It seems to be a reality of modern life that we parents worry that our child may have a learning disability, mental health problem, physical ailment, or other diagnosable problem. It has become the norm to try to get children in to see specialists at a very young age for “early detection” or early intervention. I cannot help but wonder, however, if we are too quick to label and actually setting children down a path that they might otherwise avoid?
I am certainly not an educational expert or a psychiatrist, just a worn down, experienced parent–but I see more and more parents worrying that their two-year-old may have a learning disability or fussing about AD/HD because a four-year-old does not want to sit still in preschool and do worksheets and busy work. I do think that even though we have all of this “advanced technology” and plenty of diagnosis and labels to go around, we might be overusing them and being too quick to push children into specifically labeled boxes.
If a child is “tested’ when she is four, shouldn’t she be re-tested regularly? Who is to say that there are not some diagnosis that a child won’t outgrow like the old-timers used to say? As parents, maybe we have to weigh the advantages of an early diagnosis with the disadvantages? I do not claim to know the answer or what is right, but it does seem as though living in this time makes getting away from the early labeling nearly impossible. What do you think? Do you think it is helpful to have our children tested and diagnosed while they are young or do you think we are overdoing it? Are the experts preying on parent’s natural fears and worries about “normality” or are we helping children live richer, happier lives? What do you think?