S/O: If your kid is truly gifted, what could they do at a young age that made you suspect it?

[Anonymous]

Looking for specific skills and the age they mastered it/started doing it regularly. Some of the things in the "average" thread my kid has been doing for quite a while, but I don't have any other kids to compare him to so I just thought it was normal.

[Anonymous]

I won't comment on whether my kids are "truly gifted", because who knows what that means, however -

DC1, before 2: knew all car logos by sight, could recognize all letters and numbers when his magnetic toy ones spilled onto the floor all jumbled up and every which way, and sorted by size, color and texture all his toys. He was diagnosed with severe ADHD later on, and probably has Aspie tendencies.

DC2, at 3: asked every day for violin lessons, for 6 months, until I gave in. It's the persistence and determination that struck me, and is probably what will make her successful in life. She's in a magnet school now, and is concertmaster of her youth orchestra.

Both could read Harry Potter-type books at 5 or 6.

[Anonymous]

This thread can easily go in a bad direction.

[Anonymous]

This is very difficult to suss out without a professional evaluating your specific kid.

I'll just give you my own experience:

Unlike PP's children, I was not reading Harry Potter-type books at 5/6 years old. I starting read by about 4.5, but it was simple books. That said, my parents got me tested for admission to a magnet kindergarten program; my IQ came out at 147.

I never had trouble in school, graduated from a top prep school with honors and from a top research university magna cum laude. Am I gifted? I suppose my IQ would suggest so, but I was certainly not the smartest kid in my high school (though it's an extremely selective high school). If my IQ is 147, I would suspect I went to school with kids who have IQs in the 160s at least.

My 3 year old seems bright and inquisitive, but I'm really more concerned about her becoming a well-adjusted, compassionate and kind adult, than whether she is gifted or not. DH and I do not plan on getting her evaluated, unless it's mandated for a program we think she'd thrive in.

[Anonymous]

DS knew all letters, phonic sounds, numbers, shapes by two.

At 22 months he saw a map of Wisconsin with the city “Appleton” printed, pointed to it and said “Apple”. Another time when he was about 18 months I asked him how many cars were on his car carrier (there were three) and he looked and took one off and said “two!”.

Weird stuff like that and pretty constantly. He also had amazing concentration as a toddler to the point that my just saying anything would startle him.

We had him tested for a private school and he tested “very gifted”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is very difficult to suss out without a professional evaluating your specific kid.

I'll just give you my own experience:

Unlike PP's children, I was not reading Harry Potter-type books at 5/6 years old. I starting read by about 4.5, but it was simple books. That said, my parents got me tested for admission to a magnet kindergarten program; my IQ came out at 147.

I never had trouble in school, graduated from a top prep school with honors and from a top research university magna cum laude. Am I gifted? I suppose my IQ would suggest so, but I was certainly not the smartest kid in my high school (though it's an extremely selective high school). If my IQ is 147, I would suspect I went to school with kids who have IQs in the 160s at least.

My 3 year old seems bright and inquisitive, but I'm really more concerned about her becoming a well-adjusted, compassionate and kind adult, than whether she is gifted or not. DH and I do not plan on getting her evaluated, unless it's mandated for a program we think she'd thrive in.

That's really unlikely. Either you are underselling yourself (particularly common with women), or your IQ is very unbalanced, e.g. only moderately gifted in most areas but highly gifted in one area that does not come up often in daily life, like spacial cognition, for example.

[Anonymous]

My nephew is a math genius. When he was two he called numbers either “fair” or “unfair” based on if the number could be divided equally between he and his sister. He was talking about percentages before kindergarten. Also before kindergarten he would add three digit numbers in his head but did it backwards (adding the hundreds first).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is very difficult to suss out without a professional evaluating your specific kid.

I'll just give you my own experience:

Unlike PP's children, I was not reading Harry Potter-type books at 5/6 years old. I starting read by about 4.5, but it was simple books. That said, my parents got me tested for admission to a magnet kindergarten program; my IQ came out at 147.

I never had trouble in school, graduated from a top prep school with honors and from a top research university magna cum laude. Am I gifted? I suppose my IQ would suggest so, but I was certainly not the smartest kid in my high school (though it's an extremely selective high school). If my IQ is 147, I would suspect I went to school with kids who have IQs in the 160s at least.

