What took you a long time to master as a kid? I could not read aloud in class. I was half shy and

[applegrove]

half learning disabled. It wasn't until I was in university and taking a second year french class (when I had 13 years of french immersion behind me so I was way better at french than anyone else) when I finally had the confidence to read out loud. My teacher loved my accent too.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Tying my shoe laces

Back when I was 6-7-8 or so, kids had shoelaces.
And parents taught you to tie them in what was a backwards, to a kid's eyes, way.
But..I am left handed, so always got confused by how they showed me. I remember being about 8 and still having trouble with laces.
Soon as I could, I started wearing loafers, still do.

When velcro shoe straps came out, I was so damn envious of the generation that got to wear them.

[Generic Brad]

2. Pronouncing "R"s

I could not detect the difference between "L"s and "R"s until I was around ten.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. I was in your boat. Shy, probably learning disability

(but who knew back then). I had a hell of a time reading, and even today I read very slow. I love to read, read all the time, but I am a slow reader. I read to myself exactly like I am reading aloud----every word said in my head. The up side of that is that I remember almost all that I read. I can discuss a lot of books I have read while others forget the book after they are done. I can even find passages that I remember because I know about where they are in the book.

But when I think about it, multiplication tables were probably worse for me----I remember what felt like years of Flash Cards every single night.

[applegrove]

4. These days I totally speed read and cannot remember what I've read unless it was

somehow stunning. But when I read the same book a few years later... it all comes back to me. I have trouble with recall it seems.

[Odin2005]

5. Tying my shoes.

[yellowcanine]

6. It took me a while to get through the night without wetting the bed.

Downright embarrassing.

[applegrove]

7. Me too.

[yellowcanine]

8. My Mom rigged up a buzzer gizmo with two screens which went under the sheets and had a cloth between

the screens. One drop of pee and that sucker went off. It worked. That and restricting fluids before bedtime.

[surrealAmerican]

23. My parents tried that too.

I was so terrified of the buzzer going off, I couldn't sleep at all!

I don't think anything they tried completely worked. Eventually, I outgrew the problem.

[rrneck]

9. I STILL dont know what nine times seven is. nt

[bluedigger]

11. 64.

[rrneck]

14. Bookmarked.

[Chan790]

16. It's actually 63.

A handy trick. The digits of all multiples of 9 add up to multiples of 9. For all multiples between 2x9 and 9x9, the first digit of the answer is the number being multiplied by 9 -1.

1x9=9 9+0=9
2x9=18 1+8=9
3x9=27 2+7=9
4x9=36 3+6=9
5x9=45 4+5=9
6x9=54 5+4=9
7x9=63 6+3=9
8x9=72 7+2=9
9x9=81 8+1=9

9x10=90 9+0=9
9x11=99 9+9=18
9x12=108 1+0+8=9
etc.

[Ikonoklast]

25. Whooooosh!

That went so far over your head, it's in low Earth orbit now.

[Chan790]

10. Whistling and drawing a 5-pointed star.

I still can't whistle. The stars got straightened out in 2nd grade because our teacher told us grading each other's Math quizzes to put a star if the person got a hundred. I couldn't draw a 5 pointed star but I could draw a 6 pointed star so I drew 6 pointed stars...this worked fine until the day the cute Jewish girl I had a crush on got a hundred so I drew about a dozen (six-pointed) stars because I had no idea what they meant. The next day she came to school with a note from her mother and I had recess detention and had to have a talk with the principal.

[bluedigger]

12. That's hilarious!

[Populist_Prole]

20. Hah! I STILL can't whistle!

The only way I could then, and even now half-ass whistle is not by exhaling through properly pursed lips, but by making a sharp "S" sound.

[bluedigger]

13. Riding a bicycle.

I couldn't master riding without training wheels until my parents took the bike back and bought one just like my best friend's. Then I could do it.

[csziggy]

15. Playing well with others - and I still can't do it

I got more comments on my report cards because I was a loner, preferred playing alone, working alone, didn't like to work on team projects, etc.

So as an adult I had my own business, one where I didn't have to deal with humans a whole lot and could spend most of my time alone. Works for me!

[libodem]

17. tying my shoes

Took for ever. The rabbit runs under the bush and pops out here. I just couldn't get it. My little brother learned in a snap.

[OriginalGeek]

18. As a kid?

algebra still fucks me over.


I had no problem with geometry and trig though.

[Neoma]

19. Tying knots.

I hung around all the boy scouts, they didn't bother teaching me...

[Populist_Prole]

21. Riding a 2-wheeler. Swimming.

Took till I was about 9 or 10. I was terrified of drowning. Finally bit the bullet once and just did a face-down "deadman float" and just started moving my arms and legs pollywog style. Eventually picked up over hand swimming and can do so in the academic sense, but I still swim like a spazz. Picked up reading/writing pretty good. Funny thing is my brother and sister picked up motor skill stuff like bike riding, swimming, and athleticism in general much faster than me; but as I remember, they didn't shed their "baby talk" type speaking until well into 2nd or 3rd grade. ( I mean stuff like "fwee" for 3, "pwuto" for pluto, "caw" for car ) I literally thought even then they were a little "slow". They came along fine though.

[Phentex]

22. I still snap with the "wrong" finger...

I never learned to use the middle finger...for that purpose.

[HopeHoops]

24. Handwriting (as in cursive) - wait. It still sucks.

[Brickbat]

26. I have never learned how to swim.

[MiddleFingerMom]

27. A flip off the diving board -- I started trying when I was about 8.

.
.
.
ALWAYS got 3/4 of the way around and landed flat SPLAT on my back. OWWIE!!!
.
.
.
It wasn't 'til I was about 23 when my roommate showed me how to flip from the side of the
pool and, without a springboard and extra 1 meter of height, I was STILL getting 3/4 or the
way around... but gained confidence that, from the board, I could now DO it!!!
.
.
.
First time with this new-found confidence and I did a 1-1/2 flip -- found it much easier to do
than a simple flip.
.
.
.
Seriously, one of the BRAVEST, most foolhardy things I have ever done is to do a drunken
1-1/2 flip dive off a 1-meter springboard while skinnydipping.
.
.
.
I did it once. Successfully. But it was enough to last me my entire life.
.
.
.