3.5 year old is gifted in language and storytelling.
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Anonymous
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My DS is a surprisingly good story-teller. Last night he made up a story about a cat who thought he was whale and another about an artist with a talking paint brush. His stories have beginnings, middles, and ends. He also has an extensive vocabulary.
In everything else he’s average. A nice little boy. My question is: do we focus on the things he’s shown little interest in (coloring, learning letters, numbers, riding his bike) or really explore and engage on his seeming talent and current passion? He’s in a five-hour-a-day good preschool. |
Anonymous
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Just let him play! Make sure you have loads of books and paper and pencils and crayons. Talk to him all the time. Enjoy him!
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Anonymous
OP here. I know and he does play all the time and we do enjoy him. I was asking about expanding his one talent or emphasizing other things in play. |
Anonymous
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My daughter is the same. She tells elaborate stories with super-expressive gestures and facial expressions. I figure drama class/drama camp when she's older.
She likes being recorded so she can hear and/or see herself tell the same stories again, and she makes up more elaborate scenarios for dolls than her older sibling ever did. No need to "focus" on anything, but a recording device and a puppet theater with puppets are good playthings. |
Anonymous
| He’s 3.5, don’t overthink this. Ask questions when he tells stories and maybe encourage him to draw them. His interests will change and expand month by month. |
Anonymous
Just let him do his thing and don't focus on his "talent" or not. He may or may not wind up being "gifted" in one thing or another- you can't know unless he's typing moby dick in his off hours. Trust me when I tell you that kids develop all over the place, so one particularly verbal 3 year old will be matched by his peers within a few years. |
Anonymous
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Oh gosh yeah don't overthink this. Just let him have fun. Keep him off screens and into things--art materials, music, building. He sounds creative.
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Anonymous
| What you describe is neuro-typical for that age. Be happy your child is normal. |
Anonymous
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With my oldest it was baseball. At 22 months he could hit a slow pitch. He only wanted to read books about baseball and watch baseball on TV. Definitely gifted in this one thing.
We did try to limit his baseball stuff to get him interested in other toys and subjects. We definitely nurtured his baseball abilities while making a point of getting him interested in animals, letters, art, music, etc. He got recruited to play baseball in college but chose an Ivy with no scholarship! Still, as good a student as he was, he wouldn’t be getting his degree from a top school without baseball. You have to try to balance kids with one profound talent or passion. |
Anonymous
My six year old couldn’t make up a story with original characters and a beginning, middle, and end. I doubt I could!! It’s okay that some kids are more talented than yours, PP. |
Anonymous
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My niece and art. She could draw recognizable faces at three. All she ever wanted to do was draw and paint. The only books she wanted to look at were coffee table art books.
She grew up to be an artist but my sister has said many times that she wished she’d gotten her into other things as well. She never could have gotten into a regular college (got into art school) and has a very limited level of curiosity. |
Anonymous
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It's awesome that your son has a great imagination and the ability to organize his thoughts so well. You can do both -- nurture and encourage his interests, while also opening new doors for him to try.
Buy him some blank pre-bound books off Amazon for him to fill in to his heart's content. (They also have blank comic books with empty panels.) He may draw, he may add stickers, he may want to cut out other comics and add them in, he may want to practice the letters in his name. Lots of good fine-motor practice in there. Or he'll look at them and decide he's going to go dig for dinosaur bones in the backyard -- that's the magic of three. |
Anonymous
| He sounds charming! Don’t overthink it by steering toward counting though-just keep him engaged. He has a long, long time to learn his shapes and he won’t be any better off if he learns an octagon now vs in a year. |
Anonymous
But how much can you really shape a kid's interests? I'm sure that your sister did expose her to lots of stuff, but people come out hardwired about certain things. |
Anonymous
| Take some video of him telling a story. It'll be cute later. |