their lives. It's our life we're not so clear about.