You’ve gotten a lot of advice, but just a few thoughts. My eldest was considered gifted, especially in math. But, I knew nothing about raising kids. I never held a baby before mine. And I live in a poor area without any resources.
The comments about being exhausted made me chuckle. That was me. I swore S would not quit moving until he had figured out the entire world by age 1. Since I didn’t know what to do with him, I just talked to him. I showed him the world and constantly asked him questions to see what he could figure out – which was a lot. We played lots of games like with whatever I had around. Counting money is good, but we also would play “guess the year” on the coin. If wrong (usually), we’d do higher/lower until they got it right. We’d play matching games. You could do things like “bring me (or make a tower of) 10 books that are red or have a picture of <> or have the word <> on them.” This helps keep them occupied while thinking and learning! I also admit – my son LOVED to count – that I’d have him run 100 laps in the basement counting out loud, while I laid on the couch with one eye open. Yes, I worked full-time from the get go, and my younger son didn’t sleep through the night until age 3!
We never had formal teaching/learning sessions. I just asked him questions, and he’d take it from there. In pre-school, he showed me one day he could count by 5s forward and backward. I then pointed out you could do it by 2s, etc From then on, he’d count by 2s,3s,4s… into the hundreds in bed at night. When we’d go into the restaurants, I’d ask him “look. There are 6 tables with 4 chairs, how many chairs are there?” he’d answer immediately and I’d ask how he did it. And then I pointed out “that’s called multiplication. 6 times 4. And he took it from there. Or “we need 22 cupcakes for your class and there packs have 8. How many packages?” he’s immediately answer “3 and we would have 2 for Ms. T and Ms. S!” That was kindergarten.
We also played cards. He loved Yugioh and we’d take him to local games. he (age 5) would add up everyones score in the room in his head while the older kids had calculators. He also learned negative numbers at that time playing gin rummy with my FIL. I still have the score sheets he’d keep in his 5 year old handwriting. By the beginning of first grade, he was multiplying 2 digits numbers in his head. Nobody showed him how to carry. I think he did it by estimating and then adding/subtracting. But nobody showed him that.
So again – lots of games, informal games. Keep it fun. And explore the world all you can as covid allows. Show them as much as you can to discover what makes them tick. But also, don’t be afraid to put them in activities where they will struggle. Struggling can be good.
Oh, and I’m not against TV/screen time. We didn’t have ipads growing up, but mine learned a ton from the history channel/nature channel! I guess this is more a novel than a few thoughts. But ENJOY him. I know there will be many sleepless nights wondering if you’re doing the right thing. Just do the best you can. That’s all we can do.
I think working on the social skills is crucial with a gifted kid. My kids are kind of 2E un-averagely slightly above average. They definitely are not profoundly gifted, but they do have areas where they are smarter than the average bear and they have areas they need to work on. It has taken until my oldest (now 20) got a retail job last year that some of those social skills clicked in. And not for lack of trying and modeling on my part!
When he is a little older get him involved in some groups like Scouts or an alternative that is of service to others. Or check out stream clean-ups or something like that. Something that involves helping other people/the environment and model that now at home. Get him to “help” you and your partner and your cat. Maybe he can help feed the cat or help you clean or put away toys. Helping and having empathy for others is an area where I have seen gifted kids struggle. Sometimes the kids balk at things that they can’t do easily (cleaning is kind of the same level of hard for most people) and they can sometimes get an inflated ego about how great they are. Not saying he is like this at 2 or will be like this at any age, but don’t neglect teaching empathy and let him know that people aren’t less than just because they can’t do math as quickly as he can. He probably won’t be able to run as fast a Usain Bolt and he might not be Mother Teresa either. There are all kinds of smarts and skills.
Oh, and I noticed that CC keeps linking to Davidson College. Just make sure you are going to https://www.davidsongifted.org that @RichInPitt linked to.
When he gets a little older, middle school maybe upper elementary, there are some college programs that he may be interested in for smart kids.
My firstborn is profoundly gifted, obvious from super early on, like your kid. We were too cheap to spend money on tests needed for entry to Davidson Young Scholars program. When he was in middle school, they took an SAT score in lieu of these. Wish we’d just spent the money on a good assessment, early on. Davidson was only good at that age for helping to figure out schooling. Their recommendation to find the best worst fit was dead on.
We opted not to send him to the most intellectually rigorous school in town. He was there for 6th and miserable. The opportunity cost of those three hours of daily homework was just too high and he was having none of it. He had too many of his own projects and none of their work was that hard anyway So he’s had to find his own intellectual challenges and these kids always do and will. But school was filled with art and a lovely outdoor program and great relationships. He did many hours of club swim as well, which helped with the anxiety and to bleed off those extra neurotransmitters.
We moved around a lot for the elementary years. Not ideal. By far the best school was the one with the sweetest playground culture and the gifted pullout teacher who actually “got” him. This is rarer than it should be.
Middle and high school were private, with financial aid we probably didn’t qualify for. But he was an exceptional student. Remember, if they give you a number, you can always politely ask for more.
