How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?
DS6- I think part of me always assumed I would have smart kids, DH is smart, I'm smart, so it seemed logical. When people started commenting on DS6 when he was 6 months old, I thought they were being polite- DH and I both remember being told how smart we were as kids, it just seemed like the thing people say when they don't want to say your kid is cute, lol. Really though it was a non-issue for us, he was so intense and frustrated so easily that we figured we had bigger problems than him being smart. His preschool teachers all tried to tell us that he was really smart. We smiled and nodded, thinking that "Yeah, but what good is smart when he throws hour long tantrums because he doesn't want to have to pick up his toys?" It never occurred to us that the two went hand in hand.
DS4- I actually thought he was a bit slow because he did everything so much later than DS6. He didn't say a word until he was 2 and then he just started talking in full sentences. I realized afterward that when he started talking, he was speaking exactly like DS6 did at 2, the difference was DS6 had started practicing at 6 months, DS4 *never* practiced. I didn't even realize how much he had going on when we took him for speech evaluation at 3 (his vocabulary was amazing, but he was almost completely unintelligible). The school district starts with a global evaluation and the evaluator told me he was completing tasks they didn't expect 6 year olds to be able to understand. I smiled and nodded, thinking "oh, good, he's not slow then". At 3.5 he was completing 150+ puzzle pieces, that made me really sit up and take notice.
DD2- I'm still in the "suspect" stage with her. She is so different than the boys that it's hard for me to tell. She can use a screw driver to take things apart. When DS4 was learning the sounds the different letters make a few months ago, she was picking it up with him. She wakes me up in the middle of the night to show me new things she can do. At 15mo, when she wasn't really talking during the day even in single words, she woke me up to have a conversation with me. DH told me I dreamed it until she did the same thing the next night and woke him up talking. She woke me up at 17mo to count to 5 for me, then a few weeks later, again to count to 11. I think it's because it was the only time she could get a word in edge wise between her older brothers, lol.
How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?
DS6- I didn't realize just how different he was until he started Kindergarten and the curriculum seemed crazy. The school he was at was supposed to be one of the best and really advanced for a public school, but he knew how to do every single thing for the whole year and had been able to for years. But, even then really, I thought he just needed 1st grade work. When we decided to homeschool him because regular school made him so miserable, that's when I really, really got scared. I went looking for curriculum materials and realized that except for math calculation he was easily working at a 3rd grade level.
DS4- I've just in the last few months really realized just how advanced he is. It occurred to me that he keeps up with DS6, easily. He understands DS6's insanely complicated games, he makes up his own, he discusses things with DS6 and understands the explanations. He listens to my conversations with DS6 and gets what we're talking about, adds his own thoughts, just actively participating in topics that are crazy to be discussing with a 6 year old and doubly so for a 4yo to follow. But, the thing with DS4 is that he's quiet about it. If you aren't paying attention to him, you would totally miss that he's saying anything. He won't talk unless he has your undivided attention and with DS6 demanding all the attention, it's really easy to overlook DS4. It's actually the ways that he's different than DS6 that really highlight to me how advanced he is. DS6 is the kid who asks "why?", DS4 asks "why not?". DS6 will explain in great detail why something isn't possible, DS4 will tell you all the ways you could make it work. I absolutely love the dynamic between the two of them. Add in DD2 with her constant drive to try new things and her fearlessness and the 3 of them will never be bored, lol.
How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested? So far, only DS6 has been tested. He had achievement testing about 3 months ago. We're going to have the boys IQ tested soon, we're just debating on whether to do group testing through a local gifted charter school or to pay for it privately.
