Tough love or softly, softly

neandermagnon

Tough love only works when you really know a person and what makes them tick. I have a few people on my FL that I know well enough that I could push if I see they need it. There are others that this approach would have a very negative effect and many that I don;t know well enough to be anything more than encouraging.

In the end we have to be accountable to ourselves, but even using tough love self talk can at times be detrimental. Know your audience well enough to determine what approach is going to work the best.

I agree with the above.

also:

There's a lot of middle ground between berating yourself and verbally beating yourself up (or someone else) and pandering to excuse making and the like. It's not one thing or the other, in fact discussions like this tend to lead to the kind of polarisation of thinking that pushes some people into two unhealthy extremes, rather than a middle ground that will be a lot more productive and healthy for most people. I'm not against tough love if that's what works for you (and tough love does not necessarily mean berating yourself/someone else, but a lot of people understand it like that), but to imply (as some do, again not necessarily the OP) that the only alternative to tough love is pandering to weakness, excuses, etc is incorrect.

Taking responsibility for your failings is something you can do without berating yourself or beating yourself up (ditto when helping others motivate themselves to do the same).

For example: (works for self talk or for encouraging others)

berating yourself/someone: you're a failure, sort your life out or you'll never amount to ****

pandering: never mind, you can't help it, everything's so difficult, just do whatever you think is best and we'll be here for you

encouraging while taking responsibility: okay, well you know that wasn't a smart move. All is not lost though, you can get right back on track starting right now. What led to the screw-up? What can you do differently to stop it happening again?

There's a big difference between the three, and clearly it's not a dichotomous situation. And maybe the berating yourself example works for some people, the 3rd example works best for me, and I'd imagine it would for most people.

smh1067

I'm a big believer in softly, softly. Not because I think people should make excuses, but I think people have to take responsibility for their own choices and it's not my place to "shame on you." Although I don't want to coddle that either. If you made a mistake, I won't point the finger at you, but I'm not going to sit their and "oh poor baby" you either. You made a mistake. It happened, move on.

I take the same attitude towards life. If you want my honest opinion or my tough love, I'll give it to you, but I'm not going to just tell you you're making mistakes. I've seen a lot of family not support other family members in their life decisions (marrying too young, choice of career, etc.) and it didn't help. They still made the choice they wanted, only now they feel like you didn't support them and that's always hanging in the back of their mind. It's their life. You don't have to agree with them, but don't sit there and point fingers and tell them how awful their decision is just because it's not the one you would've made. It's how I view my role on MFP as well. If you're confused and asking for help I'll offer up some suggestions, but I'm not going to shame you for the bbq wings you ate. Love is loving people dispite their flaws, not pointing out their flaws.

People are going to do what they want to do, it's their life. Either support them as the person they are or move along. Just my 2 cents.

bokodasu

For who? Yourself? Your kids? Your friends? Random strangers on the Internet? And when? When they're having a hard day? Having a night out at a bar? Asking for your advice? Those should probably all be different degrees of tough-/gentle-ness.

I shoot for gentle-yet-firm. And I pay someone to be mean to me, because that doesn't work on yourself.

stephdeeable

Huh...I thought this was going to be about rough sex. I'm out.