Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion You know you're parenting a gifted child when...

You should put her onto Paul Dirac. By some estimates at least as brilliant and influential as Einstein, but not not as much of a showman, so not in the public consciousness.

Introduce her to Nikola Tesla.

And quite the role model for the 2E types.

I was reading the thread and read the complaint about Einstein and laughed because DS7 has had the same comment but used Tesla and Newton. Then I got to Minx's comment and lol.... only on a gifted board.

The planet one reminded me of a trip to our Aviation and Space museum when DS was 5. They have a toy/play area for younger kids which had all of the planets hanging in no particular order. DS walked in looked up for 2 seconds and said "They're missing Neptune." Sure enough they were (of course it took me MUCH longer to verify that was the case).

Oh boy! I hear you!

#1:

At our aquarium there is a remote controlled model of a great white shark biting a ball. DS is a bit intimidated by it, but he knows it can't hurt him. As he goes to pull the lever to activate the shark, he gives himself this pep talk: "It's just a machine, it's not autonomous, it will only do what I make it do. It has no independent programming or artificial intelligence. It can't make autonomous decisions." The father of a child standing nearby overhears this and gives me a bemused look.

#2:
DS is reading the signs out loud at the pharmacy. The pharmacist asks how old he is and says her 5yo is just starting to read. I still have no idea how to respond.

I love it! That's perfect!

Ditto on being excited for them - any a-ha! discovery in a person's life is cause for celebration

At Tae Kwon Do last week some of the moms were asking me about Life of Fred and maths books (they are all customers by now of course)... The one mom leans over consiratorially and tells me that she thinks her son is a "bit of a maths genius". He is now 6, started 1st grade in January and somehow knows that 4 + 5 = 9.. "without using his fingers!! Isn't that amazing? How can I nurture this incredible talent?"

I really did not know how to answer, because my 3 year old can do that... So I did exactly as suggested above and got excited over her child realising that numbers can work together even without a concrete counting tool.

Unfortunately then my 5 year old ran up for his water break and said that he got distracted in class because he was trying to work out how to multiply big numbers by 5 like his big brother does, and that he knows he has to halve it somewhere but can't remember where.

Want to talk about an awkward silence filling the space...

ooh poor you, Madoosa! I can JUST imagine the awkwardness!

haha. This happened yesterday at church.

I was walking past the nursery area where Dylan goes. The teacher said so sweetly, Dylan can you sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star? And he sang it with the Note Names. (thanks Suzuki)