Magenta, you've accurately described my daughter's early childhood to a tee-- and couple that with the fact that the other children that we DID know were either related to us by blood, or the offspring of dual-PhD couples, and well... you get the picture. What we thought of as "average" was probably more like "very-bright-to-gifted" to begin with. So we thought of DD as "bright" but didn't spend a lot of time/angst on this otherwise.
The reason that I mention this fact is that it has made NO difference to DD's trajectory that I can see. I have some regrets, but they definitely don't relate to not having her in academic enrichment at a young age. Things that I
do regret have related to not being willing to follow where she clearly wanted (and probably needed) to go and
when.* teaching her to read when she was VERY clearly ready, willing, and able-- at 18-24 mo. We actively discouraged her instead, upon the advice of a relative who was an elementary school teacher. Now, her advice might have been appropriate for a "bright" youngster, but it was NOT good advice for a PG child.
* forcing her to slow her rate of learning to match her
weakest skill set (writing); this informed a perfectionistic outlook on every OTHER area, and it also caused her to think of herself as "not good at" writing-- because it was a RELATIVE weakness.
* slowing down her academic progression.
Things that I
do wish that we'd done differently:
* been firmer with the school re: what constituted "appropriate" work for her,
* investigated early college options more thoroughly, probably including a major move in that mix,
* not forced agemate interactions that just didn't fit in the name of "socializing" our child, and finally--
*
noted her perfectionism for what it REALLY is-- and aggressively intervened/remediated very early-- as young as YOUR child is now, in fact.My daughter is a great kid, and she seems (so far) to have turned out just very well in spite of those things that we didn't know were important.
So here's the advice portion of our program today...
I'd say that
awareness of the possibility is probably all that is needed at this age. Just be open and enjoy your child for who he is, not what he SHOULD (or COULD) be.
