Withholds:

If you have been raised to be polite, considerate, and diplomatic then you don't share verbally certain thoughts with students, parents, the principal, even your spouse—always for good reasons. This means you communicate these thoughts, these withholds, non-verbally. You no longer communicate truthfully from your experience, but from your mind. Your mind automatically protects you, it filters what's appropriate what's acceptable and what's safe to say.

If this describes you then you have, for the most part, lost your spontaneity. You cannot be trusted to consistently share your experience with others. You use fear or reasonableness as a barrier to telling the truth. Friends keep doing objectionable behaviors and you vote silently to have them keep doing more of the same for fear of . . . .  Others experience your hypocrisy. You force the conscious students to stuff their thoughts of disrespect and instead dramatize them.

For example: You know certain parents are abusing their child or thwarting you, and, you refrain from telling them exactly what's on your mind—again for good reasons, therefore condemning everyone to more of the same.

The tragedy is that you cannot teach your students the benefits of communicating openly, honestly, and spontaneously—zero significant thoughts withheld. What does get communicated is your belief—that it can't be done.

There are conversations that will support you creating a context in which you may tell the truth and have all concerned feel good upon completion.

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