You’re already doing what you need to do by really just getting out of his way. Have fun! He sounds like a fascinating kid.
A friend has a child that was reading and understanding real books at 3. He went to an online charter middle/high school and zoomed through. Recently graduated from college, math major, at 20 and was taking the actuary exam. It’s all amazing, except in his case, social development may be lacking and also I can’t imagine a 20 year old entering the workforce already. It’s not a race. I don’t believe they pushed him though, he has done what he wanted to do and been successful at it. Long term, some of it may be out of your control, but it sounds like you are working on well roundedness already! A brilliant, busy toddler while working from home sounds so challenging!
In our area there is a public elementary program for highly gifted students that I think has been a godsend for parents with kids like yours. Kids go on to the middle/high school with everyone else but they probably have some of their own class sections and hopefully they have made peer connections by then. It’s described like this:
"For exceptionally gifted students in second through fifth grade, the Navigator Program serves a small, very unique group of learners with IQs of 140 and above. Exceptionally gifted students share many of the following characteristics:
- Works independently at an early age and concentrates for longer periods
- Driven to learn for its own sake; insatiable curiosity
- Perceives connections between seemingly unrelated things
- Learns new concepts with minimal practice
- Emotionally sensitive, shows a developed sense of compassion and urgency to bring change
- Ability to think in an abstract way at an early age
- Unusually reflective, seeks deeper meaning
- Large vocabularies, the ability to read deeply
- May be skeptical, critical and evaluative
- Maintains a large storehouse of information on many topics
- Shows persistent intensity in intellect, emotion and imagination
Specialized learning environment
Eighty years of research shows that the academic, social and emotional needs of exceptionally gifted students cannot be met in the regular classroom setting or even in our District’s Advanced Learning programs. The Navigator Program provides a specialized learning environment which capitalizes on the unique intellectual strengths of its learners. By providing advanced academic content through differentiated instructional practice, the Navigator Program develops students’ tenacity and cognitive stamina when faced with challenging work. Stimulating social-emotional development, students engage with intellectual peers and work with teachers who understand highly-gifted children."
I would also recommend a language immersion program if you can find one near you!
I mentioned above that there are many levels of giftedness, and a child that is +3SD above the mean can be very different than a child that is +2SD above the mean. Unless you have seen it first hand, you won’t fully appreciate that difference.
I am not an expert on giftedness but I offer my experience and what I have learned from other parents of profoundly gifted children in terms of their challenges. I have one child that is somewhere beyond +2SD, and the other is likely well beyond +3SD. While both are clearly bright, they are very different from each other in terms of their intellectual appetite. For my brighter child, every day required significant mental stimulation, even during vacations. I suppose you could say he wasn’t bored at home, but that’s because we were being bombarded with requests.
Boredom at school was a real problem. We were fortunate that had an outstanding local school system with many exceptionally bright kids (typically multiple national prize winners each year, and I am not talking about just things like NMF), so the problem was not a lack of intellectual peers. The problem is that the curriculum went too slow and he rarely brought homework home because it was usually finished in school. We actively spent time introducing him to different activities that he might enjoy without having to excel at them (how that turned out is a story for a different day).
While both of us have the best intentions for the OP, we are talking past each other. You have seen a kid where the parents did what they think was right and the kid turned out fine. I am sharing my experience of hearing many parents with profoundly gifted children doing the best they could, and yet their kids struggled in many ways.
My son turned out fine both socially and intellectually (we did not accelerate, and he graduated high school at 18). But he had some huge advantages, including two engaged parents with the time and money to make sure that his needs were met, and the useful advice of dozens of other parents of profoundly gifted children on the mistakes to avoid.
oh my. if i had a really gifted kid - or the ability to redo some things - absolutely would i get that kid immersed in a second language. Their brains suck it up and it’s so much easier!
kid at my daughter’s high school is from korea. they’ve been here for 3 years now; their language and speech sounds almost native. amazing. Son’s GF has parents from Asia; have been in states 20+ years; and their English is basically non-existent; their kids’ have both languages down perfectly of course.
We have a similar program to this, but I believe it starts in 4th grade and goes through middle school and then they do high school with everyone else. (We also have regular gifted programs within the school and classroom, but this is a special program that pulls profoundly gifted kids from their base school and sends them to a different school with their peers. ) From our local school system website:
This option provides a learning environment that provides advanced curriculum and instruction designed to meet the needs of profoundly gifted students in grades four through eight. These profoundly gifted students consistently exceed grade level performance expectations, well beyond their age and grade level peers. These students present an extreme need for differentiation in all subject areas, particularly reading and math. They may also exhibit specific social and emotional needs common in highly gifted learners. Their unique learning needs are best met in a setting other than the grade-level classroom.
