Are We Over Labeling Our Children?

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When my son Henry was 18-months-old, I took him to our pediatrician for a regular check-up. She asked if he was speaking yet. He wasn't, so she recommended I take him for testing. I wasn't particularly concerned. Although my daughter talked a blue streak at the same age, I knew plenty of mute one-and-a-half-year-olds.

We arrived at the hospital for a work-up. As was typical of his behavior at the time, he was cranky, obstinate, and generally non-compliant. Afterwards, the therapist announced that my son was indeed speech delayed. But she also suggested he might have something called sensory integration disorder. I'd never heard the term, but it sounded foreboding. In any case, it meant additional testing. Well, this test led to that test. And, in a matter of a month, I received word that Henry, a child who was admittedly difficult, had a whole host of conditions, including a "regulatory" disorder, dyspraxia, as well as the aforementioned sensory-integration disorder.

"He doesn't make good eye contact," the evaluator told me. "But I don't think he's autistic." If she meant this to be reassuring, it wasn't. It hadn't occurred to me that he was anything but a pain-in-the-butt toddler.  Learning that he "probably" wasn't autistic didn't exactly prompt me to pop the champagne. 

I was scared and upset. I knew my son was moodier than the average toddler, but to hear he had clinical deficits was, well, heart breaking.  I followed the recommendations of the various experts and began treatment, bringing him twice a week to an occupational therapist.

At first, I kept the news of Henry's condition quiet. I didn't want people to judge him. But over time I came to discover that half the kids his age were receiving service for something or another. It seemed like every mom I talked to was on the way to some sort of therapy. Wow, I thought, kids today sure have issues. And to think, this is a generation of moms that didn't even drink and smoke their way through pregnancy.

By the time Henry turned two-and-a-half his speech had improved dramatically. I was thrilled. His regulatory problems (read: temper tantrums) had also diminished. I was thrilled by his progress — though I'll admit not particularly convinced that this turn of events had as much to do with therapy as it did natural maturation. But it didn't matter. What mattered was he was making progress.

I decided to take him back to be re-evaluated. Surely, now that he had a vocabulary of over 200 words and was even stringing them together into simple sentences, the therapist would see that my child was developing after all. I was wrong. This time her report indicated that Henry was hyper-talkative. What's more, she suggested that he had trouble with transitions, didn't socialize properly, had a short attention span, and still wasn't making proper eye contact. But the most depressing news arrived in the therapist's written report. The line will be etched in my memory forever: "It may be prudent to consider whether Henry will be able to participate in a "regular" preschool."

I cried myself to sleep that night. My husband, on the other hand, didn't flinch. All along, he felt all the therapists opinions were, in a word, worthless. "If they would have put me through those tests as a kid, they would have said the exact same things about me," he argued. "I mean, what two-year-old is good with transitions, or has a long attention span?"

These were all valid points. But the experts were insisting that my son's behaviors were comparatively different. And they were, after all, experts. Henry continued with all of his therapies. But, in the end, I ignored the speech therapists advice and enrolled Henry in a "regular" preschool. On the intake application, I disclosed all of Henry's various labels. I wanted them to know he has certain issues so if he didn't meet their expectations they wouldn't think that he was just a bad seed. 

When it came time for conferences, I braced myself for the worst. I had, after all, come to expect gloom and doom. What I found, however, was that the teacher saw nothing different about my son at all.

"From our point of view, there's nothing wrong with your son," she smiled.

"He's not throwing fits, or ignoring directions? I asked.

"No more so than anyone else," she replied.

"Does he interact appropriately with other kids?" I continued.

"Oh yes," she replied. "He's actually quite social."

"And he doesn't seem over-sensitive to sensory input?"

"Well, he doesn't like to finger paint, but he's not the only one."

I left the meeting on cloud nine.

Today Henry is a happy, well-adjusted eight-year-old. Is he perfect? Of course, not. He's got strengths and weaknesses, like all of us.

And as a parent, I continue to do all that I can to help him overcome his shortcomings. He does, for example, see an occupational therapist because his fine-motor skills are, well, less-than-stellar. But I don't consider this a "condition." It's just happens to be his area of weakness. (Mine too, for that matter!) Of course, without a label like "motor-planning deficiencies" or "low tone," my insurance wouldn't pay. And without all his "learning differences" a visual processing disorder, he wouldn't receive additional help from our school district, so labels continue to dog us. But now I can laugh at the absurdity of it all. And though I welcome the extra help, I don't let these labels define my child.

I'm not saying we need to do away with all labeling. I know there are plenty of kids who really do have regulatory disorders, sensory issues, Asperger's, autism, attention deficit disorder or worse. These are all serious conditions. I get that. So please don't write horrible letters to the editor saying that I'm being insensitive. I'm not.

My point, however, is that as a society we've become obsessed with medicalizing our children's weaknesses. And, maybe we shouldn't rush to find a diagnosis code for every marginal problem or atypical behavior.  In fact, it belittles those that do have issues and do need labels. But if you really feel a need to put a name on Henry's dark period, I've got one.

It's called the terrible twos.

 Freelance writer and mother of two shares the joy and tribulations of raising kids in Marin.