"She's Shy"

"She's shy." This is the comment I would make when L was smaller and would hide her face in my leg whenever I tried to get her to say hi to someone. I wish I would have said nothing because now she uses the excuse, "I'm shy!", when she doesn't want to talk to people. Maybe she really is a bit shy but I feel like I allowed her to be that, accept it and not ask more of herself.

I didn't think twice about it at the time but then my mind was blown open at an in service at the wonderful little hippy preschool she attended. We put labels on our children so easily without any thought to what it might do to them. It is not intentional or malicious but when you stop to think about it....sheesh.
Good or bad labels can stay with a child for life and they can start to act out the labels even if it isn't who they really are. "I might as well not try and talk to this person because I'm shy."

We even put labels on ourselves. If you read my previous post you'll know that there was a time I did not consider myself too book smart. That conclusion was reached by various educational experiences that were not enjoyable. I ignored all the successful experiences of course because I had already labeled myself.

Why do we do this? Why do we feel the need to label at all?

We so look forward to our baby's first step. We wonder when it will happen? Should it already have happened? Why is that baby walking and mine not? Maybe our anticipation of the next developmental step our child is going to take stresses us out so much that we have to label it. "He's an observer." "He is more verbal than active". We have a great need to figure them out and to know the person they are going to be. Thus the labels. I think this is fine to do actually because it helps us as parents feel better and worry less. Maybe. Then we make the big mistake. We say it out loud. In front of and even to our kids. Why!

Myself and countless others tell my son he is so cute. Because he is! He told me yesterday that he hates it when people, including me, call him cute. I guess I have not learned my lesson.

As parents I think one of the hardest things to do is to remember that our children our not our own, they are their own. They are their own person and may turn into something we do not recognize or expect or that we ever imagined they could become. We hope to have some input on their values but even that is not guaranteed. Being their protectors and knowing them so intimately we assume that we know all of them and what is best for them even though they are constantly reminding us that we don't always know!

My kids surprise me every day with comments and actions. I shouldn't be so surprised. We are still getting to know each other because every day they are still getting to know themselves.