When he was just three years old, my son was building skyscrapers. He would painstakingly place one building block on another, balancing each with a delicacy of touch that belied his age. In a couple of years he had graduated to making intricate structures with his Tinker Toy, fitting rods and wheels to each other with ease and imagination. By the time he was 10 years old, he was showing equal proficiency with his Meccano set, working dexterously with nuts and bolts and strips of metal.

By the end of school, he had already chosen his career path. He would be an engineer, and the subjects he chose were geared towards achieving this end. What neither he, nor we, realised, was that he had been programmed to make this choice from the time he had acquired his first set of building blocks. After all, had his father, watching his son demonstrate such remarkable mechanical prowess, not repeatedly said so? And had his mother not constantly remarked on the facility with which he built the most complicated structures? Sure of the line he wished to follow, and convinced that it was his own decision, he sought and received admission into a reputable engineering college.

Unfortunately, he soon discovered that he loathed engineering. He also realised that there was a vast difference between building a complicated structure on the drawing room floor and the nitty gritty, and especially the level of mathematics, of an engineering course. Luckily, he was able to switch to economics. Today, instead of being a mediocre engineer, he is a successful accountant. He is still mechanically adept and good with his hands, but now he uses this talent to fix things around the house.

My son was luckier than most. Unlike many others in the same situation, he was able to shed the label pinned on him by fond parents.

Parents tend to decide on what the strengths and weaknesses of their children are. Often these are based on nothing more than a childish ability to do something well. At other times, what influences these prognoses are their own hopes and ambitions. You may hear a mother say “My Maya is a born actress!” for which one can read “I would like Maya to be an actress.”

Either way, what happens is that the child begins to believe what the parent says of him or her. A child who is told that she is bright, or scared of the dark, or has a good sense of direction, or is just as obstinate as her grandmother, will generally grow into an adult that believes this. After all, in the eyes of small children, adults speak from the vantage point of superior knowledge and experience, and therefore, must be correct and are to be believed.

Accidental hypnosis, a term coined by an Australian family therapist to describe this phenomenon, is so powerful that it can shape an individual’s personality. Which is why the world is full of people who wear incorrect labels that were unthinkingly pinned on them by parents and teachers years ago. But knowing this, can we avoid labelling our children? I very much doubt it.