Parents · Supporting a Struggling Loved One
What to Do, and What Not to Do
Wanting to fix it is natural. It's often not what the person in front of you needs first.
When someone we love is struggling, the instinct to fix it is immediate and well-meaning. It's also, more often than not, the wrong first move. Before advice, before solutions, most people need to feel heard — to know that what they're carrying has actually landed with someone else.
Simple, honest presence tends to help more than any well-crafted response: "That sounds really hard" does more than a list of suggested solutions, at least at first. Solutions can come later, once someone feels understood rather than managed.
You don't have to have the right words. You have to be willing to stay in the room while someone says the hard thing, without rushing to make it smaller than it is.