Turn that around.

I firmly believe that it is good to let people fail. Let them be stuck, and stay there for a good long while. Offer them advice on how to get out of it, but let them get good and far into their current trap before sitting down and forcing them to take that advice.

Otherwise they don't have the perspective to really listen or learn.

Of course you try to have them learn on something without major consequences. If the consequences are more important than their learning, then step in sooner. (Be aware that you may very well put the friendship under considerable strain, or else induce an unhealthy dependency by intervening.)


In reply to Re: When do you step in, and why? by Anonymous Monk
in thread When do you step in, and why? by dws

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.