Labels…Empowering or Disempowering?
25 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Parenting Tags: communication, compassionate listening, intuition, labels, mindful parenting
As a teacher and parent, I have always had a problem with labeling. I am not saying I don’t use them, but I am mindful how I use them. I ask myself, what is the motive or purpose for the label? If it is to empower one to live in their essence and truth, and simply bring more understanding to guide and enable me to see a better way to support the gifts and talents of that individual, then I say go for it. The difference in choosing to use a label in this manner is I am creating a space, an environment that does not diminish, or limit one’s potential, and it is not a label I choose from my own perspective or projection. It has come from observation, intuition, compassionate listening, and communication in concert with the other to give them the opportunity to reach their highest potential and genius.
I often hear, and heard, parents say to me as a teacher, my child doesn’t listen, he’s hyperactive, can’t sit still, she’s a genius, a dreamer, silly…and the list could go on. The most important thing here is for one not to identify with a label. The label is not who he/she is, yet that is what we are ingrained to believe. Hopefully it gets recognized as a trait, as a way one moves through life. Hopefully it becomes a sign of awareness of the child’s strength to support him/her to navigate through life to expand his talents and gifts. These traits are not to be used to disempower someone, but are used to help identify the different modalities, whether physical, mental, emotional, and/or spiritual, that are their strengths, and to focus on those. Learn to weave them into activities of learning through living life that support his/her modalities.
Be mindful of what you say to your child. Watch the labels you may unconsciously use daily. Open the way for honest communication, and listening, and learn together how to support and trust each other to live by one’s intuition.
