What would you say

[cj]

going to CH made me realise that there were other people who were much more clever in all ways than I was, I would have been impossible as an adult if I had sailed through Grammar School the way I sailed through primary school.

I didn't discover that there were some people better at Maths than me until I reached University - does that make me an impossible adult?

Not at all - it makes you lucky to have come across them at all. Two vital lessons for all children to learn is that there will always be someone better than they are at whatever given subject, but that also they will be good at something, whether academic or otherwise.

[blondie95]

there will always be someone better than they are at whatever given subject, but that also they will be good at something, whether academic or otherwise.

what a good point Cath, im oging to note it down to regurgitate when i have children or find someone suffering from uneasiness in capability

[englishangel]

Last night my 22 year old son told a friend that I was the only Mum he knew who was a 10 (as a Mum, not Bo Derek 10) so I suppose I am good at something.

I went to bed in a very warm glow.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Single best thing?

Oh, and I don't know if it's always been a good thing, but realising that I should stick at a difficult situation and not give up.

Munch

I struggle with that one too. Should I have chucked in Pharmacology for a degree that didn't involve torturing small animals and me being depressed? Perhaps; or perhaps I was supposed to endure it so that I would now have the clout and front to refuse to perform animal experiments, and to offer the alternatives of cultured cell-based assays.

Should I have walked away from my marriage sooner?

Although it was short term pain, I honestly think that I would have spent much longer wondering whether I shouldn't have stuck at it, whereas I know that I did everything in my power to sort things out, didn't bolt, but walked away at the right time.

So, after those musings, I would say that, for me, CH stood me in good stead by teaching me not to give up. Or was it my Grandmother, who would always tell me that 'There's no such word as can't', and then help me resolve what ever the issue was.

xx

[jhopgood]

I always thought that Dan Wieden, who coined the slogan "Just Do It" for Nike, probably got his idea from CH.

[Jo]

I agree with Katharine - I was clever and precocious at primary school and it did me good to realise that I couldn't always be top at things. If only it hadn't knocked my confidence, initiative and enthusiasm quite so much .

Also, I led quite a sheltered (though very happy) home life so it did me good to stand on my own feet and learn to be independent.