from Life Learning magazine, November/December 2007
Ask Naomi
by Naomi Aldort

The Einstein Syndrome and Other Labels

Q: If my son were in school, he would have been labeled ADHD and given Ritalin. But even without school, I often wonder. Are these labels real? Should I worry?

A: In a letter to the poet Kahlil Gibran, Mary Haskell wrote, “I have no preconception that I’d like to see you be or do. I have not desire to foresee you, only to discover you.”

Without limiting expectations about how a child should develop, learn and relate, there is no way anyone would have created labels. Labels are the invention of the human mind when it believes that one way of being or learning is right and another is wrong. When you watch your son with the desire to discover him, you will have no need for labels because you won’t see problems. Instead you will see an amazing human being unlike any – a world in creation. Rather than try to manipulate your son to fit with our school culture, your delight and curiosity will lead you to respond to his unique path.

Learning and developmental labels are neither facts nor discoveries; each label is invented as a measuring of a child in comparison to others and to dictatorial ideas about children. Can you imagine labeling blue-eyed people as suffering from BDS (Brown Deficiency Syndrome)? “But my child does have these symptoms,” says a puzzled parent. Yet, these are not “symptoms” but simply human traits.

Every time a parent calls me about a child who is diagnosed ADHD or Asperger Syndrome, I listen to their description of issues they have and I fall in love with the child and the parent. By the end of the session the parent perceives the child newly. Instead of seeing an aggressive wild brat, they see a powerful, imaginative leader; instead of a socially disconnected being, a self-exploring philosopher; instead of a child who does not hear you, one whose ability to focus blocks out sound; instead of a child who cannot learn to read, one who is pursuing another passion at the moment. How should your child be? The way she is.

In some situations, a child’s inability to hear, aggression, non-responsiveness and agitation can be the result of toxins or metals from vaccination, food allergies and environmental stressors. However, more often, out of control behaviors are the result of parental misunderstanding of the child’s communication. And learning “problems” are often simply a situation in which a child is coerced into learning something she has no interest in and does not fit her developmental state.

The Illusion of Learning Disabilities

The results of two studies on late talking children are reported and discussed in Professor Sowell’s book The Einstein Syndrome (Sowell, 2001). In it, Sowell report two studies of children who would be diagnosed as “retarded” by modern schools and were later gifted scientists and musicians. Albert Einstein displayed these characteristics as a child. Can you imagine how many geniuses we lose by trying to force children to think in identical ways? Do you think Beethoven was a docile easy kid? Or, how about Roberto Benigni of our own days?

One child learns to read by looking, one by listening, another by sensual experience and yet another doesn’t want to read because sound perception (without visual distraction) supports her unique musical talents. (Learning to read ahead of her time actually thwarts this child’s development.) One child likes to sit and paint or read, another must run around or climb on everything in sight. One child talks and connects with others, another connects mostly with the self (like Beethoven and other creative people). What makes one child “normal” or “right” and another a deviant? Who decides and what for? Who benefits from categorizing differences between humans? (Drug manufacturers do.)

Let's keep breaking down the walls of assumptions: What if teaching an active child to sit or focus thwarts her natural and magical evolution? What if learning to read stops the flow of the oral story telling imagination; why help the listener to become a reader, and not the reader to become a listener? Why fix a child who runs all day and not get the one who studies a lot to run and label him HSO (Hyper Study Obsession)? Who decides that one type is right and the other is not and must be fixed to become like the first? Why are we so eager to limit the possibilities of being human?

We are not in the business of creating humans. We are here to nurture that which is already created. We don’t force the petals of a flower into a shape or color of our choice. We delight in the endless number of shapes and colors of flowers. Can we learn to marvel at all human “shapes” and “colors” of learning, being and relating?

My son told me about a man who said, “When I was a child they didn’t discover yet Asperger Syndrome, but I had it and only now I know.” My son added with a smile, “This person actually thinks there is a thing called Asperger which was not known and then got discovered.” In reality there never was anything. There was a child who is now a man and he was the way he was. The invention of labels is the creation of the phenomenon in our minds and nowhere else. Einstein was right: Words don’t define an existing reality but create one in the human mind.

When I grew up, there were no labels. There were children, just like today – quiet kids who read a lot, bouncy kids who moved a lot and those who brought us so much joy being clowns. The boy who disturbed so much is often the inventor of your next software or is a creative artist.

I suggest that we honor each child’s ways and timetable and respond to the specific. Responding is very different than changing or implying that something needs fixing. I may respond by adjusting diet and by providing more outdoor activities to a physical child and more books to the reader. I may take steps to clear up toxins or metals from the child’s body and provide more opportunities to engage with others, to be in fresh air or to play music. Finding the specific diet and emotional needs of a child requires no labels; it is the same as finding what is best for one’s physical body.

Your son needs a chance to live the life that is bursting inside of him. If he wanted to practice violin all day long, you would give him a violin, lessons, music stand…and you would be delighted. Well, if a child likes to scream, punch and run, buy a punching bag and some earplugs (for yourself) and give him opportunities to master himself, to be in charge and to follow his inner call.

Does the Label Give Relief?

If a “professional” (that, too, is a label to wonder about) labels your child, how does it help you or him? People say that now you are supposed to feel relieved because your child has something real; does she? What is so real about a “word” or a combination of words, made up by a stranger to compare your child to the mythical “others” or to arbitrary limiting concepts? How does the child benefit? If the child never thought he had a problem; if he simply saw himself as a wonderful human with unique qualities, he would have nothing to feel relieved about because he won’t feel bad in the first place.

What am I offering instead? Nothing. Who needs an “instead” when there was no problem in the first place? What I offer is to love the child and respond, not to a label coming from a stranger in an office, but to the child himself. When a child seems to want to be physically active and loud, make him a rope swing or a tree house, take him on long bike rides, swims, board-diving, ball games, or let him destroy something that needs to be demolished in the neighborhood. Instead of fixing him, meet his needs. In addition, consider feeding him a calming diet by offering more protein, vegetables and fruits and less (or no) grains, sugars and starches. In other words, instead of changing the child, respond to who he is.

Recommended reading: True Nature and Great Misunderstandings by John Breeding, Ph.D. (Eakin Press, 2004)

Part Two of this column appears in the January/February 2008 issue of Life Learning and deals with Dyslexia and drug treatment.

Naomi Aldort is the author of Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves. Parents from around the globe seek Aldort’s advice by phone, in person and by listening to her CDs and attending her workshops. Her advice columns appear in progressive parenting magazines in Canada, USA, AU, UK, and are translated into German, Hebrew, Dutch, Japanese and Spanish. She is married and a mother of three. Her youngest son is thirteen-year-old cellist Oliver Aldort www.OliverAldort.com. For more information: www.NaomiAldort.com or www.AuthenticParent.com.