How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?
I didn't have the word "gifted" in our vocabulary yet, but I suspected he was different when he hit milestones faster than the other kids in our early childhood classes, and I stopped talking about new milestones so I didn't make anyone feel bad. I had "What to Expect In the First Year" as a resource, and it said some kids just hit milestones earlier than others, and the others catch up eventually. I couldn't hide when DS started talking at 9 or 10 months. Since DS wasn't as physical as some kids (e.g., he didn't jump until he was 3 or 3.5), I just figured he was concentrating on thinking stuff first, and other kids would catch up, just like he would eventually catch up with physical. Silly me. DS was reading all signs at 2.5, and reading starter books soon after, and quickly progressing, without instruction.
How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?
So, basically, we knew he was different, but didn't think "gifted" until we read an article in the newspaper discussing gifted kids, with a list of ruf's signs of giftedness in preschoolers. I think DS had just turned 3. I then got Ruf's Losing Our Minds, and started thinking he fit into the level 3 pretty well. Then I looked at the kindy curriculum and started worrying, since DS seemed to know it all already at 3. We also started realizing, Hey, we were gifted too (even though DH and I discovered we were both in gifted programs in grade school, "giftedness" was not really discussed in our families, so we didn't think we were really different from other people. Turns out of course all our friends are gifted too.)
How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?
DS was 4.1 when we had him tested on SB-V, to see if he would be a candidate for early kindergarten. DH was against early kindy due to his bad experience being youngest kid in class (for sports really), I was for early kindy because I was completely bored in school. I still remember sitting in the waiting room while DS was tested, thinking "maybe i'm wrong! maybe he's just a quick learner but not gifted!" We were very surprised to find he was HG+. He did not do math in his head, or act like other HG+ kids i've read/heard about. But we've since learned of all the different flavors of gifted. I cried when I got the report in the mail saying that DS would most likely not find an intellectual peer if we stayed in our smallish city for school, and that he would always need some type of acceleration. But now we try to look at the whole thing as an adventure! (Oh - the recommendation, based on our kid's personality, was don't do early kindergarten, let him play another year. That was quite a relief - one more year of not having to worry too much yet.)
