Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion "Social necessities" beneficial or detrimental?

My son is 27 months old and showed signs of exceptional learning abilities at a very young age. His fascination with letters and numbers really took off around 6 months. At the local pool he preferred to be taken to the depth markers as opposed to splashing in the water; by summers end he was obsessed, "3 f t 6 i n" he'd repeat over and over. Fast forward to today and his abilities are separating him from his peers faster than ever. He can count to 100, either by 1's, 5's or 10's. He can also count by 2's & 3's. He can perform simple math (addition) and loves to count in and learn words in multiple languages (English, French, Spanish, etc). He can read 200+ words and orally spell at least 100 and phonetically sounds out words like mm, mm, an, man! He memorizes entire books with ease. He recently learned that the past can be referenced by the word "remember" and loves to recall events, people, etc and enthusiastically ask "Remember?!?". He has mastered even the most complex shapes (ellipse, crescent, sphere, cones).

If you ask him a question more than once, he responds with a smart aleck tone; for example: if you ask him what color a bee is, he will reply "yellow and black" if you ask him again within a short time frame, he will give you a look and slyly says "striped".
He sees letters and shapes wherever we go, his bacon was bitten into a lower case "b", the garden hose in the shape of an 8. Most recently, I hear him in his room quizzing himself "what letter does giraffe start with" "what shape is this" as he has an insatiable appetite to learn non stop!�

He enjoys his peers, but gets frustrated and confused by them. He doesn't understand "fits" or loud cries and is very sensitive to harsh/mean tones. One playdate ended abruptly when his friend was screaming (as normal 2 year olds do) and I found my son had retreated under a chair with a book in a quiet dark room.

After tons of searching, we are now enrolled in a curriculum based day school. Because he has not socially experienced this environment before, he was placed in the catch all class for his age group. On day 2, his teacher commented that he was "wicked smart" and had met with the age 4-5 preschool teachers and put together a packet of homework. This includes reading simple sentences "I see the fish", "here is a lion". He must also write 3 letter words "bug, rug, tug", he can write letters and numbers, and he is completing his homework quite easily.

On day 4, I was frustrated by the amount of stress my son was experiencing with other children crying non stop, for hours, because of their separation anxiety. My son will say "teacher, fun" but is apprehensive to walk into the class because of the incessant crying. After only 4 days, my little guy is already showing signs of regression (i.e. Reading his baby sisters books). The teachers have separated those children into another room because of the disruption and stress.

My concern is growing, but I try to tell myself that this is good for him and it has to happen. I am appreciative that his teachers recognize his academic potential, but frustrated by this "necessary social" step. My husband and I are ecstatic to work on homework with him, but at the same time we found that in class they are identifying the letter A and number 1. I wonder if this is a positive or negative experience for him?
I also understand that there are "social necessities" and hope we can migrate to a higher class once we "do the time" but how beneficial or detrimental will this be in the interim?

Thank you!

Welcome! You raise some tricky issues, but in the right place.

In my view, developing social skills is absolutely crucial, but if you don't need the nursery for childcare (or perhaps even if you do) there may be easier settings for your son to develop the skills in. Maybe fewer, mixed age children and not all day?

It bothers me that you are "ecstatic" to work on homework with him, tbh. I think at this age it's really important that learning be self-directed: he needs to have a good sense of what he's interested in for himself. Of course it may be that right now there happens to be a good fit between the homework and what he wants to learn - I remember my DS's spelling obsession phase fondly - and maybe you're just reacting to that. But be careful. I'd say finding a purely play-based nursery is a far better idea than moving him to a higher class at 2. His learning won't slow down for lack of academic teaching.

That all sounds very bossy. You know your child, I don't, of course!

Welcome.

When DD was around that age, I never felt that she needed to attend a preschool. We did a lot of play dates and group activities and classes with other moms and toddlers. I though that was more than enough socialization but I was fortunate enough to have the option to stay home with DD.

