Since I discovered this expression some years ago, I’ve been intrigued and appreciative that such a concept exists!

Bill Milliken, a Christian minister working with at-risk youth in New York’s lower East Side, wrote the book “Tough Love” in 1968. Since then, Americans have used this expression in the common vernacular, and it has been promoted in education and management.

Why am I so enthusiastic about it? Because this expression reminds us of 2 essential things regarding relationships:

• Pleasing people doesn’t always equal helping them
• We are responsible for uplifting or weakening someone’s abilities by our own way of interacting with them

Tough Love: Two words that mean so much more than what each of them alone signify.
This relatively recent concept is actually defined by the Collins dictionary as: “The practice of being very strict with someone in order to help them overcome a problem with their behavior.”

4 points...