My daughter made me cry this week…

Yes, I cried when I read what my daughter had sent me this week. And I wasn’t sure why.

The writing is beautiful. It is a short, poignant description of a very human moment in the First World War. An assignment for her English teacher to “describe this picture” (a WW1 trench), written so emotively that it was shared with the school as a model answer.

So, I’m just a proud parent? Yes of course, but there’s much more to it than that.

My tears were also selfish. My daughter’s prose had a few mistakes — she sometimes finds spelling hard. However, the teacher saw beyond this and praised her amazing creativity.

Thirty five years ago, a dyslexic boy at a conformist Catholic school also loved writing. And failed at it, consistently. School years were a rash of red lines dashed through the spelling mistakes that littered badly scrawled prose.

That boy was, of course, me. I was given a choice: join the special needs class (and leave school at 15) or “soldier through”. So, of course, I struggled on and just about scraped into University. I’ve ended up doing OK in life; in fact, I’m very blessed.

I’d forgotten most of this until very recently. I ignore it. Even writing this feels self indulgent. My daughter’s essay hit a nerve. Her teacher is wonderful, and as a society we’ve come a long way in enabling people to flourish. We still have much to do and our journey continues.

Nurture Flourishing

It was all the more moving as this week has also been world mental health week. I watched two powerful documentaries telling the personal mental health stories of two actors: one, featuring David Harewood who has recovered and achieved fame; and another, centring on Tony Slattery who was a household name in the 90’s but has continued to grapple with mental health and addiction issues for 30 years.

At CitizenMe our purpose is to help humanity to flourish by privately understanding themselves better through their data.

Mental health problems typically start in our youth; early intervention through personal insight into how our minds work gives us all a chance to have maximum personal and social impact for all.

Therefore, in the June, we will reduce the minimum age for CitizenMe from 16+ to 13+ and redouble our efforts to provide people of all ages with the knowledge to help them flourish.

Originally published at https://www.citizenme.com on May 25, 2020.
https://www.citizenme.com/public/wp/my-daughter-made-me-cry-this-week/