Labeling Our Children

Elon Musk and Grimes recently had a baby whom they named “X Æ A-12”, which stirred a lot of controversy. While the name is very unusual, interesting, creative perhaps, it does not meet the purpose of a “name”. And yet, as parents, we do this all the time to our own children – we call them “names”, such as “good girl”, “bad boy”, “princess”, “baby”, “lazy”, “mean”, etc … that serve no purpose to a child, and in fact, can even hurt the child.

The problem with calling our children “names”, or assigning “labels” to them, is that we are calling them something they are not. “Our children are neither “good” or “bad”, they just are”, argue many child psychology experts, such as Shefali Tsabary or Daniel J. Siegal. 

Just the other day, my 6 year old Chloe finished all of her math homework without mistakes and did so fairly fast. So I boasted to my husband in front of Chloe: “Chloe was so good at math today. …and she also did this and that … What a good girl”. 

The next day, Chloe stumbled on a math problem she couldn’t solve. “I am not “good” at math. I can’t do it”, she cried.

Oops. This is when I remembered the child’s expert advise. Instead of labeling your child, praise their efforts. “Chloe – excellent effort in math today!” or “Chloe, you’ve worked really hard today. Well done!”  

This takes the pressure off the child to meet this expectation that we set on her to always to be “good” at something. And what if one day she wouldn’t want to be a “good girl” or could no longer be “good” at math? No pressure.  

And the same goes with negative name calling or labelling. “Stop doing that right now! You are such a mischief-maker!”, we might be tempted to say. “Oh no, I better change my behaviour for the better then”, thought no child ever! Rather, a child probably thinks “Cool! What other mischief can I make?”

Instead, point out the undesirable behaviour, explain to a child why s/he shouldn’t be doing it and teach some emotional intelligence. You will get far better results this way.

So the next time we call our children something – we have to remember, what are we trying to accomplish? Are we praising their efforts and hard work, trying to change a behaviour, or are we assigning a label to them that serves no meaningful purpose and might even hurt them down the road?

And as for Elon Musk and Grimse’s baby, I wonder if they were reading Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo & Juliette’ when they chose their child’s intricate name: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” I don’t think so Elon …