I have three great little girls. My oldest is 5 and is PG. My youngest (20 months) seems to be following in her oldest sisters footsteps as we just discovered this weekend that she is beginning to read (decode and comprehend). The oldest and the youngest are so similar in that I think the reason why they were so advanced so young is because they have excellent memories combined with laser-like focus and an extreme love of books.
My question is about my middle daughter who is three, and is just very different. And I don't know if it is because that is because she is a "normal" three year old and my others are decidedly not normal or if there is something wrong. She is just incredibly, off the walls, hyperactive. If she is going anywhere, she is running. Fast. She has the attention span of a fly - she jumps from thing to thing to thing. If she is at home, she will play with absolutely every single toy there is - then run outside and play with some of those too. She told me the other day how much she hates story time at preschool because she cannot stand to sit and listen to the story when there are so many other cool toys to play with. I feel like I should be reading books to her at home (that's what good moms do right?) but from birth she has been totally unable to sit and focus on a story (or watch a dvd). I feel like she is ADD/ADHD.
She is far behind where my oldest one was at this point, and now the little one is starting to leap frog her. But when I see other three year olds and I see what they are doing in pre-school (making a mess out of glue and paper), she fits in just fine. I am not sure if she would do better if we medicated her, but my guess would be that she would. I'm not sure it matters at 3.5 and I'm not sure if it is even remotely appropriate to medicate a 3.5 year old. I also don't know how you can tell if a child is gifted when they are so severely hyperactive that they are unable to focus on anything for more than a nanosecond. If she does turn out to be ND ADHD, I would think that it would be really tough to have two sisters on either side of you that are so out there in terms of ability. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
