L.A.B.L.E.S: Strategies to Help Negative Thought Patterns

Labels are descriptive words or phrases used to place a person in a group or stereotype and can have either a negative or positive effect on an individual's life. Often labels are placed on a person during their childhood and are carried throughout the person's lifetime. Those labels can be buried deep down in the subconscious of the person's mind, unknowingly affecting the behavior of the person. Parents sometimes assign titles to their children out of anger and frustration. Those negative descriptions are etched into the brain of the child, and like a tape recorder on repeat, those negative descriptive words are played over and over in the mind, until the child believes the negative labels describe who they are or who they will become.