Confront or Comfort?

If you were having a bad day I wonder what would help? Maybe someone buying you lunch, maybe a hug, maybe simply sitting down with you and listening? I am pretty sure what wouldn’t help you is someone laying into you and saying that everything that has happened to you is your own fault!

Eteri Tutberidze is the Russian Olympic Committee Ice Skating coach and last week has shown herself to be significantly lacking any sort of pastoral care or even basic empathy. One of her athletes performed poorly in a routine at the Winter Olympics and as the athlete left the ice clearly sad and frustrated Eteri chose that was the right time to confront rather than comfort.

Eteri said that she “doesn’t demand things” but wants to make athletes “feel unsatisfied with their failure to complete a task” so that “they feel disgust inside them”.

What kind of training method is it when a coach confronts rather than comforts a sobbing 15-year-old at the Olympic Games? “Chilling”, according to the International Olympic Committee. “Key” for athletes to achieve victory, according to the Russian government.

Now obviously the youthwork we may do is hugely different from the competitive world of sports, but the young people we engage with are not so different in their needs and what builds them up and knocks them down.

I do believe there is a place to ‘confront’ young people, but I would never use that word. Someone I have been journeying with for many months, someone I have built a safe relationship with, then I may consider helping them see whether a course of action they are taking isn’t the wisest, but even then I would hope my words would be filled with empathy and grace.

I have been holding onto a bit of a mantra of late; ‘lose the argument, win the relationship’. I never want my belief in pointing out an unhealthy life choice, or my own strong opinion on any topic, to cost a relationship, particularly one that has been built over many years.

If you compare the approach of Eteri to Liverpool Coach Jurgen Klopp, this is how he spoke to a young player this week; “whether you play well or play badly is on me, not you. I choose to play you. So just enjoy the moment and play with freedom.” This exchange between the young Tyler Morton and Klopp filled me with great joy as well as an awareness of the importance of empathy. Klopp had loads of empathy, Eteri Tutberidze I reckon hasn’t even heard of the word!

Simon Sinek says this “young people grow up with a filter on everything, it gives a veneer of confidence and success but actually shows a deep struggle with who they are. They are unsure of themselves and they lack the courage to ask. Young people aren’t learning the coping skills, coping mechanisms to turn to another individual and ask for help, instead they are turning to their mobile phones and social media.”

This tells me more than ever that young people need mentors, youth leaders and friends in their lives that are willing to stay their course with them, no matter how often or how greatly they stumble. Young people need leaders close by who are willing to love, to sit and listen with deep empathy and to then gently walk out of the darkness and struggle ensuring the relationship is prioritised over any behaviour change.

Patience and empathy needs to be taught and modelled. We need to choose significant investment in our relationships. There needs to be time and space for these relationships to be established and grown. We, as youth leaders, need to create environments where people are safe enough to say how they feel, to admit things went wrong, to ask for help, to take the help and be confident that they will not be left alone. If young people are left to find there value, guidance and empathy in their social media feeds, then we have failed, and they may remain lost.

I am a man of hope, and my hope is that in this next season we will shape all our ministry resources around the need to build safe, committed, reliable, loving and genuine relationships. If young people cannot find them, we will create them. If young people don’t know where to find them, we will reach out to them. If young people feel like they don’t know how to trust and be real, we will model it and be long term agents of empathy and patience!

“Empathy has no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It’s simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of ‘You’re not alone.’” BRENÉ BROWN