What did you find difficult to learn as a child?

[wanderings]

For myself:
Tying shoelaces - I was in Velcro until age 10.
Swimming - I couldn't do it until I was 23.
Skipping with a rope - still can't do it!
Catching a ball - I love netball now, but I was hopeless with sports at school.
Reading stories - I found it difficult to take in new characters.
Knowing when to ignore rules - I was very rigid about them, I'd make myself unpopular trying to enforce other people observing rules, I'd tell my parents off for crossing at the red man.

Probability

Running. It felt like I was digging myself into the ground. In my early 40s my friend persuaded me to join her doing 5k and after a small amount of explaining why I was making it hard work and correcting my posture I discovered I could run quite well after all.
If the PE teachers had bothered to spend a bit of time improving my technique maybe I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

Maths. I have a mental block where maths is concerned and still have it now in my 40s. Everything else - absolutely fine.

Remembering which way round east and west are. I find it hard even now. I can do north and south though

Maths here too. I remember the exact moment I lost the flow. The teacher was explaining long division and I couldn't get it. She explained again and I still sat looking blank and she said "ah you'll get it". I never did and it escalated from there especially if long division was needed as part of a calculation.

I can't work out fractions or percentages. Not even with a calculator because I don't know the steps. I have a huge mental block for it.

French plaits. I was envious of all my friends being able to do it. I might check out a tutorial on YouTube and tick it off my list!

Swimming. Never did get the hang of it.

Also useless at gymnastics, not being able to do handstands, backward rolls, vaulting horse, etc. Teacher was a bitch to me about it, saying I wasn't trying hard enough, ridiculing me in front of other kids, but the harder I tried, the more I hurt myself, including a rather unpleasant torticollis. Turns out I'm hypermobile.

I've remembered a really big one: I never learned to take (sensible) risks, because I was afraid of failing.

I refused to light matches because I might burn my fingers, and because of the childhood message "never play with matches". I resisted fiercely when my mum once made me light the candles on my brother's birthday cake. I wouldn't start something if I thought I might fail. I didn't overcome this fear until well into adulthood, and even now it takes me a lot of determination to try something new and unknown.

As a young child I couldn't pronounce the word THE. I insisted on pronouncing it ter her eh which drove the teacher mad - I just couldn't get it and then one day it just clicked

Times tables - still can’t do em. It’s a standard family joke especially as I work in finance.

I was always a stickler for the rules and afraid to take risks too.
Even as a teen I was terrified every time I had to light a Bunsen burner.

Never any good at sports either probably because I was always afraid of looking silly if I tried and failed.

I was very very bright academically though and school work and playing musical instruments came really easily to me.

Telling the time on an analogue clock.
Understanding 24 hour clock
Accurately reading out loud (I read too fast in my head)
Skipping
Long division
Physics
Doing a cartwheel
Swimming strongly
Probability
Lego (seriously did not get how alternating the bricks results in a solid structure)
Making and keeping friends
Dealing with twattish children

As an adult I:

Can tell the time and confidently use 24 hour clock
Read out loud 95% accurately to DD nightly
Cannot skip fast
Still can't do long division
Can do simple physics requirements in life
Can't do a cartwheel
Still cannot swim strongly
Don't touch probability
Am good at making friends and don't care if people don't like me.
Don't give a shit anymore about twattish people

Times tables
Long division
Reading music (still cant)
Retaining information (ie when revising for exams)

Maths.Hated it.

@gamerwidow My parents specifically used Bunsen burners as the reason I had to be able to light matches! It was a huge relief when our chemistry teacher wouldn't allow us to use matches, instead we had to use a splint, lighted from the burner on his desk.

Being teased: I would cry at the smallest good-natured dig. It simply didn't occur to me to occasionally dish it out either; in my world, nobody teased each other.

Also being a good loser. I mutter a lot when my side is losing a netball game, even though I love playing!

@wanderings I actually ended up quite good at maths in the end, got an A at A-level! That particular concept jusy didn't make sense to me at 12 though.

The 24 hour clock.

Making friends, didn't help that I was a year ahead and summer born
Sport in general but gymnastics in particular
Creative writing
Art

Anything physical. I have never done a forward roll or a handstand, cartwheel despite actually being quite flexible.
I also can't swim and can't hit a ball.
I was also poor at maths and I remember sleepless nights wondering why one hundred and three ( for e.g) wasn't written 1003. Could never get my head around it.

Learning left from right, I still have to stop and think.

I was good at maths, but not good enough to be top set, but the middle set was too easy for me.

Swimming, I could never get the hang of it after I nearly drowned aged 8.

Never did learn to catch or hit balls, despite going through a phase in my teens when I tried very, very hard to learn to play tennis. Turns out that lazy eye makes me a bit of a hopeless case. I've also never done headstands, handstands or any gymnastic stuff involving heights. And at 5ft3 with a 27 inch inside leg and knees that tend to turn inwards, I do not have the build for winning races or performing ballet.

Maths wasn't my strong suit in primary school. I wasn't actually bad at it, just made heavy weather of pages full of dreary sums, and I scraped an A-level in the subject despite having the world's most rubbish teacher (and not really being a natural at it). I don't like adding up in my head, though, and will use pen and paper if I have to. Otherwise trying to remember all the figures is like writing on a window you've just breathed on - bits fade.

I can't do accents either in drama or languages. (Congenital hearing loss may be relevant here.)

Long division. I remember the day we were first introduced to it in the second year of primary school (what is now Yr 3) in the 1970s. Our teacher kept us in at both breaks and made us come straight back after eating lunch as none of us could understand it. I went home that afternoon feeling really worried and the girl next door who was two years older explained it again to me and I got it straight away. It never came easy though.

Swimming. There were a few of us non-swimmers at primary school and the swimming teacher took us down to the deep end, pushed us in one by one and made us 'swim' the length of the pool. It scared the hell out of me and I've hated water ever since and never did manage to learn.

Times tables, and multiplication in general. I'm still pretty shite!