Children Learn What They Live
Why Encouragement Is an Environment, Not a Technique
We Are Formed by Atmosphere, Not Advice
We are shaped more by what surrounds us than by what's explained to us.
By tone.
By presence.
By the emotional climate we live within.
Psychologist and writer Dorothy Law Nolte captured this truth poignantly in her poem Children Learn What They Live. Line by line, she names how a child’s environment becomes their inner world. Criticism teaches condemnation. Shame teaches guilt. Encouragement teaches confidence. Acceptance teaches love.
Her insight reaches far beyond parenting.
It tells the truth about the human soul.
We Learn Who We Are Through Relationship
We do not primarily learn identity through instruction.
We learn it through relational experience.
What we live with slowly becomes what we believe is normal.
What we hear consistently becomes the voice we trust internally.
What we are surrounded by becomes the story we tell ourselves about who we are.
This is why environment matters so deeply in spiritual formation.
God Forms His Children Through Love, Not Fear
God does not mature His children through criticism or shame.
He forms us through love.
Scripture says, “You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons and daughters, by whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’” (Romans 8:15)
That verse is not merely theological.
It is atmospheric.
It describes a life no longer governed by fear,
where belonging precedes behavior,
and identity is given, not earned.
Encouragement Is the Language of Union
Encouragement is not hype.
It is not denial.
It is not flattery.
Encouragement is the act of placing courage back into someone by reminding them who they are and where they belong.
Just as children learn confidence by living with encouragement,
we learn freedom by living with Love.
Union with God means we are being raised—not managed.
Loved—not tolerated.
Formed—not fixed.
When we abide in that reality, something shifts.
Fear loosens its grip.
Shame loses its voice.
Courage quietly returns.
Not because life suddenly gets easier—
but because we are no longer living in a house of fear.
We are living in the home of Love.
Reflection
What atmosphere did I learn to live from early in life?
What voices most shape how I see myself today?
What would it look like to let God’s encouragement become my daily environment?
Prayer
Abba Father, teach my heart what it means to live as Your beloved child.
Replace fear with belonging, shame with love, and striving with rest. Let Your Spirit form me through encouragement, so courage may rise again within me. Amen.