When DD was approaching 3 and most of her friends were starting a full-time preschool, I didn't know what the right answer was for us but at the end, we went with a part-time preschool that had an open-door policy. That program wasn't a great fit but at least I learned that academic circle time wasn't going to work for DD.

I waited until she was over 3.5 years old then she started a part-time preschool without me hanging around as a parent volunteer. It is a multiage, nature-based, non-academic play school and their curriculum is centered around teaching social skills and building a sense of community among children. It was exactly what DD needed. She went from being a bookworm to a social butterfly. She even developed a crush on a boy!

We're on a summer break and most of her time and energy go to music these days so academics have taken a backseat but she seems to be sailing right along in reading and math as well. If I were to really assess her skills, they are probably all over the map and she most likely has gaps that need to be filled but I'm not all that concerned at the moment.

I do lean towards attachment parenting and unschooling so my approach might not work for your family but it works for DD and me. We're pretty happy. Her father, on the other hand, isn't too crazy about unschooling.

Speaking here as the parent of a 2E/autistic:

Lovely that your DS is excited about academic learning. Along with the reading/math skills he is so motivated to pick up, I'd want to make sure that he's learning to enjoy things the way other kids do. If his interests are restricted (which it sounds like they may be from your pool incident) he won't pick up play skills that are important for building thinking and social skills. He should be not only reading at the pool, but also learning to like the water. Not only counting toys, but learning to play with them and pretend. This isn't "kid stuff"-- it's a foundation for many other things.

The obsessive quizzing language is a concern for me. As a parent I'd make sure to be engaging him in two-way conversation that does not take the form of quizzing or tutoring. You don't want his main means of engaging other kids to be quizzing.

I think it would be fine to keep him home from day care/preschool another year if that's what you want to do, but I would definitely work on increasing exposure to other kids, as well as many different environments. Learning to be "OK with it" is a major life skill.

Many adults can't deal with a room full of crying two year olds and find it stressful. The goal of socialization is a long term goal and that environment wouldn't be representative of what your son would experience around older children. And it is not fun or useful for a bright kid to sit around hearing stuff repeated below their abilities.

Don't let society's "oughts" overcome your parental instincts.

Learning social skills as a toddler is extremely important for all children. It is possibly even more important for a highly gifted child who may prefer the company of adults, and therefore not get as much exposure to other children, because children do need to learn to "fit in" with their age peers as well.

I have to agree with the other posters who suggested a "play based" environment. It sounds as if your son is learning a lot at home right now, so he doesn't need an academic curriculum at this point. He is going to continue learning- he doesn't need "homework" at this age unless he wants to do it. We had workbooks available for my twins at that age, but I let them choose whether or not to do them. One of them always liked to play "school" and would do them, the other didn't really do them at all.

They liked riding toys, play-dough, puzzles, blocks, books, duplo legos and playing outside at 2. Playing with bubbles and sidewalk chalk was their absolute favorite thing to do. One academic thing they absolutely loved at that age was looking at flash cards (not being drilled). We had flash cards with numbers, animals, letters, words, colors, shapes, etc. They really enjoyed looking at them and would ask if they didn't know what was on it. Again, it was entirely self directed by them, except for those occasions where I would take the cards with me for them to look at in a waiting room or on a plane, but I only took them with me because the twins enjoyed looking at them and the cards were very portable. .

At age 2, I also took my twins to music classes, gymnastic/playgroup classes, joined a playgroup with children their age, went to story time at the library, and also went to children's activities at the zoo and museums. They also went to a play based mother's day out program/preschool. At three, they took soccer lessons, swimming lessons, gymnastics and still went to playgroup and preschool.

There is plenty of time for your son to learn academics, but there are certain social skills that are easiest to learn as a toddler.

You might look into your local Montessori schools. Some might group 2-6 year olds together depending on their enrollment.

