Labels

This past summer I was helping out at a day camp. It was a sports camp so I was the coach of soccer. We had some really neat kids who were all very uniquely awesome.
There was this one little boy with us who is probably in grade 2, and he has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
I had a few other teens who were helping me lead these kids in soccer, and they didn't know this little boy as well as I  did (I have known him for a couple of years now)
So whenever he was acting up, it was often me who helped him. But this got a little bit difficult, because at the same time I was trying to facilitate a group of about 10 kids.
Well, the last day came, and we were all getting tired. We sat down for something called "Coach Huddle" this is were all of the leaders and all of the kids from one group will sit down and talk about the bible lesson from that day. This, as you could probably guess, was the hardest part for this little boy.
Well actually, it was difficult for all of the kids to focus, (same for a lot of the leaders too :P)
Anyways, this boy was having an especially difficult time this day, and being tired, we were not as patient with him as we probably should've been.
Once we as leaders we're "off duty" and the week was done, we were hanging out and sort of chatting about the difficulties and fun parts of the week.
My "right hand man" on the sports field mentioned how it was frustrating that this boy just wouldn't listen no matter how many times you got after him.
The bells finally went off in my head. I had been wondering why he was so hard on this kid. Then I remembered, he didn't know that this boy had FAS.
So I explained to my friend that he had some different things about him and was just different than us.
He finally understood, and I think he felt a bit bad for being so hard on him.

That night I was thinking about the past day and how my friend didn't know what was different about that kid, and that if he had known he probably would've treated him differently.
I then thought to myself, but why does that matter?

If we are all unique, and everyone's brain works differently. Why should it matter that he has been labeled with FAS?
Not being able to listen was just a part of him, regardless of his label.
It wasn't that he couldn't focus because he was labeled with FAS, but he was labeled and identified with FAS because he acted differently.

I then got thinking about the other kids who were at that camp, and there was actually another kid there who had just as hard of a time listening as this little boy did. BUT, as far as I knew she hadn't been labeled with anything like FAS or ADHD.
So should I have treated her any differently than the boy who had been labeled?

She was made differently than me, just like I was made differently than you.
So then, in a sense she did have a "problem" (or gift, however you define it) she simply hadn't been tested and told that she was handicap (or gifted)


Those of you who know me well, will know that I am considered gifted. Along with that comes struggles and learning "disabilities." This may have been part of why I understood these kids with struggles so well.
I have a hard time being in large groups, and socializing and sitting still for extended periods of time is like a chore, so some might say that I have something along the lines of ADHD or aspergers.
But I recently got a new insight into this. If someone were to ask me what I "had" in regards to all this, I would say, rather than something like ADHD, that I had Robyn.

This may seem silly to you, so let me explain.
When we hear that someone has something like ADHD we think "that's the way their brain is made, and they have no choice in that."
So when I say that I have "Robyn" I'm telling you that my brain is made the way that my brain is made, and I had no say in that.
I guess if you want to find out more about that, you'll just have to find out exactly how Robyn's brain works.

Now don't get me wrong, I believe that labels like this can be important. They have helped me to understand lots of people better, including myself.
But, let's not let them rule us!