"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life misreable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a situation is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we halp them become what they are capable of becoming." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I first encountered the above quote in early 2010 as a fresh out of college graduate carrying my Bachelor's in Psychology determined to make a difference in the world. I tucked it away into a folder and forgot about it until 2 years ago. I was cleaning out a townhouse that I rented with my husband and I found this quote stuffed inside one of my notebooks. At that time I was working in a school specialized toward children with autism. These children are highly perceptive to mood, I learned in no time that the mood I was in directly impacted the mood of my students. If my affect was bright, I could brighten theirs, conversely, if my mood was irritable they would respond with undesirable behaviors and I would struggle to keep them on task. It was indeed "my response that decide(d) whether a crisis (was) escalated or de-escalated, and a person (was) humanized or de-humanized" It was my responsibility each day to value these children as individuals and my heart became motivated by their successes. Whether or not I had a good day was often more up to me than it was up to my students.
When I left that school and moved on to work with children and adolescents in a mental health setting this quote became even more important to me, except this time the focus was on the last part of it: "If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming." I can't tell you how many times I've encountered a young person trapped in the expectations of others, held captive to mistakes that they've made, begging for someone to help them get to where they want to go instead of holding them to where they are.
See, this concept is much more challenging than treating others as we want to be treated. This concept is about seeing people as God sees them and then treating them accordingly, deliberately shifting our focus from their problems to their potential. I'm not saying it's easy, but few things worth doing ever are.
I first encountered the above quote in early 2010 as a fresh out of college graduate carrying my Bachelor's in Psychology determined to make a difference in the world. I tucked it away into a folder and forgot about it until 2 years ago. I was cleaning out a townhouse that I rented with my husband and I found this quote stuffed inside one of my notebooks. At that time I was working in a school specialized toward children with autism. These children are highly perceptive to mood, I learned in no time that the mood I was in directly impacted the mood of my students. If my affect was bright, I could brighten theirs, conversely, if my mood was irritable they would respond with undesirable behaviors and I would struggle to keep them on task. It was indeed "my response that decide(d) whether a crisis (was) escalated or de-escalated, and a person (was) humanized or de-humanized" It was my responsibility each day to value these children as individuals and my heart became motivated by their successes. Whether or not I had a good day was often more up to me than it was up to my students.
When I left that school and moved on to work with children and adolescents in a mental health setting this quote became even more important to me, except this time the focus was on the last part of it: "If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming." I can't tell you how many times I've encountered a young person trapped in the expectations of others, held captive to mistakes that they've made, begging for someone to help them get to where they want to go instead of holding them to where they are.
See, this concept is much more challenging than treating others as we want to be treated. This concept is about seeing people as God sees them and then treating them accordingly, deliberately shifting our focus from their problems to their potential. I'm not saying it's easy, but few things worth doing ever are.
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