A day in the Life - Part 18 - To Label or not to Label. This is the question.

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I have many labels that I wear. Some of those labels tell something of my status like..

I am married

I am a woman

I amin my forties

I am a chrisitan.

Others tell something of my lifes journey...

I come from a divorced family

I had a very difficult childhood

I live a great distance from my family

etc

Some tell something about what is going on inside....

Spelling words correctly does not come easily to me- I may be dislexic or have auditory issues

I have poor inner core muscles

I struggle with keeping my thoughts rational :)

etc

I think we all wear a label of one kind or another. Some of them are obvious to others and some are not.

Other people gives us labels. They might say....

She is overweight ; gentle ; kind; bossy etc

People are in the busness of labeling themselves and labeling others.

The question of whether to Label a child ADHD is entirely a personal. In our experience we have found the label of ADHD in other words the diagnosis of ADHD very freeing indeed. Instead of the label being a box in which we fit and squash our kids into. We use it to explain all the beautiful things about being ADHD and of course also the struggles too. The beauty and stuggles are evident and known and so now we can do something with them. Actually, I wonder if not diagnosing and therefore not labeling a child causes them to be boxed anyway. 

What I mean by this is ... the naughty, figity, talkitive , disruptive child is perhaps called that along the way , anyway. When we know why the child does these things then we can help him not to. 

God gave me a picture once of our son standing not IN his ADHD box but ON his ADHD box. The known now provided a beautiful and powerful springboard from which he can now fly. 

Knowledge is power.