DR. JOYCE BROTHERS
Dr. Joyce Brothers is a familiar name. I first noticed her when she won in a quiz show as an expert on boxing. Since then, she's devoted her life to helping others through various personal problems, on television and in the news, in books and, I'm sure, in person. She's also willing to make fun of herself in various television shows. I admire her and read her articles whenever I see them. She wrote, in a recent Sunday supplement, of ways to build a strong family. I was particularly impressed by one item of her advice, that applies to all relationships, "criticize kindly".
Criticism is often necessary, appropriate and helpful. When we someone going in the wrong direction, making mistakes of various kinds, hurting themselves, we need to help them get back on track. It's not appropriate to remain silent and watch our friends, family, business associates and other people we know drive off a cliff. We don't do anyone a service when we passively observe behavior that hurts them, let alone others, and refuse to offer our assistance and advice.
When we see this sort of behavior, it's time for constructive criticism, criticism that is intended not to hurt or destroy someone's self-esteem, not to make ourselves feel better about ourselves, but to help the object of our criticism to do better, feel better, be better. Sometimes it's difficult to do. We worry about appearing arrogant or rude, about hurting our relationships, about becoming the object of angry and hurtful responses. So it's very important to do it in the right way. This is where Dr. Brothers' advice is so important. To criticize successfully, we must be kind, we must be gentle, we must make it obvious that we are trying to help, that we have the interests of the other person in mind. If we can do that, we'll help another person and feel better about ourselves.
By the way, when we're the object of this sort of criticism, we must receive it in the same spirit. We must resist the impulse to respond angrily, to believe that the criticism is poorly motivated. For our part, we must receive the criticism kindly. In that way, we also help ourselves and the other person.
1-20-03
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