In all the years I have used this principle, and all the years I have taught the staff, I have never felt that I completely convinced the staff of its value. Recently I was going through some old trainings and I found a paper from Wendall Walker entitled, "Yes and No". The very first line stood out and called my name! How had I missed this small detail? Wendall said, "To maximize relationships with other people, while honoring your own values, here are some ideas to consider:"
The whole thing I have missed in all these years is the staff's value on consequences. They have had a difficult time accepting the new program because the level system of the old program, even though the children choose the consequences because they knew the rules and consequences, (positive and negative), were still consequences. The staff believed the program worked because of the consequences, while I was believing the program worked because we were evaluating the choices and consequences on a daily basis.
Now that we have moved to a therapeutic program, and away from a level system, the staff have been more reluctant to use the principle of "YES". They want the emphasis to be on the IF, WHEN, and BUT, and not on the YES.
For the next several blogs we will consider our quality world and how it effects the basis of our beliefs, and how we build relationships with others.