i am not a tin of tuna

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History suggests that as human beings we seem to have an insatiable need to slot each other into categories, give each other a label, and thus treat each other accordingly. The contemporary world is no different, yet - perhaps perversely - labels are being given out willy-nilly. Your two year old is having tantrums? Must be ADHD. Quick, get him diagnosed! Give him a label which will follow him through school and give him a valuable excuse for playing up. He's naughty because he's been told he can be naughty; he has a label. Your four year old is fixated on trains? Well, she's definitely autistic then. Quick, get her diagnosed! Give her a label which will follow her through school, which will make her eccentricities evermore noticeable to the other children in her classes, and quite possibly hinder her development into a fully functioning member of society. Your eight year old is falling behind at school? Dyslexia! Quick, get a diagnosis! Give them a label which gives them an excuse to never do their work. These are just three of the labels we give children which can cause damage. In many instances I suspect that these are often mis- and over- diagnosed. How has society changed so much that so many children are being given labels? I tend to think that the biggest reason is a lack of routine, a lack of firm boundaries. It is not a coincidence that most children diagnosed with ADHD come from a more working class background, perhaps where both parents are working more hours than the day has, too tired to provide the emotional attention their child needs. Everybody has quirks and all of us are on the spectrum somewhere, even if it's slap bang in the middle. Those with relatively high functioning Autism or Asperger's were the odd kids we went to school with. The loners, the eccentrics and the passionate. The ones who were a bit too geeky. They were the strange professor in his dilapidated house in the middle of your street, and the elderly couple who had followed the same routine for fifty years. Because routine is important. Most of us are made anxious by change and the unexpected, but it may be a hundred times worse for an autistic person. The modern world is amazing. It's explosive and bright, wonderful and HUGE. We have the entire world at our fingertips, never more than a click away. It's such an exciting time to be alive. But this, coupled with a lack of routine {how many families sit around the table every night to eat dinner together and talk about their day?}, an educational system which cares more about money and intellectual capabilities, and studies revealing that children aren't given the opportunity to enjoy books and reading as much, creates a society of entitled people who are only able to function with a label which excuses them from some aspect of their character and personality. My favourite quote ever, from an autistic teenager I worked with a couple of years ago? My autism is playing up! No, love, it's not. It's really not.