Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Math for ages 3-4

I've been lurking here for a couple of weeks, trying to get the lay of the land. I think I'm finally ready to make a comment. Namely: Help!

My DS4.0 has a strong interest in numbers. Except for me and DW, however, he seems to hide this interest from most people. He made it through an entire year of pre-school last year, for instance, without managing to let either of his teachers know that he could add and subtract. They considered him good at math because he could count objects quicker than the other three-year-olds. Lately he has turned his focus to multiplication. I am concerned.

There are two aspects to my concern. First, I want it to seem ok to him that he has this interest in numbers. Another great interest of his is baseball, and he has no problem whatsoever sharing that interest with his teachers and friends. We live in a baseball-obsessed region of the US, and he gets lots of positive feedback for his athletic ability. But he seems already to have learned the lesson that his interest in numbers isn't going to earn him very many social points. Any tricks for dealing with that?

Second, I want to know better how to help him explore his interest in math. Part of the problem is, frankly, that he's barely 4. He doesn't write very well, he doesn't read particularly well (or at least he says he doesn't), and almost all of the math he does goes on in his head. Dinner table conversation consists in out-of-the-blue snippets like, "Daddy, when you were 28 mommy was 23." I have no idea what he's thinking when he says things like that, but he almost always gets them right.

I like that the whole thing happens in his head. It makes it all seem more playful and fun - which I think it is for him. But it's a lot of work to explain things well without writing them down. Most of the skip-count sequences that he knows, for instance, have songs that go along with them. But we had to make up the songs. That's a lot of work. When he asked me how to multiply by 9 recently I resisted, since I couldn't think of a good song to use. And there are lots of other things he doesn't know anything about because I suspect you'd have to write them down to explain them - like carrying and borrowing. It's one thing to play fun math games with my four year old, but it seems like quite another to sit down and actually give him a lesson. Even if he asks. (Does he really want the full explanation?) Isn't that the horrible thing everyone calls hothousing?

Well, you can see I'm ambivalent about this whole thing, and I really don't know how to think about it. Any comments on any of it would be really helpful.

Thanks,

BBdad

It is only hothousing if you are forcing your child to do the work before he/she is ready for it. It looks to me like you are only following his lead. That is called good parenting

First, welcome!

It is definitely okay that your child has an early interest in numbers. Rest assured that this is perfectly normal for a GT child. The sensitivity to feedback and social norms is also common among GT kids, albeit a more disconcerting trait. Supporting this interest wholeheartedly and putting your child in situations where it's good to like numbers and good to be smart can help. This may mean finding GT support groups or even just having your child spend more time with older kids. Whatever works.

As for hothousing...If you're following your child's interests, you are NOT hothousing! Hothousing is parent-driven, pushy, stage-mom or -dad "you must achieve or else I won't love you!" sorts of behavior. You're clearly not doing that. Going with your child where he takes you is just good parenting. GT kids need to learn like they need to breathe. They HAVE to do it. It's part of who they are. Support that. Don't push, but go where they want to go with it.

For 9s, there are lots of tricks to use--write down for him 0-9, then write 9-0 in reverse order and show him that 1 x 9 = 09, 2 x 9 = 18, etc. He'll probably love that! There's a way to do this on one's fingers and knuckles, too, but I don't know it off the top of my head.

One thought: if you are ambivalent, he will pick up on that. If you think it's cool that he's into math, he will be more likely to stick with it.

You're in a good place.

Show your son the finger trick for multiplying by nine, I bet he'll love it.
Feed his love of baseball & math by tracking stats on players, and how they're calculated.

Welcome.

If you are worried about hothousing, then chances are that you are not! If someone saw our DS's room which has a number line from -20 to 100 and a multiplication table posted they'd probably think we're hosthousing too. But it's just one of the boy's interest. He loves numbers and patterns so that's just him! Sounds like you also have a mathy guy that wants to learn.

We started at the dinner table too. Some of the things that we've done:

• I would just write things out on paper to explain it because frankly it is a lot easier to write out some concepts. Later when DS's handwriting got better, he'd also contribute.
• Use block cubes. So many things that you can do with them from place values, to fractions, to multiplication, etc. "So, why do we call three cubed a cube?" Great "hands on"
• Books like G is for Googol, big number book (forget the title), and so on.
• We made up a fingers game where we use sign language (you can sign numbers 1 through 10 on one hand). The idea was that I'd create a number in on hand and a number in the other hand and DS would tell me which was greater. Sounds easy until you add in hand gestures for basic and advanced math operations, negative numbers, etc...

