Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy New here...maybe this is right place?

I'm pretty new here.. I've been reading this board for a few weeks and see that maybe this is what I have been looking for.

A little background: I have a wonderful little 10 month old daughter who appears to be gifted (both my husband and I were labeled as gifted throughout school, for what that's worth). She has always been quite advanced in every area. Socially, she had a social smile from day 2 on, belly laughs at 1 month, and was always extremely alert as a baby. Physically she was standing at 2 months (the dr chastised me for this, so I said YOU try telling her not to stand!), cruising at 5 months, walking at 8.5 months. Communication, she signed her first sign at 5 months, said her first verbal word at 6 months and now has over 50 signs and 20 words that she uses almost daily. She often uses them in more than 2 word combinations, for example, at 7 months she told daddy using a mixture of speaking and sign "dada, kitty is under the bed". This was something she recalled after 20 minutes of distraction and playing. She loves books and can recognize a few words that she sees often (cat, dog, mama, clap, etc).

Anyway, I could go on and on, that's my point. I have NO ONE to talk to. For the last 5 years while my husband and I were trying have our daughter, I clapped and cheered and cried right along with all of our friends in their children's accomplishments. Now I have my baby and I feel like I can't talk to them about anything! Our relationships feel very strained because I don't feel like I can talk to them about anything my daughter is up to, but she is my whole life, what more do I have to talk about?

The biggest thing right now that drove me to post here is that our daughter decided she wanted to potty train herself over the last few weeks. We bought a potty for future use and she took an immediate interest in it and "got it" right away and has been using it ever since. Most moms get to brag about their child's potty accomplishments, but I don't. I feel like I have to hide it because most of my friends 2.5 + year olds haven't started yet (though totally developmentally appropriate for them). When my daughter asks for potty at their houses and is successful, I feel uncomfortable.

I know there are a lot of people that think that it is too soon to label an infant, but I think at this point, I don't know where an infant like her would fit other than in the gifted world. I just want to feel like a "normal" mom, being able to feel proud and say it out loud, or just being able to converse about silly things she is doing or a new thing she has learned. Am I in the right place?

I also need help in other ways, of course, but there are other posts for that. :-D Thanks SO much for reading this far, I think I feel better already!

In some parts of the world, early potty training is the norm. You just need to make some EC (elimination communication) friends and you can brag away.

Welcome to the board.

Part of the draw of this forum is the ability to "VENT". We do it a lot along with commiserating, cheering, back patting and vaious other kinds of support. It really is too soon to know who your little person is going to be, but as a general rule... "Mother knows best".

So welcome aboard. There is a ton of good advice and experience here. If what you suspect about your DD is true, you'll find her between the lines of many other's postings and be able to relate. Use what you find to help keep you sane, cause it can be a wild ride!!

Hey Rachael C - In hindsight, I wish I had kept better records of developmental milestones with my little ones. Perhaps you might learn from this and take good notes!! Deborah Ruf says that physical milestones are mostly irrelevant to giftedness however she has a whole list of 'academic' milestones that are more telling - things like colours, shapes, numbers, letters, word count, sentence structure, etc. Perhaps you might go through the list and make up a spreadsheet so that you have comprehensive notes about what and when your little one achieves certain milestones. This type of information is invaluable further down the track. But if not kept at the time, the data is often lost...

jojo

Welcome Rachael

Here is definitely a place you can come vent and even brag - perhaps you have noticed there is a whole thread devoted to bragging since so many people here don't have a safe place to do this.
It sounds like you have a wonderful little girl. And when you are with the other moms maybe you can talk about things like how much she loves (or tortures) that cat or other topics that do not include milestones. Then come vent or brag away on here about the rest. :-)

Knowing that you have a gifted young child can be very lonely. I hope your child's father is on board, as very close family - for me my husband and the grandparents, were the only place I could speak my mind at that point. The good news is that this part of bringing up a gifted kid usually does get easier. In the end other people really have no choice but to see and accept what your kid is, although they may call you pushy for a while. In my experience other first time moms can be the worst for this due to all those insecurities a new parent has, but honestly, you can come across the very best of people this way too - there really are a few who genuinely will support you, and those friendships are amazing.
Oh and welcome, vent away.

Thanks for the welcome! I've been reading other's posts, as you've mentioned and that's what made me come to terms with the fact that she may be gifted! So many of the stories about early development could have been written by our family! When I'm reading these posts, I feel like I've finally arrived at the right stop on the train :-P....Thanks for listening!

Thanks jojo! We actually do have a spreadsheet already! We originally started it because she was always so fun and funny and we wanted to remember her stories, but then her language grew and grew and we were using it as a way to track that, then the other milestones made their way there because we thought no one, not even us would believe these timelines unless we captured them.

I read a few articles on Deborah Ruf's site. Those are very informative. A few things I noticed that I didn't know wasn't quite the "norm" or wasn't sure was the "Understand adult directives and questions by 6-12 months". From about 4 months on, our daughter has been able to answer things like "where's dada/ duck/ kitty, etc", and int he last few months she can do things like "I think the kitty's need water" (turns the sink on), and "if you are all done with that, turn it off" (turns the toy or whatever off). She can also tell us things like "what does a kitty say" or for the Sandra Boyton fans "what do 3 singing pigs say" which she picked up as her opening line of her comedy act a few weeks ago :-). We have always felt like we have another adult in the house because of that :-P.

The other thing that stood out was the "independently looked at and turned pages of books by 11-15 months". She has been doing this since about 5 months. For books with actions or flip open windows, she turns each page and does all the actions in turn and then finishes the book and starts again. She even has a few books in her bed. When she wakes up in the night or early in the morning, the first thing she does is reads her books (and kisses the pages with animals on them ;)).

She has said 2 word phrases for quite some time, "Mama, go!", "Hi, dada", "more water", etc.


Anyway, there are others that stood out, but as I said I could go on and on and on! I'll save some for some other posts! Thanks again for the information!

*** So I read the article in its entirity and realized that the "milestones" that I selected were not representative of her timelines (books and understanding parents...like perhaps my daughter in those skills that are measurable right now may be at a Level 5 EEEK!

Your daughter sounds wonderful and very much like mine at that age, minus the potty training. I completely understand your frustration about being able to talk about your child. It was hard for me as well and I had to learn to just keep my mouth shut. When I did share I felt like I was being attacked or basically laughed at and told I had to be making things up. It is just easier not to share. The nice thing is now that DD is 3 1/2, I am able to share with some friends who also have gifted kids. Most of them are moderately gifted and are not as advanced as DD, but the moms recognize that and yet, they don't show jealousy. I just recently had a girls' night out with some of these moms and we talked about the kids of course, but nothing was trying to one up each other. It just feels good to be able to share what your child is doing, working on and know they too are finding their way with their own children. It wasn't anything I had when DD was a baby. My close friend of the time was competitive and childish and is no longer a friend of mine. Sometimes you have to know when to cut the strings and I finally did last summer. No longer am I dealing with the competitive conversations and having to watch what I shared so to spare her ... it just isn't worth it. This said, I still don't brag about DD or start a conversation about what she is doing. It is always the other moms encouraging me to share. I guess I have been burned too many times and just learned to keep my mouth shut, but am discovering there are moms out there that don't judge (at least to my face).

I have to say this is the most welcome I have ever felt since becoming a parent! I've read the brag threads and love everything all the kiddos are up to! Some of them I can relate to, some I get a lovely picture of what's still to come!

I'll definitely heed your advice about topics with other moms. I'm learning slowly but surely what NOT to say to anyone who isn't in the same boat! Thanks to all of you for being so supportive! I'll look forward to hearing about all your children as well.