It is said that childhood tendencies forecast adult abilities. The idea that you can gain a reasonably clear indication of a child’s personality and talents by the time they are 7 or 8 years old – perhaps even younger - is one I’ve thought about quite a lot lately. I’ve tried very hard to get in touch with that child and remember who she was and what she liked to do. While most of my recollections around that time are vague, there is one particular incident which I recall quite vividly.

When I was 8 years old I wrote a poem. It was a school assignment and I spent hours deliberating over rhyme and rhythm and testing it out on my family. I set off to school the next day quietly confident that I would at least get a pass mark for my efforts. The teacher asked a few of us to stand and read out what we had written and when my turn came I dutifully stood and read.

The reaction I received was unexpected – a number of children openly accused me of plagiarism. Although of course they didn’t use that particular word. But they definitely told me I hadn’t written the poem – it was too good and I must have copied it from a book. I sat down in bewilderment.

To a more self-confident child this might have been affirmation, giving them greater motivation to pursue a career in creative writing. But I was a quiet, shy young thing and my desire for self-preservation told me that I should give up while I was ahead. After all, I didn’t want to keep exposing myself to criticism.

I was a teenager before I wrote any more poems and even then I refused to let other people read them. I wrote spasmodically, all but giving up in my early twenties. And giving up with it any ambition to be a poet, author or story teller.

Looking back on that incident in primary school I want to tell that little girl that the comments by her schoolmates were actually positive, not negative. That if they thought she had copied the poem from a book it means the poem was worthy of publication. “Keep on writing” I would tell her. “One day you’re going to publish a whole shelf full of poetry and story books.”

Perhaps your experience was similar. Unfortunately without affirmation those things that set us apart are easily submerged beneath the things that make us like everyone else. For some of us, lack of encouragement from the people who are important to us douses the flame of curiosity or desire we carry secretly within us.

How is it that most of the time we let the outside voices drown out our own internal voice? That we feel the need to discard those things which define us uniquely, because we feel it is more important to please others?

Today is the day your internal voice is allowed to speak without interruption. Today is the day you reclaim those joys of childhood in your search for what defines who you are – those things that are uniquely you.

As a child my friend Edi was constantly in trouble for drawing on the walls at school. Unlike me he was not easily put off by negative responses to his creative expression. His passion continued to burn into adulthood and he now runs a very successful graphic design company and has established a national reputation as a cartoonist.

Is there one thing that you liked to do as a child that you could re-discover as an adult? Take time in the quiet to reflect on what it was you gravitated towards as a 7 or 8 year old. Think about it, imagine yourself doing it, and give it a try. Who knows, one small step by the child within you may help you discover a long lost passion.

Join me next month as we continue the journey.


“Study and, in general, the pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all of our lives.” (Albert Einstein)

“..you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.” (Jesus)


(c) Wendy Rush 2007