So I think you keep talking to him and answer all the (many!) questions he'll have about math. We kept it all play-based and let DS drive it based on his interest.

Good luck.

JB

Thanks for the feedback, and especially for the welcome. I do feel like I'm pulling my hair out, and it's good to have some support.

I think Kriston's comment about his picking up on ambivalence is important. I try hard to express equal enthusiasm when he hits the ball and when he discovers some new math fact; DW does too. Indeed, I think we both genuinely feel equally enthusiastic about these. But I think DS has learned that not everyone treats these skills equally. And frankly, the broader environment affects us too: I myself find it hard to talk about math with DS, for instance, when others are around. People just look at us funny. Does anyone else have this problem?

By the way, I discovered the finger trick for nines myself just this morning; I can't wait to show it to him!

BBDad

Well, if he were asking for broccoli when all the kids were asking for cupcakes, would you deny him the broccoli?

If he's asking, go where he takes you. My son wanted this HUGE 100s chart on his wall. I was afraid of what friends would say. I let him put it behind the door so you couldn't really see it w/ the door closed. Ha Ha Ha.

I also tend to de-school the house when friends come over. I got busted a couple of months ago w/ "Re-forming Gifted Education" left out on the couch when a friend came over. It turned out great b/c her son's preK teacher had just told her that in 30yrs of teaching, she had never met a kid as gifted as her son, so she had lots of questions for me which I was happy to answer.

Regarding the math, you can write it down for him. I think alot of math at this age though should be mental math. I use Singapore Math and Rightstart Math to teach it b/c frankly, I learned by rote. Now I'm much more proficient w/ my mental math and the boys have learned it from the beginning.

for ex:
58+13=58+10+3=68+3=68+2+1=70+1=70. I know it seems long compared to carry/borrow, but the kids get fast very quickly and intuitively begin to make the 10s and trade. Same with subtraction. My just turned 5yr old will do 54-8 by 54-4-4=50-4=46 or 16-9 as 1 gets to 10, 6 gets to 16, so 16-9 is 1+6=7.100-46 is 4 gets me to 50, then 60,70,80,90, 100 so 54. Later we'll get to 16-9=17-10...it's based on 5s and 10s.

I LOVE the Rightstart Abacus for demonstrating the above strategies especially for 4yr olds. It's different from the usual abacus in that each rung is broken into 5 blue and 5 yellow beads. So kids quickly see 8+5 as 5+5+3 and very quickly are able to transpose numbers and turn them around etc. My boys are quicker at mental math than I am.

Ok probably more than you wanted to know lol

Dazey

Oh, yes! It's why we're all here!

At a Kindermusik class with DS7 when he was around 13mos old, he IDd the letter "B" on a wood block. Quietly, just to DS, not trying to have anyone but DS hear, I confirmed that, yes, it was indeed a "B," just like I did with him 101 times per day because he had been obsessed with a letter puzzle for weeks. One mom overheard me and she exploded with a "He did NOT just say that! That's ridiculous!" The other moms and the teacher stopped everything to tell me that he did not know the letter B yet. They were adamant and not at all nice about it. It was like I was a bad mom for some reason. I still don't really understand the vehemence of their attack on me. At the time, I just had the deer-in-the-headlights thing going on. He most certainly did know the letter B! But I realized very fast that they would not allow me to defend myself, nor was it worth it to try.

It was my first inkling that not everyone was going to "get" my child, and that I'd better take my support where I could find it!

What in the world did the parents of GT kids do before the Internet? I can't imagine!

I think what you're feeling is normal...at least I felt that way. I would cringe when DS would be reading the signs at the zoo when he was 4. Or when he was 20months at the library, he yelled out (w/ 6 other moms standing there) "Look mom a trapezoid!" You should have seen the heads whip around. It does make me uncomfortable. And when all the parents remark how advanced the curriculum is in this district and your son is screaming b/c it's all to easy.....

A friend asked why DS dislikes school so much and I almost went into and decided against it. I left it at "There is a difference in philosophy."

Good answer, Dazey.

I tend to say things like, "It is a very good school system for some kids. Just not for my child. All kids are different." That seems to defuse the situation somewhat.