In one of my first teaching jobs I worked at a school for 'maladjusted children'. I was distinctly uncomfortable about this label. The students were certainly challenging. but most were responding to difficult situations in their young lives, including abuse, rejection and trauma.
Some had powerful negative role models. It was these situations that were 'mal'; to label the children instead seemed illogical. Fortunately others agreed and schools for 'maladjusted children' eventually became schools for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties.
Language influences how we interpret what is going on around us.
Conversations are the means by which beliefs and ways of seeing the world become established. The way we talk about children and behaviour determines how we think about it, which in turn suggests what we do about it, especially in the longer term. Such discourses can become powerful in a group and make it hard to challenge some interpretations of behaviour.
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