Anonymous wrote:I honestly think this nanny is full o' shit and is just trying to make herself look awesome and everyone tell her what a great nanny she is and how much they wish they had her...

Oh stop with the nastiness.

Protecting a child's natural sense of curiosity is one of the most important aspects of my work with children. If you manage to kill that, good luck with anything else.

I honestly think this nanny is full o' shit and is just trying to make herself look awesome and everyone tell her what a great nanny she is and how much they wish they had her...

OP - your description of your charge describes most 18 month olds. Kids that age - unless suffering some type of delay - are like sponges and soak up and repeat everything around them. As a mom, I am thrilled that my child is intellectually curious, and of course I want him to grow up to be smart and successful but I echo what most moms here have said - I mostly want him to be happy, well adjusted, social, and I want him to enjoy being a kid! Speaking from experience, there are a lot of disadvantages to being the smart one in the class - boredom, social issues, etc. and it sounds your MB is concerned about those. Smart kids are smart kids one way or the other - social skills and social adjustment are harder to teach and learn. Most parents want what is best for their children and most parents recognize there is no easy clear cut answer for what that is.

I could have been the MB who said I don't want to raise my kids to be smart kids. I want to raise my kids to be happy. I hope genetics gave them a reasonable amount of intelligence so that they can go where their interest and hard work will take them. I do not want to raise a chd to present the image of being smarter than they are, which is what I think sometimes happens when caregivers become over eager to teach the child things that make them (and the caregiver) look smart. I think the people around the child start to expect more from them, and that by second or third grade, when things start to even out, the chd loses a bit of their identity.

Most MBs would appreciate an intellectually advanced child and would know that the nanny had little or nothing to do with that.

An intelligent child is going to be intelligent without any additional educational help from the nanny.

The high IQ kids I've cared for over the years basically taught themselves how to read by the age of 2. No special training other than reading to them and pointing out words.

Their parents did not want them too advanced at an early age. Way ahead of their peers will make school boring and frustrating.