All our Children are 'Gifted'

On the theme of children I was, last week, a facilitator of a discussion on the future support needed for our children in the UK in order for them to achieve their full potential.

This is the event that gave me the wonderful experience of meeting Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the second time. I feel very privileged.

Mr Brown has made it a personal priority to promote young people and I was impressed by his enthusiasm about our young people.

I was more impressed that he stayed at the event for almost 2 hours.

Normally, in my experience, MP’s (never mind the PM!!) arrive at such events, deliver a speech written by a civil servant and then leave for 'another' engagement.

It was tremendous to see Mr Brown spend time with a number of young people listening to their views. He had no notes or autocue's for the short speech he made - most of the time he was there was spent listening.

This had got me thinking about how precious our children are.

I am reminded of my hero Tony Benn who said that during his 50 year plus career as an MP he came across political opponents who advocated special schools for ‘gifted’ children. Mr Benn said that he had 4 children and they are all ‘gifted.’ His children all have children and they are all ‘gifted.’ He said that all the thousands of his constituents over 50 years had ‘gifted’ children too.

Unsurprisingly I fully agree with Tony Benn ... all our children are ‘gifted.’

We need to celebrate our children.