Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Do you find that other people...

I am little late on this one. But we did not do anything until 4 years old. (Now DS6) wanted to learn more back then but we refused to teach him, because of the fear of, what would he learn in school then? When we tested with the SB-LM at 4, the pyhscologist strongly suggested that we start teaching him at home. Her concern was that he was teaching himself, and that anything that he learned incorrectly would have to be redone. And that it would be more difficult because of stuborness, and perfectionsim. This issue just came up this week with the calender. DS6 belived their where 364 days in a year, excluding the leap year where their where 365. I explained that their was 365. He adamently disagreed, I showed him on the computer, he said they where wrong. So I asked him why, he said that one month has 28 days, 6 months have 31 days and 5 months have 30 days. So a year is 364 days. I had to look it up, but 7 months have 31 days, once I showed him that, he was ok with a year having 365 days. They are always teaching themselves, but maybe not always with the right information. I am ok with teaching them (Everything but spelling that is)

We were pretty clueless I must say so I can't say we could be accused of pushing the girls. We did get lots of comments but didn't think that DD8 talking very clearly and complexly fairly early was a big deal. We had at least one other friend with a kid comparable so....We would also giggle at the pediatricians pamphlets as well. With both girls when Pediatrician asked me how many words the girls said, I would be like I don't have any idea they just talk to me.

I'm surprised however, that our pediatrician didn't refer us for ADHD testing the way DD8 acts in the Drs office all the time. She tries to take apart the office and gets into everything, rarely listening to the demands of please stop until i raise my voice significantly. One college room mate who is a teacher mentioned attention issues but then said well it doesn't affect her learning (honestly I'm surprised I haven't gotten more comments like this). DD8 is so stubborn when she is set on doing something or being right it is ridiculous, DD4 is heading the same way. Not lack of focus but focused on other things aside from what I want

I notice things more with DD4 and Edwin makes a good point. I have started working more with DD4 mainly because she wants homework like big sis. She can do a lot of the same things as DD8 so I think I missed a lot of the clues due to our paradigm of normal and didn't notice until we went to public school that she was possibly more ahead than we thought. DH is still struggling with this. He is still amazed at the scores on the screening test with DD8 (haven't had an ind. test).

We were very much like you, not teaching much...he just seemed to teach himself everything. We would answer questions and oversee him...but never sat down to teach ever. When we did a consult with our psychologist before doing testing she mentioned that he needs to be challenged more or he will never learn how to work at things and give up easy (as I actually was noticing at times) and she also mentioned relearning things. It is so true. He started writing at such a young age...maybe 2, that now I watch him and think about how he writes some things wrong. He doesn't do "top to bottom" sometimes, or would rather write capital letters. Because he has done it for so long it is kind of hard to get him to do it other ways. He still does it, and I praise him when he writes and uses lowercase when he should. But I do see the point about having to relearn things. We also have this problem because he plays a game on-line called "fowl words" It's a fun game you can just download on the computer where it scrambles up letters and you have to make words from them. Well on the game I swear they count abbreviations and other strange things as words (or maybe my vocabulary isn't all that good and I just think they aren't words, LOL). So now he will insist that things are words because they are on fowl words. It's quite annoying. I guess that was a little off topic, but annoying nonetheless : )

I know the feeling. DS4 started reading before he could walk or talk. We just didn't know how much until he finally talked at 2. At his pediatrician's office, he spelled all the animal names that the doctor was making sounds of. The doctor then turned around and told me I should stop teaching him or else, he will get bored in school. HELLOOOOO? It seems difficult for most people to understand that there are kids who are just self propelled. By 3, he was teaching us new things in different languages that he has picked up from the internet. I realized that people just can't accept this because they have never come across truly gifted children.

Mr W was premature, too. But he had an apgar of 9. The Ped told us at 1 mo that she had to keep reading her notes to remind herself he was a preemie as he looked her right in the eyes and smiled. At that time she said we should use the "corrected age" for his milestones. She dropped that at 3 mos. I like her a lot as she goes into technical and diagnostic details. The other docs are more high level. Maybe she is PG as she has great sensitivity.

I thought there WAS a Santa Claus when I was 3 because I had seen him arrive the Christmas before when I was 2. We even had pictures. I argued and argued with my mom and grandmother. Neither could bring themselves to tell me it was my dad.

When I was five I figured it out.

Sigh...

Same here with Santa, at 6 parents proved it to me with the dictionary. (Ficional charecter).

Yes. We've had that same experience. In fact, when my DD was barely 2 years old, I had a friend that kept asking "what's your secret?" and she even went so far as to request that I "teach [her child's name]; so that she can be like 'Boo'". She broke off the friendship and told me that she couldn't "remain friends with someone someone so selfish!"

The funny thing was that I *did* tell her what we did. She just didn't believe me. I told her we played a lot, I read a lot of books to DD, I encouraged DD to explore, I gave her lots of things to try, I let her get messy - in short we had lots of fun doing "stuff". I thought her DD was a cute kid and didn't compare them. They were barely 2 years old! I didn't see the point. Apparently, my ex-fiend spent lots of time comparing.

Now my kids are almost 5 and 3, and I still get some comments here and there - not as many, or rather (and I hate to sound cynical, because it isn't my nature) they are more veiled and harder to discern. For example, when a "friend" noticed that DD was reading, she launched into a monologue about "children's brains being damaged because their nueral pathways are set prematurely when they learn to read before the age of 7". (That was the gist of it anyway.) Then she went on to say, "...but I don't really mean your kids. (Wink, wink)". I have no idea if I should be insulted or not. I find myself wondering that very thing *every* time I spend more than two minutes with her. Needless to say, I am distancing myself from that relationship.

I don't know if I would bother to be insulted, but what an odd idea! Reading before seven can't be that uncommon, can it?? Not that I've not heard odd ideas before, but I can't bring myself to take them seriously. My personal favorite is that you can't read until you've lost your baby teeth (incisors - not all of them!) Well poor DS is apparently never going to read (*snort*) because he has no adult teeth under those lower central incisors. They may never come out! (And if they do, they'll need to be replaced with an implant.) Man, what I could have saved in books and magazines if THAT one were true! LOL

Doesn't the "it's bad for kids to read before 7" come from the Waldorf Method? At least in part?

I recall when I was researching what kind of homeschoolers we should be that this odd bit of "wisdom" seemed to be coming from Waldorf.

I know Waldorf practitioners don't each reading until age 7, and at least some schools actively discourage kids under 7 from reading, even going as far as to chastise parents if the kids read before that.

I think the foundation of the Waldorf method is words--mainly through talking and playing. But reading "early" (before 7) is not encouraged.