What if we only used words to describe kids that we were happy for them to wear on a t-shirt?
At 16 I saw my ‘rap sheet’ – everything every professional had written about me. As I stood looking down at a pile of paperwork poured onto the surface of an old, wobbly and graffitied table, I shook my head.
It wasn’t in anger or defiance just in simple disagreement.
“That’s not my story.”
Don’t get me wrong; everything written about me was correct! It was the words that were used that wounded me.
**Disadvantaged – felt like an insult. “**That’s my community you’re talking about there!” I’ve asked education leaders what they call the children who aren’t disadvantaged and have had answers ranging from:
“We call them the non-disadvantaged” to
“We just call them the normal ones”!
Personally, I like to use the term ‘Previously Underestimated’ for myself (I even have it on a T-shirt! But maybe ‘under-resourced community’ is much less passive-aggressive and doesn’t hold the child accountable in any way. It’s just a statement of fact.
“My community is under-resourced” is a much better identity to gift a five-year-old than ‘I’m disadvantaged’
Vulnerable – This word annoyed me because of how inaccurate it was. Having navigated neglect, abuse, homelessness and foster care while also being heavily responsible for my younger brothers and sister since I was six years old, I was more resilient than most of the adults around me were ever going to get a chance to experience.
At a recent conference, a Safeguarding Lead told me they had swapped the term ‘vulnerable children’ for ‘valuable children’! That small shift would have been monumental for me.
I was asked by an organisation that had set up a ’Vulnerable and Disadvantaged Family Group’ if I had any insight into why no one came. The title might have had something to do with it.
Challenging Behaviour – That was my least favourite as it implied that I was lying awake at night thinking of ways to annoy the adults in my life. The truth is I was lying awake at night thinking of ways to get back to the only place I felt safe – school.
‘Safety-seeking behaviour’ or ‘distressed behaviour’ is much more accurate. Also more accurate is: “I find this child’s behaviour challenging” as opposed to “This child has challenging behaviour”. In the first statement, you have agency as an adult. In the second you have none – it’s all on the six-year-old to navigate.
Educators, social workers, foster carers (and other everyday heroes) leave the planet better than they found it. I understand that the language we use is a quick and easy shortcut but having been on the other side of that paperwork, I’m keen to find better phrasing that encourages agency and a more compelling story.
Today I’m living proof that people are more than the labels in their records. Let’s choose language that opens doors instead of closing them.
Your words matter.
I don’t have all the (or any!) answers but I do have a bagful of questions! Any ideas?