I have always wondered why certain people choose to live a certain way, why we always tend to follow the self-fulfilling prophecy phenomenon. This concept was introduced in the late 1940s by Robert Merton, a sociologist from Harvard University. In simple words, it basically means that if you believe a certain idea that someone has about you, you are more likely to follow the path that most people have you on. For example, I had a couple friends in middle school who really had the potential to do amazing things and out of respect I won’t get into specifics. After a while, their families and most of our friends started to label them as juvenile delinquents and started putting them in a category. When asked why they didn’t try to change or ask for help, they had a simple answer “We tried to get away, but it’s almost like everything negative followed us, eventually it caught up to us.”

Being labeled a certain way leads an individual to believe that’s what they are meant to be for the rest of their lives. This is a terrible phenomenon that is more present in my generation more and more every day. Especially since we have this reputation of being labeled as delinquents, troublemakers and people who will never be someone or will not contribute anything to society. I became fully aware of this phenomena when I saw two of my closest friends being convicted as adults at the age of 19.

Most parents say they try to intervene, but most say that their children are lost causes and it’s like fighting a losing battle. Unfortunately, if we label young children from very early ages as troublemakers or something as profound as calling them criminals, this will make a big impact their lives. I dare to say that in special cases it does produce some trauma, which seems to be a hard thing to battle later in life.

Parents need to wake up and smell the roses – the way you choose to condition and give feedback to your child is crucial. Parents need to learn how to give positive and negative feedback when the time is right. My teenage years where not the easiest years for me to navigate through and I am thankful that my mom told me the things I didn’t want to hear along with the things I did need to hear.

Once I became fully aware of this concept, I decided to not pay attention to what other people thought about me. Don’t get me wrong, I do care about my image is, it’s human nature to be very self-analyzing. I choose to take in the positive and try to fix the negative. Young adults need to realize that we choose who we want to be and that we make the rules. I choose not to follow anyone’s self-fulfilling prophecy about me, I choose to follow my own.