My 3 year old seems bright and inquisitive, but I'm really more concerned about her becoming a well-adjusted, compassionate and kind adult, than whether she is gifted or not. DH and I do not plan on getting her evaluated, unless it's mandated for a program we think she'd thrive in.

That's really unlikely. Either you are underselling yourself (particularly common with women), or your IQ is very unbalanced, e.g. only moderately gifted in most areas but highly gifted in one area that does not come up often in daily life, like spacial cognition, for example.

Yeah, it's hard to say, given that the only time my IQ was tested was when I was 4. I'm slightly better at humanities and social science than I am at math, but I still did well enough in all subjects in high school to graduate with honors (the only distinction my high school gives out).

My job involves writing and social science analysis; I think I excel at those areas.

In any case, I think this whole concept of declaring some kids "gifted" is ultimately harmful. We need to figure out how to differentiate academic instruction without slapping these labels onto kids.

[Anonymous]

Giftedness is such a broad category, but my bright-but-not-profoundly-gifted kid sometimes appears to be more gifted than she actually is because her EQ is off the charts.

So, she is bright and well supported, but her real "gift" is excellent social skills and "talking to grown ups" skills.

[Anonymous]

I was gifted, genius iq etc. I read through the world book encyclopedia in first grade, was a very poorly adjusted child, got average grades because I'd walk out of class and have no idea what was taught, standardized testing saved me because it played to my strengths. I literally had no idea what was taught in school until they'd hand me the test to take. There was standardized testing at one point in school and i tested higher than anyone else in the grade of 250 students.

Had like one friend my entire childhood, read 10 books a day, posted on internet forums in my teens.

Got my BA and then my Mrs degree and now a much better adjusted stay at home mother of many.

I hope my kids are above average. But not geniuses. It's not helpful in life. I have many unsuccessful brilliant relatives and being emotionally healthy is way more important.

[Anonymous]

My triplet daughters mastered quantum computing at age 2.5 yrs, they mastered the piano, guitar, and violin and played a trio at Carnegie Hall at age 3 yrs, they mastered the SATs at age 5 yrs and entered Harvard at 5.5 yrs, completed a rigorous premed/international business program, and then mastered the MCAT/GMAT and went on to Oxford on full scholarships at age 8 yrs, they are there now exceeding my expectations and hope to graduate this spring with their MD/MBA. They pretty much had no childhood, which was great for me because real kids can be so fussy and annoying. So, yeah, my kids are outstanding and I take credit for all of it. I am an amazing mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My triplet daughters mastered quantum computing at age 2.5 yrs, they mastered the piano, guitar, and violin and played a trio at Carnegie Hall at age 3 yrs, they mastered the SATs at age 5 yrs and entered Harvard at 5.5 yrs, completed a rigorous premed/international business program, and then mastered the MCAT/GMAT and went on to Oxford on full scholarships at age 8 yrs, they are there now exceeding my expectations and hope to graduate this spring with their MD/MBA. They pretty much had no childhood, which was great for me because real kids can be so fussy and annoying. So, yeah, my kids are outstanding and I take credit for all of it. I am an amazing mother.

Lol

[Anonymous]

Do you people ever stop competing with each other? This is the most toxic place, it can’t be real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you people ever stop competing with each other? This is the most toxic place, it can’t be real.

If you actually read some of these responses, you'd see that they're not all competitive.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know my IQ, but I did skip 2 grades in elementary and finished high school in just a year. Took the ACT at age 9. Started college at 14, grad school at 18.

My parents tell me they knew I was smart but they didn’t realize how exceptionally so until I was older (maybe ages 7-8). but I don’t think I did any of the things mentioned Up thread. I was reading Laura Ingalls Wilder books at age 6ish I think. I was in lots of gifted programs but they didn’t start til 2nd grade.

DH didn’t do anything early and is similarly bright.

I haven’t yet noticed anything exceptional about my own kids. They do seem smartish (but I’m their mom haha) but 4 yo isn’t reading or doing math or anything like that. He seems pretty good at problem solving and has a very rich inner life (lots of pretending). I do wonder if he will be super smart but keep reminding myself of all the ultra bright miserable people that I know.