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

While watching A Wrinkle in Time your first grader says, how can a brilliant scientist not realize her daughter needs to be homeschooled?!!!! And Charles
Wallace doesn't need to be schooled at all!

Reading Pride & Prejudice to DD7 (and she's seen the 1995 miniseries, so she knows the characters well). She popped out with this insight: "Mrs. Bennet TREASURES Jane most, but she LIKES Lydia most." She's absolutely right.

You know you are parenting your second gifted child when your five year old middle child is getting The Look for the texts she is writing on her artwork during the New Year's Eve party (which you never realized were unusual, for hey, at least she is doing horses and princesses and unicorns, not nuclear plants like her older brother) and the other parents are starting The Questions...and you just. Don't. Care.

Don't you wish there were a "like" button for some of these posts?

You know that you're parenting a gifted child when you reassure your teenager that her college friends are probably fine-- and she stays up late worrying about them anyway until she hears from them that they are okay... as they experiment with behaviors that she has no intention of EVER engaging in.

It's a strange, strange world when your 16yo is "Momma" to her 21 year old friends who are experimenting with recreational substance use and experiencing major (and foreseeable) relationship woes. It's like she's their Concigliere; she advises, is on-call, keeps her opinions (mostly) to herself when they are hellbent on self-harm, drives them home when they need it, and offers them tea and sympathy (and ibuprofen or a ride home) the day after.

It's a weird change from the early acceleration days when she was more like a strange pet.

...your 7yo uses a word you're not sure you know when playing Mad Libs (funambulate) so you have to ask him what it means

Your 11 yo keeps pausing the particle physics video course so he can explain to you what's going on. Cuz you need it.

-your 3 year old twins are arguing whether tomato is a fruit or a vegetable.
-your 3 year old twins are arguing whether the moon is following us, or leading us.
-your 11 month old twins have figured out they can move heavy objects "together" closer to the fireplace. Then one lies down on it, and signs or "tells" his brother to climb on his back to get to the things on the mantle.
-your 4 year old asks you what kind of matter is fire? Liquid or gaseous?
-your 4 year old tells a friend scared of the hurricane - "don't worry, a rainbow will come after the rain".

"-your 4 year old asks you what kind of matter is fire? Liquid or gaseous?"

I remember getting this exact "state of matter" question from my DD...

Your 5 year old is playing piano and you assume she was sight reading a new piece. When you ask who the composer is, she replies "Me!"