Rethinking the Label

How Society's Perception of "Talkative" Children Can Limit Their Potential

Hey friends,

Inspired by one of the posts I found on Instagram this past week, I'm sharing my personal experience, observations, and findings on being labeled a talkative kid.

Let's dive in. 🏊‍♀️

Cheers,

Aimen

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All my childhood & teenage, I was labeled talkative. It always brought me discomfort and self-doubts.

“Am I different?”

“Do I talk a lot?”

These thoughts wouldn't leave my mind when anyone said I talk a lot.

As I grew up and became more confident about who I was, I started accepting myself.

I started keeping track of when and why I enjoy talking.

I learned that I like to talk because I've ideas and opinions - because I think. Sometimes I speak because I want to express myself to get stuff out of my head.

I like to tell stories. I love listening to others' life stories. 

I connect with others through conversations and learn about their experiences and thought processes.

For me, a quality conversation has always been a tool for exchanging wisdom.

But this also brought discomfort when I tried to engage with the wrong people. So, there is one thing that I've learned over the years - to share ideas with the ones who care about them.

So now I have different friends for different kinds of conversations. I have a group for discussing the nuance of parenting and childhood education, another for religion and spirituality, a separate circle for exploring business and entrepreneurship, and a separate group for engaging in thought-provoking conversations about life philosophies.

Life is better now.

Unsurprisingly, my three-year-old son is quite talkative, and in many ways, he is a mini version of myself, both in looks and specific traits.

He loves fun and laughs out loud.

He loves listening and telling stories. From a young age, I started reading him stories, and he always loved them.

Like most curious toddlers, he asks so many questions. And we always try to give him reasonable answers before moving forward.

We always listen attentively to his thoughts and ideas and encourage him to think and ask questions. Sometimes it makes me worried that he may be labeled as talkative and experience self-doubt at some point in his life.

But you can not let fears take control of your life's driving seat, right?

So I set him free. Let him talk. Let him ask.

I let him be.

In my observation, every child, by default, has opinions and questions and loves to talk. But the adults often find them 'different' and 'challenging' and stifle them by labeling and discouraging their expressions.

As a result, two things happen:

1) Children often hold back from asking questions and expressing themselves due to self-doubt and fear of being judged.

2) They stop thinking and questioning things at all.

The latter is the worst!

For the ones who label (unconsciously):

A study published in the journal "Child Development" in 2012 found that children who had more conversations with their parents had better language and cognitive skills. The study's authors suggest that the quantity and quality of parent-child conversations are essential for children's language development. Make sure you create opportunities for your kids to talk.

Studies also suggest that adults who engaged in more frequent and diverse conversations had higher scores on measures of general intelligence and verbal ability than adults who engaged in fewer conversations. 

Meaningful conversations, of course.

Labeling is so standard in our society that everyone experiences it in some way or another. I wouldn't hesitate to admit that I've done this too in the past and still do it sometimes unconsciously. But now I'm aware of its effects on mental health, and I'm unlearning it.

What are your thoughts about it? Have you been labeled? If yes, then how did it make you feel about it?

By the way, you know what? Even good labels are harmful to kids and adults.

See you next week! ✨

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A quick accountability note.

This week was tough. We traveled, and my son got a viral infection, so I didn't get time to finish this piece earlier. I was tempted to miss this week, but after putting him to sleep, I decided to complete and publish it.

Late submission is better than a missed submission. ;)