Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Introducing my 3 year old son

I'm so glad to have found this forum. My son just turned 3 years old and everyday he amazes us with the wonders of his little brilliant mind:). We are a bilingual couple and we have been raising him to be bilingual. He was a very late speaker ( has boy been formulating sentences for about 3 months now). We worried for a while but we knew he was very smart little man from very early on. He knew the complete alphabet around the age of 15 months in English and Portuguese. I don't even know how far he can count to at least 5000 before the was 2 1/2. We would write numbers for him and ask him where certain number was and he would point right to it even thughhe couldn't really say it. And now that his words have been flowing out of his mouth we realized he can read. And the speed that he reads is amazing for a 3 year old!!
His life is numbers and letters! He plays a little with cars or train but he much prefers to spend his time counting things, or reading or play with toys that have numbers in it than with imaginative playing.
My husband and I were reading about Einstein syndrome and we could see some similarities with our son, specially the later speaking.
We are new to all this and we would love to learn with all of you how to help our son and guide his steps on this journey.
My first question would be should we consider a gifted private school, home schooling or regular school for him.

Welcome!

For school... that is something you will need to look into. You will find on this board people who have done all those options with their gifted kids and found success and obstacles to overcome with all of those. As someone stated here recently "when you have seen one gifted child, you have seen one gifted child" - meaning, what works for one child won't necessarily work for another.

A lot will depend on the school options around you and whether they would work for (and with) you and your child. Have you started to look into what the schools are like (school visits, meeting local parents etc)? That is probably the best starting point.

Welcome to the forum.

My DD was a number and letter loving toddler too. We also speak multiple languages and she didn't start speaking until she turned 2 and by then, she could read. It took me awhile to figure out what to do with a child who defied everything I knew about cognitive development.

When I talked to a friend/coworker who has raised two gifted children, she told me one thing she regrets is that she didn't do more to help them develop social skills when they were younger. My DD back then didn't have social issues but as she got a little older, slowly but surely, things became problematic and I would see that she needed support in some areas like relating to age-peers, overcoming perfectionism, and dealing with a sense of isolation. We found a tiny little school that didn't mind that she is intense, high-maintenance, and academically advanced for her age. Her problems haven't gone away completely and we have our ups and downs but the teacher is willing to work with us and with DD.

I also recommend finding an activity that your DS would enjoy even if it's not exactly his forte. For DD, it was ballet. She was so horrible at it but it didn't matter because she loved it and had fun. I think that kind of freedom with learning process is a good thing to develop.

If I could undo anything I did is pushing her to discover popular culture so she has something in common with girls her age. I think we've gone a bit too far with this and now, I have a child who is completely addicted to My Little Ponies. I suppose there are worse things than MLP (i.e., Frozen) but OMG, I can't get the sound of Pinkie Pie's voice out of my head.

Thank you so much for your warm welcome:)! This is going to be a wonderful place to learn and share experiences, I can tell already!
We just visited a school for gifted children and it was really great to see how they work with the children. Their skills are more important than grade. If my son's math skill is more like a first grader than he would go into the first grade classroom for a couple of hours and back into kindergarten to keep working on the things that he needs if that makes sense. It is a small school, about 30 to 40 students from pre school till 8th grade. It would be a stretch financially for us but my son is worth it:). We might start him next year.
Mana: so funny your story about little ponies lol!! And I totally agree with you, and that is my biggest worry about him not connecting with other children. I will definitely look into putting him in something he might enjoy like soccer or martial arts. Right now he just likes to run lol!!