Feel welcome

My experience.

Yellow, yellow and yellow.

This situation is about one of my first experiences with young people with serious behavioral problems. René was a boy (14 years old) with whom adults had little or no contact. The contact that did take place had an aggressive and negative connotation, much of it from powerlessness.
How it came about I do not know, but at a certain moment I noticed that he was much preoccupied with the color yellow. Yellow flowers, yellow paper, yellow toys, you name it, as long as it was yellow. One time we went for a walk outside and he was very focused on the little yellow flowers that were blooming.
Together we made a beautiful bouquet, but what was most important was that I could get in touch with him. We started cutting and pasting together, going into the woods and trying to use "yellow" as the starting point of our contact in several ways.
We went out all afternoon just to go look at and count yellow cars and write down their license plates. I realized that it wasn't about what I thought of it, more important was that I was getting more and more in touch with him.
Trust came and through this I could make his world bigger and in the course of time it was possible to discuss other things with him.
What did I learn: There are people with whom it is difficult to make contact. If you can find out what puts a smile on their face, chances are there will be a beginning of contact. It will not be the item you are interested in, you will have to put yourself in the other person's experience.

I use this situation in my presentation "Human professional".

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