I wish I had been able to find a preschool for my kids which was JUST about the social aspect and play-based, but also with an emphaisis on learning classroom skills like sitting down and listening (at least at around age 3.5-4...younger kids don't necessarily need to be able to do that), organizing their stuff like coats, backpacks, etc. They did do those things to some degree, as well as learn how to interact with other kids, and that was the main point of sending them. But there was way too much time wasted on boring academics like the alphabet, numbers, etc. For kids who already know this it just teaches them to hate school at a young age. My DS in particular started to act up and as soon as they got out the academic "stations" he would literally make a run for it. Unfortunately all of the preschools around here focus on academics like literacy...and it's way too easy. So my kids spent 3 years learning the alphabet. I didn't push for anyone to give advanced stuff at that age--I knew I would just end up looking like a pushy tiger parent because what kid needs to know how to add or subtract large numbers or read second grade level books at age 3-4? I knew that's what they would tell me. So we worked on those things at home, as far as my kids were interested (and DD was more interested than DS at that age). We suffered through the boring academics but it wasn't ideal. In terms of dealing with the immaturities of other kids...this is going to be an ongoing saga throughout the educational career, and at some point kids need to learn how to deal with it. Not necessarily at 27 months, but they should have some exposure and develop the skills to deal with it before heading off to kindergarten.

It sounds like it might be a good idea for you to look for some informal opportunities to socialize and put actual "school" on the back burner for now. Or else look for a school where he can interact with older kids and there is no emphasis on literacy/numbers. I don't think you will find one that will teach him at his level (although I could be wrong...who knows). A lot of kids don't do any preschool until they are 4, here, and they are fine in kindergarten.

We ran into a similar issue at preschool. "Socialization" sounds nice in theory. In practice DS ended up with little Mr. Poor Impulse Control smashing him over the head with a toy (although I am just a layperson this kind of interaction would seem to have little developmental utility).

A mixed age group might be helpful - our guy is much happier playing with kids 2 years older maybe b/c he can actually talk to them. I have no idea where he we end up intellectually - right now I just want him to have fun and play and not be miserable.

My DS2.7 has had the best success avoiding age-peers around 24 months, because their erratic behavior usually left him in tears. Imagine speaking clearly to someone and having them grab, shove, shout, etc. For sensory children, it's just best to avoid, and for a bright sensory child, it's a nightmare.

What has worked well for us, starting around 2, is to build up a set of verbal social skills to help DS fit in with older children, particularly verbal self-advocacy: making eye contact when speaking/listening, making introductions, asking questions to get to know other children, suggesting play ideas, etc. This practice coincided with winter for us, so we had a break from the park for several months. Now, he usually plays with 4-7 year olds at the park, often leading the activities because he's so passionate about some of his interests (cars, trucks, robots, aquatic creatures, the human body). He can represent his views and object if play becomes unfair. He still prefers to play with me because I can follow his thematic play better than the kids, and as a SAHM I play with him about 12 hours a day, but it's a good lesson for him to lead others and tolerate some polite conflict.

He also has an age-peer friend from music class who is probably gifted himself, and we arrange a play date or two every week at the park. DS' friend is a gentle, sweet boy, so they are learning positive play together. The key for finding that relationship was my vetting the parents/nannies of lots of children to find someone who shares my values. His nanny is now a personal friend of mine. I'm nursing DS, so the AP parents usually made enthusiastic remarks about my nursing, and then that sparked conversations.

One way that we initially bridged the gap between DS and older children was for DS, DH, and I to initiate games of tag, soccer, and hide-and-seek with the children at the park. Other children's parents by and large just sit on a bench with their iPhones, so there's never a shortage of kids hungry for some attention.

I'm a SAHM, and I think having the constant contact with my son has helped me model the behaviors I want to inculcate in him, and to deliver consistent, timely corrections when he veers off course. I think wherever possible gifted preschool age children should be with their parents, because the continuity of care, close relationships, and tenderness of interaction foster independence and security more than an environment where the teacher/caregiver's attention has to be split over 10 or more children.

I think the idea that socialization requires age peers is a fallacy--true socialization requires being able to move seamlessly with people of different ages and backgrounds. Interacting with socially adept adults is the best way to build those skills quickly, IMO and in my experience.