Labels you don't want to stick

Tagging your child 'tomboy' or 'bruiser' might seem like harmless fun but you could be giving them a complex, says Joanna Moorhead

As a trend - a kind of instant character-analysis for the under-10s - it is so ubiquitous that there simply must be one in your kid's wardrobe. I'm talking about those hip-kid outfits that shout to the world, in one in-your-face word, what's supposed to be underneath. "Rascal" says my four-year-old's T-shirt, and her eyes light up with naughty glee when she sees it. "Cute" says my 16-month-old's sleepsuit, and she instantly seems all the more cuddly and gorgeous wearing it.

Like most fads, this one is essentially trivial, just harmless fun. But in a curious way, it does seem to mimic - with almost ironic knowingness - something that really happens in families: the way children get typecast, have roles assigned to them and labels slapped on them. You would think we would know better: child psychologists have been warning against the pitfalls of pigeonholing youngsters for decades.

As far back as 1968, a then controversial study demonstrated that if you tell people what to expect of the children they are dealing with, the end results will be commensurate with that prior - you might say, prejudicial - information. The research project gave teachers enhanced expectations of their pupils' performance and - surprise, surprise - the youngsters performed better than would have been expected. For ethical reasons, the research did not test whether the "Pygmalion effect" worked the other way around (would children do less well when detrimental information was given to those teaching them?), but it seems reasonable to conclude that it would.

In a nutshell, labelling a child is a self-fulfilling prophesy: so why have parents been so slow to catch on that if you don't want your little boy to behave badly, you don't go around telling him and everyone else what a nightmare he is?

Carole Easton, chief executive of Childline, says many of the 16,000 calls the helpline deals with every year are from young people who feel undervalued by those around them, often because of labels which are disabling rather than enabling. "What happens is that the children themselves start to perceive themselves in the way they're described. They say, 'Well if I'm seen as a 'lazy lout', I might as well be a lazy lout.' The problem is that these labels are given and no one sees beyond them, so young people feel that they make an effort to do something different and it goes completely unnoticed."

One of the worst aspects of labelling from a child's point of view, says Easton, is when it involves comparisons with siblings. "Children feel very strongly about that. We hear a real sensitivity about when they're contrasted and compared with their brothers and sisters." In a sense, in fact, almost all labels do involve comparisons because if you give one of your children a tag, you force the other children in your family to be reflections of that. A "bright" child, for example, might have brothers and sisters who are also able, but the very fact of calling one "bright" will force the others, almost by definition, into being "not so bright". What's more, there tends to be room in most families for just one of each label: you have the "responsible" one, the "tomboy", the "bruiser", the "clown".

The trouble with labels isn't just that they are self-fulfilling: they also box children in. Who lets the clumsy girl carry the best plates to the dining room table, or trusts the wild child to look after his younger brother for a few minutes, or suggests the tomboy might like to have a go at ballet? In many ways the "positive" label can be just as damaging as the "negative" one.

"I was always the bright one in our family, the one who was going to work hard and do well in exams and go to Oxbridge," says Clare. "I knew how much it was all expected of me and I knew I had to make it happen, and somehow that meant I couldn't slide, couldn't allow myself a single slip. I was always top of the class but I used to lie in bed awake the night before the end of term report, worrying I would have come something other than first. I was terrified I might not live up to this ambitious label my parents had attached to me."

Clare feels, too, that being tagged bright meant she didn't look far enough outside her academic interests, especially in her teenage years. "I wish now I'd spent more time on art, or explored other things I might have enjoyed doing like sport or dancing. But I felt I had to keep on the academic treadmill because it so defined the person I was." At university she decided to liberate herself from her parents' label and dropped out in her second year. Her family, predictably enough, were stunned.

One problem for parents - especially those with two or more children - is the pressure from others to give shorthand sketches of their developing personalities. Far-flung grannies don't have two hours to hear about every nuance of the personality of the little granddaughter they hardly ever see, so you give them the headlines. And, of course, in giving them the headlines, you do try to capture what they are really like.

"When I tell people Chloe is stroppy, it's because she is stroppy," says Alice. "She hasn't become that way because I've said it, and I don't go on at her that she is stroppy, but it is a facet of her personality. There's a fine line between being honest about your child and labelling her."

But labels are often not what they seem, and sometimes they mask a deeper-seated parental issue. A child labelled "wild" might have parents who are secretly proud he's so energetic and reckless and unconsciously reinforce that behaviour. Then again, parental projection is often a factor: a child whose parents call her "fearful" or "vulnerable" may, in an unacknowledged way, wish her to be so because of their own need to be needed.

"Labels are definitely used to compensate for our own fears and vulnerabilities - 'you're a fighter'; 'you're so sweet'; 'don't be a drip'," says Jan Parker, co-author of Raising Happy Children (Hodder & Stoughton). "And we use them, too, to release emotion and frustration, as in 'you clumsy girl', or 'you idiot'."

But how to avoid the pitfalls of labelling? According to Parker, it's vital simply to be informed of the problem. "Once you are aware of how limiting and damaging labels can be, it becomes so much easier to avoid them. Partly, it's just about being aware of how many-faceted our children are - after all, think about how often your children surprise you and behave in a way you didn't expect.

"Another important thing you can do is to separate the doer from the deed, so instead of labelling the child - 'naughty girl', 'good boy', 'you're so sporty', 'you're so arty' - you can describe what they've done as in 'your clothes are on the floor again'; 'you held her hand, that was kind'; 'great kick' and so on."

So, if knowingness can make all the difference, perhaps the T-shirt stereotyping is OK after all. It is a way of turning labels into a joke and disarming whatever malign power they may have.

"It's important parents don't start to feel overly anxious about talking to their kids," says Parker. "We don't want to strip the spontaneity and warmth out of family conversation. But, by being aware of these issues, we can begin to liberate children from the labels adults attach to them, or they apply themselves. And this really can make a difference to how they view themselves, their world and their own potential."