Can You Help People Who Do Not Want to Help Themselves? |

Can You Help People Who Do Not Want to Help Themselves?

24th August, 2011 - Posted by L. John Mason -

Many angry and unsympathetic people would answer this question, “Why bother to try to help them…?” Teachers, healthcare providers, ministers, and crazy mental health professionals often answer this question quite differently… unless, they are facing major “burnout.”

I have had clients who were “sent” to me for counseling or coaching services but who had not clearly identified their role in their challenge or who were not motivated to make any positive changes. These are very difficult cases to be successful. I would not claim to be the very best therapist, counselor, or coach to every person I meet. If I did, my ego would be too big or my lack of personal insight would make me delusional. There are clients that I meet who I know could respond in positive ways to coaching but who sabotage their results so they can continue to wallow in their issues. This is very “hard” (unsympathetic) sounding but the “TIME” is not right for every client who is confronted with good coaching to follow good advice and to move in a more positive direction.

There is a higher “success rate” when the client has found the coach, investigated the process, and is making the financial payments for these services. This is a “motivated” client, and even many of these people will struggle with making necessary changes.

People are scared to change! So even if these people are in pain or sad situations, they often resist the advice/counsel which will help them to break away from old, negative patterns of responding. By some people’s definition, crazy people continue doing the same thing/habit over and over again and expect different results. By this definition, most of us are “crazy” at least in some ways. Change is scary, but if we are not willing to try new ways then we may destined to live unfulfilled lives. This is sad…

Some people come from families who are so dysfunctional that they believe they are “right” and the rest of the world is wrong. Religious fanatics, also called religious extremists, believe that everyone who does not believe as they do are not only wrong but they deserve to die, or they won’t go to heaven, or they should not be taking up space in “their” world. This is also the way political extremists believe. Many people have so much fear and bigotry that if you look different than they do or do not agree with their thinking then you should not be on “their” planet. The world is actually too small these days for this kind of thinking, but crazy tribes have been acting this way for thousands of years.

But I digress. (I always wanted to say that.) Many dysfunctional children come from dysfunctional families who happen to perpetuate the dysfunctions. Sometimes we physically inherit psychological and physical imbalances. More often, children learn bad habits and living patterns from their parent’s inappropriate behaviors and attitudes. We are not born racists, we learn racism from the environment we grow in within. Dysfunctional parents will bring their children for therapy to “fix” their children and these parents are unwilling to accept the responsibility for the role that their behaviors and attitudes have played in creating the environment that breeds their children’s dysfunction. Hit a child and wonder why kids grow up to be angry, oppositional, distrustful teenagers. Conversely, let your child raise themselves by not offering any sensible and consistent limits and the feral children will grow up to be self-centered, low functioning adults.

Low-functioning parents often have too many children and these offspring are destined to be low-functioning or dysfunctional members of society. I am not saying that poor people will all raise low-functioning children. I am saying disengaged parenting or parents with anger problems, or substance abuse issues will not be healthy examples for the offspring. “Civilized” cultures are rapidly losing healthy middle classes and education is sinking to its lowest levels for the sake of inclusion, “No child left behind.” A mentality that is bringing us all down.

We need a generation of people who have not lived through Ronald Reagan’s “Me first generation” of the 1980’s where no one was supposed to pay taxes, especially the “rich” or care about how the less fortunate were going to survive, “They should just pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.” Where corporations can fire people just before they qualify for their retirement benefits because they are too old and too expensive, while the CEO make obscene salaries for lopping off costs through “downsizing.” (Ronald Reagan was governor of California and ruined a great public educational system, for cost saving, before he ruined the nation’s educational system as the 40^th president.)

I am writing this blog in frustration today after hearing about two children who are products of irresponsible, dysfunctional parenting. One is a young teenage girl who was raped by an x-boyfriend and she could not tell her parents for 4 days about it because they are so low-functioning that they would end up blaming her for her situation. The second teenager is going to prison for a year because he did small crimes like shoplifting beer and breaking his curfew because his parents belittled him so much because of their mental health challenges. He could not function in their home and seeks a more consistent and “emotionally safe” environment like juvenile prison. In both cases the parents were asked to get personal counseling and coaching help with their parenting but they refused. They made up excuses and now their children are suffering in emotional prisons. These parents refused to take responsibility for the most important thing that their lives could find as their legacies, their children.

Having children should not be taken lightly, but the only people who will read this blog and understand it are people who are having fewer children, so my frustration will continue to grow. Thanks for listening. Please comment. AND, please love your children and find compassion for other people’s children…

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