Labelling children: Can we just stop, please?

Harriet Shearsmith - 15 Jun 15

I read a piece recently about labelling children and how the mother (and writer) was sick of hearing people say they didn’t want a label for their child, that it was a positive thing to help accommodate understanding for children who needed that extra bit of help, how it must be embraced by parents. As I read the piece I couldn’t help but feel irritated by the author. As a mother of an autistic child, she was in a unique position where a ‘label’ would help her child, and hopefully help her to get the tools that she needed to further her child’s education and help them live a life that is more centred to the way they see the world and helps others to see it through their eyes. To her a ‘label’ was essential and it was a positive thing.

This mother did not represent the thousands of mothers who she was throwing her bitter rhetoric at, and she didn’t represent me. Labels are only positive if they are in relation to a diagnosis – they aren’t designed to be treated like sweeties at the fun fair handed out on a whim.

When Reuben was about 18 months old, we made the decision to send him to a local nursery and preschool (I’ve mentioned it a few times on my blog) and initially Roo grew in confidence and flourished. Until he moved from the nursery side of things to the preschool. Then we started to have problems. Within a matter of weeks we were told that Reuben was an unusually hyperactive child, and he might have some kind of hyperactivity disorder. A few months passed and we were told that ADHD might be on the cards, and eventually, we were told that it was the owner’s belief that Reuben had Aspergers. He was only 3 years old at this point.

Now as first time parents (to Reuben) we did everything we could to look into this – there were tears and upset because we were frightened that people would see our beautiful boy as ‘abnormal’ or a ‘weirdo’ (because let’s face it, society is still in the middles ages when it comes to mental health – people with special needs are still openly and cruelly ridiculed, often by those who are supposed to care for them), but our overwhelming feeling was that, if it was best for Reuben then who the hell cares what ‘label’ he has? Until we discovered that we weren’t the only parents who had been told this, until we discovered that we were one of several families to be told by the preschool that our child was ‘suspected’ to be autistic, have aspergers or ADHD for no apparent reason and without sufficient evidence to even warrant a professional diagnosis from the team of individuals that come together to assess a child – which takes years. Unfortunately, among the health professionals in the area this particular place has a bad reputation for ‘labelling’ children, that aren’t easily manipulated and don’t comply to every instruction or just sit quietly and work/read. The further I dug into the situation, the more I discovered that it isn’t at all unusual for children to be labelled as a ‘cop out’ – in fact it is quite a common practice.

To me, some children (Reuben being one of them) test boundaries more thoroughly – and rightly so, we need to remember that children are human beings, with their own views and ideas. That is exactly how it should be, as parents, teachers and influential adults, we are there to guide children and help them make the right choices, not to squash their personalities and replace it with ours – or if we can’t do that, label them as having a disorder. As adults, I feel it’s also our responsibility to allow children to test the boundaries that we put in place, but to hold firm to those boundaries – to be strict. I don’t feel that a child who requires you to be a ‘stricter’ adult, with more stringent boundaries therefore needs you to label them, if anything that is such lazy teaching or parenting. I’m not talking about children who require help at school or in general life – those that have been diagnosed by the team of professionals or are going through the painstaking process –  I’m talking about children who are ‘naughty’ in school, extroverted (or introverted) in their attitudes and sometimes struggle to make friends. Instead of ‘labelling’ these children, how about we ask them simple questions like, “what made you hit so and so?”, “is there a reason you don’t want to play with your friends?”, etc etc. before we jump the gun and throw out a label without any idea what we are really saying or doing.

My son is now four years old, he is bright, intelligent and cheeky. He has the attention span of a knat (unless it is about transformers) and he is flighty when it comes to work ethic. He is not, nor has he ever been, autistic. He doesn’t have ADHD. He doesn’t have Aspergers or hyperactivity. It is an insult to the children and parents who have to go through the difficult process of having a child professionally diagnosed, who have to fight to get the ‘label’ they desperately need in order to make their child’s lives liveable, to launch a label at any child without proper reason – purely done because it’s ‘easier’ to say a child is ADHD than to work with that child or guide them in their growth.

Every parent should be aware that there are various conditions that make their child see the world differently to others, but you have to realise that children also see the world differently to adults and we need to adjust our expectations to meet their ability, not push a label onto them so that we can make sense of their behaviour more comfortably.

Harriet x

Harriet Shearsmith

My name is Harriet, I am a mama to three wonderful kiddos, living in the North of England - though I'd really rather be in the South where things actually happen. I am a serious purveyor of all things boutique or stylish for children and I have a fundamental need to share this obsession with people on my blog Toby&Roo. I'm addicted to costa caramel lattes and chilli - though not at the same time, obvs. Oh, and I sometimes use the term obvs... sorry about that.

View profile for posts, events and more info