Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Should I be here?

Another vote for parents not seeing the LOG correctly. When DD was an infant, we suspected she might be very smart, but by the time she got out of first grade we figured she might be mildly bright. Imagine our surprise. We were right the first time.

I think a IQ test is totally appropriate. You'll know more than you know now and you can use that data (you have options open to you).

I can't tell you how many times I run across another adult who, when discovering that DD is my kid, says "oh, the smart one" or "she's really bright" or "she's the one who's so mature and thoughtful." (And sometimes I'm like, who is this person who runs around with my DD's face and name being all sharp and polite and why can't she show up at our house sometimes?)

Welcome to the list. This is a great place for advice and support.

It's also possible that your DS is gifted in math but not so much in other areas.

I think that studies have shown that when parents suspect giftedness in their children it is usually there (so if you have a hunch, it is likely correct).

That said in our own DS4's case we thought maybe high average or moderately gifted, but he tested much higher (we take this with a grain of salt as it is still early days and IQ is not stable at this age).

Since IQ has a genetic component the parents' perspective on what is "normal" or "average" may be skewed.

In any event we found testing very helpful - it is good to have an independent measurement. At 6 your son can do the WISC I think.

You should definitely be here.


Well-- in any event, there aren't too many people in the world that I think should not stand to get something out of READING here, but anyway...

I think that you're actually one of the parents who NEEDS to be here. How's that?

My own DD15 didn't learn to read on her own, either-- we had to "teach" her using a set of phonetically-controlled readers. Oh, she was MORE than ready, but she hadn't put it all together. (She was four, btw-- but she had known all of the letter 'sounds' (phonemes) and alphabet for many years.)



She tends to look like anything that the viewer expects to see, though, and is often reluctant to "show" what she really is.

She learned most early milestones "early" but not crazily so.... except... sometimes she would do something once, then not again for weeks, months, or in some cases years. Not on demand, not in private, nothing.

She's, um... in college now, after graduating first in her high school class-- at 14yo. With such ease that she's having to finally learn to challenge some of her perfectionism/anxiety/lack of study skills in COLLEGE.

So no. They aren't all looking like tiny Einsteins at 18 months old. In fact, what I wanted to say to you, in reading your post, was that the arc of skill development has-- in our own experiences with a PG child-- been the most insightful set of observations.

Your explanation of the dizzying rate of math skills acquisition-- that's a tell. Bright and even moderately gifted children cannot do those kinds of things, usually. Not without a LOT of parental pushing. I'm not sure that it's possible to master things like "literacy grades K through 7" or "math skills grades K through 4" in a few weeks or months without being at a higher LOG (level of giftedness).

My DD didn't SHOW us a lot of that kind of thing in math without prompting-- I mean, she learned a year of algebra in about 2 weeks at nine, but only be cause we made her do that (long, long story).
But she did do it in reading. She went from phonetically controlled readers to-- well, we're not even sure, but it was certainly middle school level reading and interest level-- by 7 months later. With no intervening anything from us. She reads at a ferocious rate-- faster than most adults I know, and she attained that kind of speed and comprehension within a year of learning to decode. That's a PG learning arc in action. It's like a step function-- I have no idea how it works.

She's also a bit unusual in that she's quite even in her academic profile-- that is, nothing is terribly far ahead or behind anything else, so it was a no-brainer in many ways to accelerate her, since she also has advanced social skills. She found agemates (and their frankly uncivilized behavior) to be nothing short of appalling when she was younger. Heck, even now she kind of finds that to be the case.


Get testing if you feel like it would help you. We didn't go that route because we never saw a reason (and because we also had a number of reasons to expect that testing was going to be inaccurate on the low side, and that therefore her performance level was the better measure.

First of all, welcome! And yes, you should definitely be here.

This screams gifted to me. Most 6-year-olds simply do not do this.

FYI, the process of getting your child assessed will likely be an emotional roller coaster ride for you (I just went through this and was a complete mess... I can PM with you all the gory details). But keep in mind that parents can be blinded by their child's exceptional abilities for various reasons (lack of an "average" child as a reference point, Impostor Syndrome, etc.). We ended up applying to a gifted school for my DS, and they required an IQ test as well. We thought he'd end up scoring on the mildly gifted end but were completely floored when he tested highly gifted. So it's definitely better to know.

Welcome to the forum. Your concerns are relevant to it.

I don't think going to school with children a year or two older stunts the social development of a child, and I have never seen research showing it does. In fact, being with children of the same chronological age but a lower mental age may cause loneliness, since your child will have different interests.

I am relatively inexperienced on this board, so you should listen to other posters more than me :-) but I'd say yes.

My DS10 taught himself to read at 3, was reading well at 4, etc. Super into science and could discuss science knowledgeably early. All that kind of thing. DD8 did not "really" learn to read until she was around 6 or 7. Very typical timeline - although she took off once she was confident (she's perfectionistic, and would not admit what she did know until she was sure of it). She was just tested due to behavior issues this year in school (2nd grade) and low and behold, she tests higher than her brother, despite not showing real signs of being anything beyond an accelerated learner/high achiever until this year - and even then it was hard to tell b/c she wasn't actually doing much work (absolute refusal to do the menial tasks she had in front of her... in talking with the school psychologist, it turns out she met all the benchmarks/had mastered 2nd grade curriculum goals in September.. of course no one bothered to tell me anything beyond "she did well"... sigh).

If you can test him now, do so. The testing allows me to say w/out a doubt that DD deserves to be subject accelerated, and advocate for her w/out seeming like "that parent" who thinks their kid is "extraordinarily gifted" (but really is just smart...).

I wish I could give my kids back the years they spent learning very little in school. DS especially seems to have lost the joy in learning he used to have. If I had known what I know now, I'd have done it when DS started 1st grade for sure.