Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school How much is too much?

DS24mos. is in a preschool for advanced kids and is still
very much ahead of his peers academically. I pick him up at 2:00 when I get off work so we have 3.5 hours to do what we want before I have to start dinner. He missed the cutoff for
gymnastics by 23 days and his music class is during school time so we were looking for things to do. He is happier and sleeps much better when he is challenged and engaged in something he is interested in. A friend mentioned
her son was doing Epgy open enrollment math and let DS try it.
He loved it so we signed him up and now he is almost done with
K math and will be ready to move on to 1st very soon. His scores range from 83% to 93% ,not too shabby for a just turned two year old.

I recently checked the reading level of some of the books he
has been reading and found out he reads books at 2.5 to 3.5 grade level for pleasure. I can't stop him from reading but I am a little concerned about him getting so far ahead in math. Should I let him continue with EPGY?

Yes, IMO - although keep watching, and if he stops loving it, let him stop doing it straight away. Also, watch out for opportunities to let him just play with numbers, shapes etc., because actually that's more important to his mathematical development. It would be a pity if he spent time on EPGY that he would otherwise spend on that - but my experience with a 2yo was that there was plenty of time for all kinds of different activities.

I'll make my usual point: if they're going to need special treatment at school, it's a lot easier if they *obviously* need special treatment at school.

Bless your heart. Good luck with that.

I was in the same boat about the time DD was 2 or close to it. I found myself holding back information for fear of the future and we still believed we were sending DD to public school. Fast forward 2 years: definitely do not hold DD back now. Whatever she wants to learn about is fair game. She is into reading, math, foreign languages, science, etc. She goes to a private Spanish Immersion program full time which is academically 2 years ahead and is also learning French and Mandarin. She also started piano lessons this year. Most people would probably consider this an overkill but DD absorbs information. She craves it.

I really agree that holding back is not helpful in the long run, but even in the short run it can have consequences. Because DS is our only child or just because what he was going through was not the norm, we unintentionally held him back. He was reading those basic readers last december, now, less than a year later he can read up to 6th, maybe more. So initially we got more basic readers and more picture books, and we were so proud. But between December and May he got insane for tv, he would even have accidents he was so distracted. We had real battles over it. Then oddly I noticed a friend would go to the library and pick up 30 books to make it more convenient, so I did that. He blew through them in a week, maybe less, me reading and him reading. Then more and more and harder and harder. He had been so desperate for tv because he was starved for new knowledge, we did not recognize that he had experienced that exponential leap that is not uncommon here. Since June, we do books, brainpop, YouTube videos, any type of information is good information for him now. And he rarely asks for tv and all those behavioral issues disappeared. Inadvertently, we had starved him, and he did not react well, naturally. To me it was the epitome of the Stephanie tolan, cheetah analogy. Now if I err, I try to err in too much and let him signal he needs a pull back. I still feel a bit guilty, mainly for missing that his needs were not being met. So like squeezing the balloon on one end, you never know what effect denying the seeking of knowledge will do.

I agree withe the previous posts. DD4.5 is pretty good at letting us know when she's not keen on something and then we just stop. Often she'll come back to it down the track. The one thing I would recommend is keeping copies, photos and videos of what your son is doing. Even now. I didn't do it nearly enough and it would have been fantastic to have had that when I needed evidence.

DeHe's story is a great example and we've had similar situations when we just though dd couldn't possibly need more and she really did. DeHe, I don't know that any of us first timers could have handled it better. So much of parenting is trial and error and even more so with these guys - especially when you have so few resources to draw from for those blurry issues where you're not sure if what's going on is a stage, a problem or aspect of personality showing through. Sounds like you were on it as quickly as you could have been!

Good luck PCm

I agree with previous poster. Holding back is not going to help and is most likely not possible at all! Enjoy his thirst for knowledge and if likes it, go for it! We try to follow DD's interests wherever they make takes us, it's quite a ride.


Wow, this really, really struck a chord with me! DD is beyond OBSESSED with TV right now. I'm embarrassed to say how much she watches but it's a constant struggle every day. She didn't watch a second before 1 and then we gradually let her watch some. But as of late she wants to do it non-stop. It doesn't help that the weather is horrible and we've been stuck at home for over a week (even small errands are a pain because we don't have a car and the closest subway is 15 minutes away).

She's also really into early readers/Dr. Seuss, like I posted about in another thread so I wonder if this is the correlation? All she wants to do all day is read or TV. Sometimes we get some jumping on the bed or coloring in but otherwise TV/reading is all she wants. We're really love to sign her up for some classes (music or sports) but we don't have the $$ right now, which is really too bad because I think she's love them.

Do you have transportation?
If so, maybe making a list of all the free stuff in town would help. Such as: parks, library story time, playgroups, nature center, etc. One thing that worked for us was to be strategic with family passes for places like the children's museum holiday gifts and then we would really milk them for all they were worth. Also, especially with preschoolers you can come up with a lot of novel experiences that are free. A trip to the hardware store, building with piles of old boxes or recycleables, creating a dance routine, etc.

We do have great public transportation but the problem is that it's a 15 minute walk from where we live and in the rain most days... well, that seems pretty far! It's not too bad in the winter because I don't mind taking her out in the snow but the rain is just really nasty (and the lightning especially). Basically, we need to both get rain coats at this point because I think we both have cabin fever but we haven't had any luck locally, so I need to order them online. We have a ton to do here that's certainly not the problem it's getting there.

Amen to that! I only WISH we'd understood what you do at that age! Kudos to you for recognizing it early and providing the challenge. It sounds horrible, but I'm afraid my son will never realize his potential because we allowed him to under-achieve for so many years. I think your son sounds amazing, and I completely agree that as long as he's enjoying it, allow him to keep going. If he shows any signs that he's not enjoying the "work" , give him the freedom to back off. I think providing challenge without forcing the issue is a good position to take on "how much is too much".

I didn't get a chance to read all the responses, so hopefully I'm not being redundant!