Give them something to replace the gifted talk with.

"Mom instead of saying how smart Pierpont is, note his effort and persistence. Be specific. For example, you could say, 'Wow Pierpont, you really stayed focus on doing that puzzle!' Or 'Pierpont, I noticed how you took turns with Larlo. That was nice.'"

My IL's do this even though my 14 month old has a diagnosed speech delay and atypical motor development, so he's receiving Early Intervention. They think I'm being a hypochondriac because I had him eval'd by EI (he was a preemie by 6 weeks) and that he is way advanced in everything, which he demonstrably is not. I might not take suh umbrage at their opinions if they were compliments of DS more than digs at me, but they are clearly the latter.

OP,

I don't think you can counter first time grandparent pride with research about giftedness. Just smile and nod.

This background noise will not affect your kid's future one way or another.

Parent of 10 yr old here. My MIL has always done this and it drives.me.crazy. DS defnitely is NOT gifted yet MIL insists in saying it all the time - making me feel that she needs him to be gifted to be proud of him. I cannot help but thinkthat DS will start to intimate that himself at some point, too. Anyway, years of asking her to stop have not changed her behavior at all - I wish you better luck.

Anonymous wrote:My mother said my newborn DS would be well endowed. Count yourself lucky OP.

lol - nurse in the delivery ward said my son was "hung like a bear" - we were stunned she would say something like this at work!

My MIL does this all.the.time. It's so annoying. When DD is not in earshot I take great pleasure in pointing out her truly normal and non-gifted toddler behaviors to MIL and calling her brilliant. For example, DD's two favorite phrases right now are "I pooped" and "I farted." She's clearly a baby genius!

I say my twins are well gifted, but only because these are the first grandchildren on either side of the family in over 15 years (all of their cousins are 16-21 years older than them). So grandparents, aunts, uncles all ready for another round of children send gifts ALL.THE.TIME. We get cases of gifts multiple times through the year. They are very gifted.

My mother said my newborn DS would be well endowed. Count yourself lucky OP.

Anonymous wrote:
Tell them the truth: research has demonstrated clearly that telling children they are smart is deleterious both to their efforts and achievements.

Praising children for their hard work has the effect of pushing them to work harder and achieve more.
I think it was a research study out of Stanford by Carol Dweck.

I got a lot of the "smart but lazy" comments - turns out I have ADD. DS has more severe ADD, thank goodness this syndrome is better known now and his public school knows how to deal with it without accusing him of being lazy.

So nip this in the bud, OP.

+1

Tell them the truth: research has demonstrated clearly that telling children they are smart is deleterious both to their efforts and achievements.

Praising children for their hard work has the effect of pushing them to work harder and achieve more.
I think it was a research study out of Stanford by Carol Dweck.

I got a lot of the "smart but lazy" comments - turns out I have ADD. DS has more severe ADD, thank goodness this syndrome is better known now and his public school knows how to deal with it without accusing him of being lazy.

So nip this in the bud, OP.

We have a fair amount of this also and I think it's pretty silly. It happens w/ two of our three sets of grandparents, and with one grandmother in particular it feels competitive and over the top.

My kids are not quite 3.

None of our grandparents are local so that mitigates the impact a bit, and I also think that time will prove that the kids are bright and lovely, but fully within normal ranges of most things.

In the meantime I just mostly ignore. When I'm pressed for a response re their thinking some particular thing is hugely advanced I say things like "Maybe, I don't know. But yesterday he couldn't find his was out of the room so I'm not holding my breath." Or "Well, they're having a language surge, that's for sure. It will be fun when they take a coordination leap also." Or "You know, I don't need or want them to be gifted. If they are that's great but it's far more important to us that they are happy and kind, and emotionally intelligent. That's what we're focussing on." Etc...

Maybe with your own parents you could be a little more direct, but that's how I dodge my MIL's pushiness when it bugs me.

Also, it's possible you're projecting some of your own stuff and putting a little too much weight on the importance of the things grandparents say. Especially if it's your parents in question - you're more likely to react more personally than to things said by less close connections.

Try to ride it out. Your child will be brilliant at something and rotten at something else. Your response to that will matter INFINITELY more than a grandparents.

DS is barely 2 and already my parents are insisting he could be gifted based on their Google research. I appreciate their enthusiasm and praise for their grandchild, and sure, I expect it from grandparents, but I don't want this continuing and DS eventually hearing them say stuff like this. If he is, great, if not, that's fine. They had high expectations for me as a kid and I don't think their constant insistence that I was capable of doing everything but just too lazy to try hard enough was a good thing for me in the long run. It was never ok to not be great in something, i.e. I wasn't a great math student but because I did well on the math SAT courtesy of a test prep class, I "would've done better if I tried harder." I hope this is just a first-time grandparent phase.