Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Child Compelled to Count

DD5 counts everything - the rings on a spiral notebook, the actors in a play during the curtain call, etc. One day, we dashed into Target in a super big hurry, and she wanted to know how many lights were in the ceiling. If I had had time, I might have answered her question with multiplication (the store really isn't a rectangle - it could have been a project). Not surprisingly, she loves math and is very analytical.

This week I realized that she thinks everyone else does this. At school, I went into another room to talk to her teacher. She was curious about the meeting and wanted to know which room I was in. I didn't know, so I tried to describe it as a room with tables and chairs. Then she started quizzing me on the tables. She really wanted to know how many had been in there, and she seemed perplexed that I hadn't counted them (which had never occurred to me). I said that I had only looked around for a minute, and then she wanted to know if it was a minute with 60 seconds or the kind of minute that means just a little bit. I'm a mathy person, but I was never like this. What makes a child want to count everything?

I wish I knew. DS is exactly like this. Everything is number to him. Saying it's 60 degrees is not good enough....it's 62 degrees. Or it's not 5pm, it's 5:03pm. He will put a number to things that don't have anything to do with numbers (to most people anyway ) If I ask him if he cleaned his room, he will tell me it is 72% done. LOL! I catch him all the time counting things. I guess that's just how he sees the world.

I was just asking DS4 that very question, Lily! He didn't have an answer for me about what makes it so attractive. I guess it's like asking me why I like purple: I dunno, I just do!

He has been into counting for a while, but lately he's moved on to adding, subtracting and multiplying. I'm finding it pretty amazing, actually. He's adding and subtracting up to 3 digits in his head all of a sudden (provided there are plenty of zeroes), and he's already well on his way to having his times tables memorized, not to mention figuring things like 1000 x 1000 and 9 x 2000. It's coming from him, too, not mom-driven. He invents the problems and talks through them, though he'll happily work problems if I give them to him to keep him busy.

Math, drawing/writing, and Wii are ALL he wants to do all day long. But mostly math!

I have been skeptical about his GTness because I just wasn't seeing it. But his fascination with numbers and arithmetic is making me a believer. He just lights up when doing math, and he often says "I'm a mathy guy!"

He sure is!

So if you figure out what's up, please let me know. I'm very intrigued!

Not sure what compells a child to do this, but I know my DS4 is the same way and always has been. at 2 during car trips he would count mile markers, sometimes mailboxes. The other day he got in a laundry basket and counted the holes in it. He counted the rungs in my daughters crib, counts steps, etc. It does sound a bit obsessive...it's not like he counts all day long or anything but he is a counter definitely. He too is all about Math. He wakes up thinking about Math and numbers, etc. every single morning. Very interesting.

Holy cow, this completely describes my DS4. He constantly will do stuff like this. He will remind us of the speed limit and ask how fast we are going, LOL. He wants to know the exact temperature...and forget rounding for the time...he will always correct that one. And he does the percent now too....and quarters. He will say "I'm about a quarter of the way done with this, so I have about 3 quarters left to go."

Mine too. DS6 is very careful with exact time and temp. For those of you with littles, just wait until you get your "mathy kids" to estimating, probability and division with remainders. It makes my son crazy, he refers to it as "messy math" and doesn't understand why he can't just find the right answer!

DD2 told me today that she can't wait for night time to come so that she can count all of the stars! The problem (one of a few!) is that she can only count consistently to about 16 or 17...so she might find a bit of a problem tonight...we'll see! haha

BWBShari: That is cute that your ds calls estimating "messy math". I was the exact same way in school...why bother estimating if you can just find the real answer! The frustrating thing with some math is that estimating is sometimes more work that just working out the original problem!

Is that the same child you would consider ND if it wasn't for his OE? Somebody has been having a huge gt denial LOL. Sorry, I couldn't let it go. A little bit more of this and I will start worrying that perhaps my DS4 isn't gt

DS6 wasn't into counting that much but he for sure won't take 5:00 for 5:03 and so. I was quite happy once he understood that 65 millions years ago is an estimate and it doesn't mean that next year they will say 65,000,001 years ago BTW science books which convert temperature from C to F literally and end up with numbers like 500,032F drive me nuts.

It just happened all of a sudden LMom, honest!

Really, it's the craziest thing! It's like he found his groove for the first time ever, and suddenly he's off to the races.

You know how happy I am to point out GT denial (LOL!), so I don't think that's what this was. He just REALLY hasn't shown anything that looks GT (besides the PG+ OEs! )...until just now! He was doing the counting thing in the fall. He started doing the most basic addition by Christmas, and this month he's like some sort of arithmetic nut all of a sudden! DS7 had leaps, but I've never seen anything like this math one! It's like he just woke up one day having skipped 2 or 3 or 4 years of development overnight.

It's freaky, actually!

Now if he's just read so I can stop worrying about 2E...

Another favorite....

I was corrected for using the term "Gazillion"

"Mom, Gazillion is not a correct term. The word you are looking for is Duodecillion, it has 49 zeros and is the biggest number I've learned so far".

Being corrected by a 6 yo is soooo annoying at times!