Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Gifted parents with non-gifted children

Are there any gifted parents here with non-gifted children? I am a gifted parent myself and my toddler doesn't seem to have inherited my intellectual abilities. To me it's seems as if her IQ is even below average and I don't know how to cope with it. Any advice? Thank you in advance for your responses.

1. I'd think about where you bar is set. If you (for example) hang out with lots of other gifted parents and are looking at their children then your view of average is likely skewed.

2. Lots of kids can be asynchronous and I know a few gifted kids who are VERY asynchronous. My DS for example was very speech delayed (as in under 10 words (and I use that term loosely) at 2.5 after several months of speech therapy). There were definitely some gifted traits if you looked closely but I'm sure most would have laughed at me if I had called him gifted back then. He is now 12 and scored well above the DYS cutoff. You'd never know he was delayed all of those years.

3. regardless of IQ, my goal was to expose them to a wide range of ideas, activities, experiences and hope for the best. An IQ is only a piece of the puzzle of who they are and what they might choose to do with it.

It is too early to tell, if your child is a toddler!!!! Giftedness manifests in different ways in different people. So, don't jump to conclusions so soon!
My husband is very gifted and he is one of those individuals who appears gifted to any person who interacts with him for a very short duration of time. He was of the opinion that our toddler hadn't inherited his parents' intellectual abilities - mostly because the toddler wanted to play non-stop and was always moving around instead of showing interest in traditionally intellectual pursuits. His lack of fine motor skills as a child also made him look clumsy and lazy to my husband. But, I had a different opinion about it and we eventually did an IQ evaluation and found out that I was right after all. My gifted child does not appear to be outwardly gifted to anyone and only shows his natural abilities when he is challenged and stimulated and displays great disinterest and apathy towards unchallenging things. So, each child is different and you have to wait and see how they develop!
Keep your child engaged, read to him, help him develop his curiosity and encourage him to appreciate new things and experiences. Don't worry about giftedness yet!

You remind me of a friend of mine. When his son was young, he asked his son's teacher whether the child was slow. The teacher looked at him as if he had two heads. That child I believe graduated from MIT.

How big is your sample size? Do you have good records of your achievements at that age? What sort of intellectual abilities are you expecting her to have?

There's another thread around here ( Did you know?) about the opposite question--whether gifted parents were able to predict giftedness in the kids. And it looks like gifted kids come in a very wide range of developmental patterns. In fact, a lot of people seem to just assume and never worry about formal identification.

Can you give an example of what you're trying to cope with?

You've received great replies above.

I agree with others that your child may be gifted and you may not be recognizing it.

It is also possible that your child may be gifted and have a diagnosable learning disability or learning difference. Being gifted does not preclude other conditions.

Thank you so much for your responses. It helps a lot. Of course I encourage my toddler to do things and our little girl is a very outgoing and social little human. I just have to wait and see how she develops. I'm just worrying that she will be left behind by her peers.

Thank you for the link. It's interesting to read.
Our toddler is 15 month of age and I would expect her to say a few words. But the only thing she said until 2 days ago was "this".(This would be the accurate translation - we are non-English parents).
She said "this" and pointed to the object of interest. Yesterday and the day before she said "This mama" a couple of times.
Our litte girl doesn't like to be read to. There is just one book she enjoys at the moment. She even starts to cry if we don't stop reading.
She is not interested in stacking blocks and doesn't seem to know how to use a form fitter.
Furthermore, our toddler can't walk yet and it seems as if it won't happened in the near future.
She seems to be behind her peers.

All the above advice is valid, but consider why you are having trouble coping with the idea that your child may have a below average IQ. Do you believe that IQ = value? No matter what score your toddler might eventually get, s/he is going to be the same unique child that you love.

I agree with chay’s advice, #3, above.

One of my three children is significantly less academically-inclined than the rest of the family. I think it's natural to have a little bit of trouble coming to terms with it, if your intellectual abilities are a large part of your identity (which tends to happen if it's what makes you unusual), so don't beat yourself up. The extreme amount of love you have for your child makes it a lot easier! From my perspective, it's helped me to appreciate that people can have astonishing gifts without being good at taking tests or without being able to learn things super quickly. I am just as amazed by that kid as the other ones (he is hilarious, thoughtful, passionate, hard-working, creative... I could go on!). And my other two kids have learned the same thing from the beginning.

But you can imagine that my kid's experience has been difficult. Kids naturally compare themselves to their siblings. That part definitely sucks.

Anyway, all that being said, I agree with everybody else that it's too soon to tell with your kid!