I can totally understand your feelings of fear and confusion. This children can be very 'high energy' and can seem to demand a high level of parental involvement, almost as if they have special needs. I hope I can help.
One might think that it's logical that a child who is super smart go to school as early as possible, but the truth is just the opposite: the farther a child is from the expected developmental path, the longer you should hesitate over sending him to school. The exception is that some children do well starting Kindergarden a year early.
Of course, I don't know if anyone can say "for sure" if a child is gifted at this young age, but your discription tells me that it is a strong possibility. If this is your situation, you have to be ready to take on more responsibility than any other parent you currently know. You have to be parent, expert, and teacher, working with others as an equal or leader for the next 15 years. If you haven't already taken on a role of this kind in other areas of your life - Welcome to leadership! You can do it!
Part of being brave is to feel scared the whole time, yes?
During this stage, I would reccomend reading a few books, and proceding with caution as far as leaving him in group care. Imagine, if you can, how a preschool teacher with 4 children in their charge might react to his 'demands' that she read to him for 2-3 hours. She might start to resent him and treat him as though there was something wrong with him. He may be sensitive to feel that this is true, and start to learn to act like the other children while keeping the sense of shame about who he is. Or he may start to become frustrated to spend so many hours alone facing a group of 'babies' who he is clearly expected to be like, and feel like an angry alien.
BTW - have you tried reading 'Chapter books' with complicated stories to him? Or is it book aimed at preschoolers? Of course follow his lead, but you may want to introduce a few of your childhood favorites to see how he reacts.
You say he gets along with a kid who is 'like him' - does that child go to preschool? If so, how is that going? It's really important for you to know how he would feel being left with 'agemates' who are normally developing. Try to set up a playdate or two with children who speak his language who are following a more normal developmental path. Is there a community of your-language speakers near where you live? Try to observe how he interacts.
In the meanwhile, go to this link and print out the checklist to see how your child is developing:And another Dr. Ruf link to help you estimate your child's level of giftedness. The checklists start about halfway down the page.
http://www.educationaloptions.com/levels_giftedness.htm I reccomend your read "Genius Denied" "Losing our Minds, gifted children left behing" "Re-forming Gifted Education" "Nation Decieved" (If you are going to order them from Amazon.com, go to the Hoagies Website first, ok?) Go to the library and read everything they have about "Gifted" but be ready to take what you read with a 'grain of salt' as what applys to most gifted children may not work for an unusually gifted child.
I also reccomend reading whatever looks interesting from this site - try searching 'toddlers' and 'preschoolers'
Another website that is very full of information is
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/gifted_101.htm, I reccomend a cyber-visit to the mothership of gifted info.
The identification process info is here:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/identification.htmThere is a lot of information to absorb, and folks don't agree with each other all the time - that's ok, if frustrating. It's terrific that your eyes are open so early in the game. I was still 'not seeing' my son's needs at age 6, after he had been in daycare since 7 weeks of age, and public school for Kindy and 1st grade. Whenever there were hints, I just got embarrassed and felt blamed, but there weren't many hints. I thought that schools would recognise giftedness, and 'take care of it' - they are in the business to teach - but that didn't work in our case.
You don't mention if you have to work, if you are expecting another baby and desperate for some 'me' time, aren't expecting another baby and desperate for some 'me' time (humor intended) if there are schools that teach in your language, if your want to send him to school to learn english, if you want him in school so that the 'education professionals' can give him what he needs - or I should just ask "What got you started on the idea that he should be in some kind of school right now?
Please say more!
((More virutal comforting guestures - what would they be in your culture?))
Love and More Love,
Grinity
