There’s a line in that rarely makes it into parenting books, but it should:
If a parent sees their child as difficult, this perception alone can shape that child’s behaviour more powerfully than the child’s actual temperament or actions.
Not the child’s temperament, a diagnosis, or even the intensity of the child’s behaviour, but a parent’s (or any adult’s, really) perception of them. This exposes something we don’t like to admit: that children don’t just respond to how we treat them, but by how we see them. And how we see them shapes how they begin to see themselves.
Maybe it begins with an exasperated “You’re always so stubborn,” said after a long day. Or with a teacher’s report that your child is “slow to listen.” Or when relatives joke that your child is “the naughty one,” and everyone laughs, except the child who’s listening with their whole nervous system.
None of this likely feels particularly catastrophic in the moment. But over time, these descriptions — repeated enough, with enough certainty — begin to cement themselves. Especially taking into account how children don’t see projections as projections (adults can hardly recognise them as such, ourselves). Children hear identifiers. After all, they are wired to look outward first before they learn to look inward.
We like to believe children are resilient when it suits us, and they are. But they’re also porous. They soak up the world around them, the knowledge they’re given, and especially what we think of them, long before they have the ability to question or reinterpret it.
Research has shown that adult expectations can influence children’s behaviour, academic outcomes, and social relationships. Children rise to the expectations set for them, and fall to them the same.
A child who feels constantly viewed through the lens of “difficult” eventually learns to meet that expectation. Not because they want to misbehave, but because they begin to internalise the messaging of who they are by the adults around them; to fit the box they’ve been told time and time again that they belong in.
This is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy: the child becomes the very thing the adult believes them to be.
Not because the adult intended harm, but because perception alters interaction, interaction alters development, and development begins to confirm the original perception.
What makes this even more complicated is how quickly these perceptions leak beyond the home. A parent who believes their child is “a handful” often communicates that through comments at pick-up, warnings to teachers, or simple expressions of frustration that other adults overhear.
Schools, even unintentionally, can absorb these narratives.
“Oh yes, he’s the disruptive one.”
“She’s very emotional.”
“He struggles with focus.”
And once a child enters school with a reputation, the system tends to reinforce it. A teacher who has been warned about a child’s behaviour may even scrutinise that child more closely, interpret their actions more harshly, and intervene more quickly. The child gets less benefit of the doubt, less patience, and less warmth. And the gap between who they are and who adults believe them to be widens.
When a label becomes a lens, that lens becomes a filter. That filter becomes a narrative. And the child begins to grow inside that narrative. Or, in other words, it becomes a feedback loop:
Perception → response → identity → behaviour → reinforced perception.
This is the part that often also gets lost in the panic about “bad behaviour:” that behaviour is rarely a moral failing. It’s almost always a message.
A child who lashes out is signalling overwhelm. A child who shuts down is signalling fear or uncertainty. A child who “doesn’t listen” may be signalling disconnection, stress, or simply a developmental stage.
The problem is that when adults have already decided who the child is, they stop asking why the behaviour is happening. The story becomes fixed into: “He is rude.” “She is dramatic.” “He is lazy.”
The uncomfortable truth is that our words don’t simply describe children. They shape them. Once a child internalises “I am difficult,” the label begins to shape their self-concept. And self-concept can shape behaviour more powerfully than any sticker chart or punishment ever could. Children live up, and down, to the story the adults closest to them believe.
A child’s sense of self is still wet cement. Every comment and assumption presses into it. And once hardened, these impressions become identity:
“I’m difficult.”
“I’m naughty.”
“I’m the problem.”
“I’m not as good as the others.”
Is it any wonder why they begin to believe these things about themselves and behave accordingly?
Yet, the same child, reframed into: he’s overwhelmed; she’s trying to express something she doesn’t have words for; he needs co-regulation before he can concentrate, immediately opens up a different pathway. Instead of reacting to the behaviour, we respond to the need behind it.
We’ve seen this in adults, after all. Many of us still carry the labels given decades ago: “slow,” “blur,” “too much,” “stubborn,” “weak,” “useless at maths.” We can laugh about it now, but it shaped us more than we like to admit.
If we recognise how deeply labels sank into our sense of self, it becomes easier to understand how important it is to interrupt the cycle for the next generation.
Seeing children clearly without projection, and without the weight of adult frustration steering the ship, can be difficult. Parenting (and teaching) is emotionally demanding. A tired adult is more likely to label behaviour as intentional, disrespectful, or problematic. But a shift in perception can go very far.
From “What’s wrong with you?”
to “What’s happening for you?”
From “You’re always causing trouble.”
to “You’re struggling, and I’m here.”
From “This is who you are.”
to “This is what you’re experiencing.”
This doesn’t mean excusing behaviour. It just means understanding it, because understanding is what allows us to guide behaviour, not just police it. Children grow best under the adults who believe in who they can become, not just who they appear to be in a difficult moment. The way we speak about children, to them and about them, has long-term consequences. Not just metaphorically. Neurologically, relationally, and developmentally.
Before we describe a child as difficult, we should ask: Is this who they truly are? Or is this who they’ve learned to be under the weight of our expectations?
Before we conclude that that child is “the problem,” we should consider that the real problem is the story they’ve been handed — usually a story that was never theirs to begin with. Children will eventually become many things in their lives: brave, messy, brilliant, frustrating, tender, and resilient. But the earliest parts of their identity are built from what the adults around them choose to see. And what we choose to see becomes what they learn to believe.