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Just another thought, that occurred to me after we started DD on time for K (with a late August birthday)--so that she is almost as young as possible for her grade, while her lovely cousins are mid- and almost as old as possible for their grades--if you keep him back now, you can enjoy him for another year living at home--maybe a bonus if he ends up being a good-natured teen.

I may have jumped the gun, a bit, but she's been 50% advanced in everything but speech pretty much since birth. I had all those baby books and nothing seemed "right". So I started doing research. I make no claim to having a pg child, though!

I actually see a lot of moms with kids under 4 on here. I've read that most parents do accurately identify their kids as gifted, but I wonder if some of the Davidson's families ever read our posts and kind of roll their eyes? There are so many people likely lurking vs posting actively on here.

I have very LATE bloomers! With DS4, other than him being extremely interested in computers (hardware) since the time he could crawl, we just knew he's bright but didn't think anything of it. Now with DS2.7 ... we were actually thinking he was severely delayed (cognitively and in communication) until I realized when he was about 23 months that he was counting his finger food, recognizing numbers, knowing all phonetic sounds ... but absolutely lacking any interest in doing what he "should had been doing" at that age ... like stacking 3 blocks on top of each other! lol ... now, he still doesn't talk other than some words and couple phrases ... but he gives me this look that says it all "MOM! you just DON'T GET IT!" ... as he's reading an ebook on his brother's Leappad while solving a logic puzzle on his Leapster at the same time. I appologize to him every day in my mind for thinking that his mind wasn't quite there just a few months ago! lol

I went back and read your first post and DD is there right now - Almost 23 months - mastered the ABCs months ago, is counting and recognizing numbers through 10, and starting to tell us what sounds the letters make. She is "speech delayed", and if we hadn't taught her so much sign language, I'm certain we would have felt she was very delayed. Have you read The Einstein Syndrome?

We actually discovered and fixed a previously undiagnosed lip and tongue tie, so that could "fix" her speech delay. We'll see! If it does, I'll be telling everyone with speech delayed children to go research lip ties, tongue ties and Dr. Kotlow.

islandofapples ... YES! I found info about the Einstein Syndrome the night I saw him count his hotdog pieces to 19! lol I didn't know he could count to 5, not to mention 19! We started with GFCF (gluten free casein free) diet almost 3 weeks ago and are seeing a BIG difference! ... and for what it's worth, DS4 was very behind in speech as well and then right after he was little over 30 months old he went from having few words to speaking full sentences in a matter of 2 weeks. And now won't stop talking! ever! lol

I was a clueless mom my first time around (despite going to college to teach elementary special ed - go figure). My daughter was walking and talking at 9 months - negotiating, not just talking. It never occurred to me that she might be gifted until she was older. My middle child refused to walk (a speed crawler) until almost a year and half. I missed the boat with him as well until a Kinder teacher asked to have him screened. My youngest, I knew from the time he was a newborn that he was different. At only a few weeks old, he would move to the off-beat rhythm when we took him to the symphony. He was playing Star Wars shooting games (when his brother left them running) when he wasn't yet two - and could beat his older brother's scores. He tried hacking our passwords on the computer around the same age. He memorized entire audio books, including the sound effects, when he was three. But he talked, walked, potty trained really late, so I decided to just wait and see how it went. But I did know something was definitely not the norm.

So, my thoughts are that sometimes we innately know our young ones are way ahead of the developmental curve and begin searching for answers because we think maybe we're a little crazy. Sometimes maybe a mom really, really wants their child to be gifted, but I haven't seen that nearly as much as moms who suspected and wanted to confirm what they were seeing.

But having ridden far enough down this river of raising gifted kids to have plunged over a few waterfalls and jostled through a boatload of rapids, my advice to all of them is pretty much the same. Keep an eye out, log the milestones in case you need them for applications, but just enjoy these slower years before life ramps up and you're in the thick of it having to advocate and argue and push and interject and intrude and... Really. When they're tiny is the only time you can just savor their growth and not have to fight someone else to make sure your kiddo is getting what they need in a system not built for them.

This is really great advice, but also, for us anyway, going down the path early and thinking about the future has confirmed our desire to probably homeschool, and hopefully we can plan for our future (financially) with that in mind.

But I guess you can't avoid having to push and such even if you do homeschool, right? There are a lot of other activities with age rules.

Yes, there are (said as a former homeschooling parent). The problem for PG kids is that their trajectory often takes them further and FURTHER from those age norms the older you get.

By the time external authorities become truly very rigid about age-guidelines, that's when you MOST need people to have an open mind. And they don't.

So yes; I second ABQ's philosophy. If only I could roll back to when my DD was under four. Oh, my-- the things that I would do differently.

What else would you do differently?

(Although I most likely *don't* have a pg kid, so the trajectory won't be so bad for us, I think.)

I would like to know this too? what would you do differently?