Reply to How to raise bright toddlers? SAHM

Forum Index » Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers

Reply to "How to raise bright toddlers? SAHM"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I'm looking for book and toy recommendations and also just would appreciate some thoughts on parenting style. I'm neither tiger mom nor free range, although probably verging free range, especially in the eyes of a lot of DCUM.

Here's the thing, I think my kid is very bright (yea yea I know.) One thing I recognize though is that high IQ does not necessarily correlate to success and happiness. My husband is unfortunately the example of this, he tested in the 130 range of IQ multiple times as a child but only has an associates degree and had mental health struggles. He was just not emotionally competent in school and at the same time very bored, and a teacher and parents never were able to truly support him (military kid, overseas and moving a lot.)

My kid just turned two. His vocabulary learning speed is incredible. Multiple strangers have remarked (examples include a flooring contractor, when my kid butted in to learn all about the tools he was using and insisted on "Measuring samples" with him, and counted the inches on the measuring tape) He said something like, "ok, I'm around a lot of little kids, this kid is insanely smart."

So like, what do I owe him as a parent? How hard should I push? My husband thinks we need to step up as no on intervened and helped him as a kid. We wish that we could afford a private preschool next year, but we can't. I'm a SAHM and will likely have another kid soon. We have no flash cards, we don't do drills, I'm not pushing him to learn his letters or learn to read or anything. He can recognize about half the letters just from us reading books, and can write Os and Es with a crayon. At what point do I owe him an "education" and how much should I just let him be. We're in fairfax county - from what I can tell he won't be tested for anything until second grade, is that correct? Our elementary school is acceptable (GS4).

I see those kids on Ellen reciting facts and things, I feel like I could probably create that with him, or something close to it, ("oh he knows all this countries! and state capitals!") but I don't want to force it at all. He has a farm animal puzzle and can do it very fast saying the names and sounds, it sits discarded because I think its boring to him. Do I step it up and get something more "academic" like, the world, or truly drill letters or something? He seems to have an innate fascination with the sky, sun, moon, stars, telescopes and binoculars. Do I start pushing planets?? (that seems so abstract to me, but he will go "rocketship, blast off, space, up up up, bye bye moon" insistently, as though he understands, its hard to explain and very freaky.)

I realize I sound insufferable, "oh my kid is so special" but at the same time, I am starting to feel a little nag like, ok, maybe he needs more from me. Are there SAHP "homeschool" groups for the preschool set?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics