Generous, kind & considerate

Being kind is not the same as being considerate. Neither is being generous. Kindness without consideration can be infuriating or embarrassing for the recipient. It may even be both. Our kindness and generosity may inspire us to unwanted, inappropriate, uneven or even humiliating gifts...

Generosity and kindness tempered by consideration may understand, for example, that while you want to buy your loved one a car, you A) may rob them of their sense of ownership from saving for and choosing the car, and B) may purchase a car that's not what they wanted or not 'fit for purpose' but which they will feel obliged to put up with to save your feelings.

The Gentle Art of Constructive criticism

Now that we've defined how criticism differs from complaint, how do we give feedback so we minimise fallout and maximise results? I call it the Gentle Art of Constructive Criticism...

1. Make sure your proposed criticism is constructive: "you'll never make it as a writer, so stop wasting your time" is judgement, not constructive criticism. Be kind - sometimes that will mean keep your mouth shut, and sometimes that will mean telling the truth even though you'll suffer for it.
2. Ask if the person would like your feedback. Unless it's part of your job to critique other people's performance. If so, don't be coy but do give the recipient a choice about when the criticism will happen. (If someone is coming down with the flu, has been chewed out by Joe Public, or has suffered a bereavement now may not be the best time.)
3. In private. Nobody likes to be criticised in public.
4. Offer both praise and blame. Surely this person is doing something right?! Scrupulous fairness usually makes criticism harder to dismiss and easier to accept. As a minimum it makes the giver of unpalatable feedback feel better about the task.
5. Be specific and direct. Don't hint: "there are things you could be doing better... now I'll just leave you to think about that, eh?"
6. Try to offer a solution, not just a problem. "You suck," doesn't give people much room to improve.
7. If you're not offering 'drive-by criticism' (and why would you?), be alert to and encouraging of improvement. Or even steps toward progress. Again, keep it private between you and the person you criticised. 

This is post 14 of 43 posts.

Cruelty, kindness and consequences

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

It's one of those truisms that I instinctively distrust (right up there with 'you make your own happiness' and 'honesty is the best policy'), even as I broadly agree with it. Yes, it's usually true, but I find myself wondering what your agenda is when you bring it up...

It is an easy and available excuse for all sorts of casually cruel or ungenerous behaviour.

On the other hand, sometimes you DO have to be cruel to be kind. I do deem it a kindness to allow those we love to experience the consequences of their actions. If we always protect them from negative consequences, we insulate them from learning anything, we also teach them need.

I recently overheard a woman at a cafe, talking about one of her adult offspring*. The offspring is now (temporarily) back at home due to an unfortunate financial reverse. Based on what she said, this woman is keen to get her offspring back on its feet, but at the same time be self-responsible, so she demanded living expenses - partly out of her own financial necessity, and partly to demonstrate there are no free rides. Her friend was just congratulating her on her great parenting when she added that if the offspring ran out of money between pay days, she put up the difference.

Um.... wait, what? It's possible I missed something - after all, I was involuntarily eavesdropping - but it sounded like this woman was bank rolling an adult, and totally removing the pain of running out of money before next pay day. Which, back 'when I were a lad' was the only thing that taught us feckless young uns to live within our means.

If you drank your bus fare, you had to walk. If you bought clothes with your food money, you ate tinned soup (if you had any) or had the humiliation of going home to the folks for dinner six nights running. If you parents were like mine, they cooked generous meals, but were quietly deeply disappointed in you and you quickly decided it wasn't worth it for a cheap top that wasn't quite the right colour, and didn't make the chap of the moment look twice at you, and shrank in the wash: multiple consequences from one bad decision and a world of learning to be had. Plus, your friends laughed at you if you tried to 'poor me' to them.

These consequences, while painful at the time, are appropriate to the financial behaviour that created them.

What happens to this woman's offspring? Er... apparently nothing whatsoever. In fact, I suspect that her insistence that she is being a financial hard-ass may even dilute any appreciation or embarrassment her offspring might feel about battening off good old Mum. (If you apologise to me and I deny there is anything to apologise for, because no transgression occurred, what are you to think? How do you deal with that?)

Kindnesses that lead children - even adult children - to have an unrealistic expectation of how life works are not really very kind. In those cases, the cruelty of letting a child experience harsh cold reality might really be the kindest thing to do...

* The gender is not germane to the story.

This is post 2 of the non-challenge challenge.