Do your parents lie about your childhood achievements?

[Anonymous]

They may not be lying. My speech disorder child could not talk at age 3 but he was reading and could read (including out loud) for several years before talking. Speech kids are often smarter than people realize.

[Anonymous]

In our family, we refer to this as selective memory. Very similar to teenagers with selective hearings who hear you when you need to give them money or a ride someplace but not when you are talking about chores or homework.

[Anonymous]

Oh - of course they make it completely up because it was a long time ago and they do not remember, but we all think our children are amazing, even once they are adults. Now that I have a 3.5 year old and a 14 month though, I can't remember when the 3.5 year old did half the stuff she did. So I am already there!

[Anonymous]

My mother always told me I read sentences at 3. I looked at my baby book and I was 5, so NOT a genius.

[Anonymous]

My mother "forgets" in another way -my DC is pretty delayed in receptive/expressive speech and my mother is convinced I didn't say *anything* until I started preschool at 4 so I should not worry AT ALL about my DC. I know at least I had names for people, so I suspect her memory is exaggerated and her insistence is to make me feel better in the present moment.

[Anonymous]

My kids are 26 and 27. I couldn't answer any of these questions. Remember, cell phones were barely invented and we didn't document much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes my mom says I was talking at like 11 months - in full sentences.

^^I have a speech delayed child btw.

We have a lot of Asperger people in our family. my brother didn't speak until quite late and my mom was and is in complete denial that this is/was in any way significant. If anything, she blames me. She says I talked too much (I'm younger) and he never got a chance to say anything. Good times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They may not be lying. My speech disorder child could not talk at age 3 but he was reading and could read (including out loud) for several years before talking. Speech kids are often smarter than people realize.

How does one read out loud without talking?

[Anonymous]

Haha my in-laws are like this. They were over at our house one night for dinner and my oldest son, who was probably 4 at the time, was having a bit of a meltdown. They were horrified and my mother in law remarked that her children NEVER acted like he was, and my father-in-law remarked that “oh no honey, there was that one time…” So apparently between my husband and his brother and sister, only one of them had a meltdown, once.

[Anonymous]

My in-laws do this big time. They also do it for their grandkids, even though the grandkids are much more recent.

It starts out with aggressive rounding up rather than outright lying. Like saying that a child "has been reading since she was 3," when really the child began awkwardly sounding out basic phonetic 3 and 4 letter words a few months before turning 4. It's arguably technically true, but misleading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They may not be lying. My speech disorder child could not talk at age 3 but he was reading and could read (including out loud) for several years before talking. Speech kids are often smarter than people realize.

How does one read out loud without talking?

DP. That confused me too. I wondered if pp meant he couldn't have a conversation but could vocalize the words that he read?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom claims she never did a thing to potty train me; I just spontaneously started using the potty. Who would believe that?! She also remembers confiscating a Kiss album from me due to questionable content...even though I’ve never owned a Kiss album and would have been around 5 years old when the album came out.

When we had a second kid, the oldest decided that she was done with diapers (because they're for babies) and threw them in the trash. Then she asked me if she could use the potty, and she's been dry since. I actually did nothing. I think it's more a commentary on how absolutely lazy I was with potty training rather than how brilliant my child is (I had a rough pregnancy and just ignored the idea that she'd ever be out of diapers). She was nearly 3 when it happened.

No second kid but my oldest DS at 2.5 yo just one day decided to use potty and that was it for both day and night.

[Anonymous]

My MIL claims her children never fought. Ever. With each other or friends. She is constantly bewildered and traumatized by children bickering. It is exhausting.