Children are amazing. I love to listen to stories about children and their behaviour. I heard one I'd like to share.
A teacher started at a new school and she was told the class she was to teach was the best they had ever had. Every child was an overachiever with special interests and talents and she was to do her best to encourage them to develop their talents.
Another teacher started at the same school but she was given a class, which she was told would be a handful. The children were hard to control and they had difficulty understanding their schoolwork. She would need to have a lot of patience with them.
By the end of the year, both teachers had what they expected. The interesting part was that the two classes were just ordinary students at the beginning of the year. The teachers, acting on the false information, had influenced the classes to behave the way the teacher expected.
It just shows that you get what you expect to get. If you treat a child with respect and the expectation of good behaviour, you will encourage him to behave respectfully and to produce something to fill the expectation. In the case of the teachers, the children who were believed to be high achievers became high achievers. The other children, who did not perform well, did not perform because nothing better was expected of them.
Imagine for a moment if you expected the best from every child and treated them as if they were already giving you their best. Perhaps we would find our children were capable of far more than we could guess. It would give them self-confidence knowing you did not doubt them. It would give them ideals to live up to and they would work harder to earn your continuing respect.
This principle doesn't stop with children. If you treat your friends, family and co-workers as if they were already producing the best in every way you may be surprised at the difference you can make in your life and theirs. Don't forget to try it yourself. You get what you expect so why not expect the best.
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