The goal of the program is to meet the extreme academic, intellectual, social and emotional needs of the students. Profoundly gifted students are a very small part of the total school population. They are different in many ways from their age peers. Students with profound aptitude and abilities are keenly aware of their differences. They may experience the world differently than age peers, learn differently than age peers, and may have very different interests. In the program, students learn how to effectively interact with others. Through specials, electives, and community service projects, profoundly gifted students will have opportunities to learn important communication and social skills necessary for their future success.
So, I would encourage you to think about the options available in your local school district and see if they will meet your son’s needs. It might be that you consider moving to a more favorable district. A small but mighty group of people around here homeschool too so that could be something to look at.
On the social thing, I think it is hard for that to go 100% smoothly when a child has interests and vocabulary that differs significantly from most peers.
That’s why I really liked sports for my kid. There were always going to be games that were lost and better athletes out there, which kept her humble, and the sports were a thing she had in common with and gave her a shared language with a wider range of kids.
Of course, sports are not everyone’s thing, but I do think it is helpful to find some activity that is fun for a gifted kid but not necessarily easy or an area where they dominate. And to praise effort in everything (not smarts).
I also didn’t mean to sound preachy about the screen time. For instance, as much as I HATE social media for teen girls, I also think it was necessary for mine to participate to some degree in order for her to be included. What I meant to convey is that we set expectations years before issues came up, so there wouldn’t be push back later. The first cell phone came with a list of rules that came with the privilege (no friending anyone you don’t know in real life, parental approval required before adding any apps, etc.).
I think the same approach can be helpful with games, etc., before a kid starts feeling entitled about their device. When my kid was a preschooler, she could explain our family “Rule of Moderation” (one cookie/TV show/time in the sun is good — lots are not).
I also used to serve all vegetables as a “salad” course (when the kids were most hungry) before dishing up the rest of dinner, because I found it resulted in my kids eating/liking more veggies. I kinda used the same strategy with screen time and saved it for AFTER whatever awesome activity I was hoping would capture the attention/imagination that day.
Best wishes — your kid sounds awesome!
From reading your previous thread, I believe we live in the same metropolitan area. Luckily, you have plenty of educational and cultural opportunities available. Once you’re more comfortable venturing out, make full use of them. Don’t limit yourself to kiddy activities, explore everything (just be ready to leave if he has to burn of some energy). Yes, you will probably be exhausted and rack up lots of miles. Once he’s school age, the universities offer lots of activities which are more thoughtful and engaging than what may be available at your local parks and rec. My 2E kid was often bored, frustrated, or struggling in school, but unlike many of her friends and classmates, recognizes all the the other opportunities available within a 45 minute drive in any direction.
I have been following this thread with great interest. Unless I somehow missed it, I don’t think anyone has mentioned classical music — both performing and composing — as an outlet for the profoundly gifted.
Here’s a fascinating 60 Minutes segment on music prodigy Alma Deutscher.
Choose a pediatrician carefully. Ours was a lifeline, making very practical and actionable suggestions for a gifted young kid who was uncoordinated and not especially athletic. Since neither of us parents were particularly coordinated or interested in sports this wouldn’t have occurred to us as something to even think about-- but when contrasting my kid’s social integration at school with the experience of other gifted kids- this was fantastic and life-altering help for us. Our kid never felt the kind of ostracization and alone-ness that some kids experience (many gifted kids don’t care, others care but don’t know how to fix it) because there was always a pickup game in the neighborhood, or some kid who would bat around a ball for an hour before dinner.
The pediatrician was also an eagle eye when it came to other social issues and again- just a lifeline. Not every doctor takes the time to see “the whole child” even though that’s a cliche and a mantra. It is natural for the professionals in your kids life to see the verbal skills and not go deeper-- but human beings are complicated, and talking early and reading early and loving numbers is not sufficient for a satisfying adulthood for most people no matter how brilliant.
I completely agree with this. It’s important that a gifted child does something that is hard for them, because otherwise they might not develop a work ethic, since many of them coast in school. For these kids, college can be a rude wake up call.
Sorry, I admit I got defensive about a few things. The no-screens things really gets to me because it’s frustrating to be told “screens bad” when we have very little alternative. I also think screens are highly and unnecessarily stigmatized. This is a digital native generation and screens will be part of every aspect of their lives. Normalize it and it takes away some of the appeal.
And as I said before, he’s learning SO MUCH from screens that we could never teach him and that aren’t available in person due to COVID. I can speak Spanish but not nearly as fluently as shows do (for example).
Also as I’ve said, I have NO desire to label him gifted. I’m using that word here only because it got my point across. I have no interest in pushing him to be some little boy genius or something. I just want to support him. A few posts made it seem like I was trying to raise the next Einstein or something and that’s not at all what I want. I’m just acknowledging I have a kid who is currently way ahead of those his age and asking how I can best support him.
I did find a language immersion program nearby (it’s like 2 hours/week) but they require masks right at 2 and that is currently… a struggle lol. We’ve tried getting him used to masks but he is NOT having it. We have a few months to work on this luckily.
Re: other things:
-Sports or other physical activity in some form will be mandatory. I was a year round athlete from the time I was like 3 and sports are a big part of my family. I very, VERY much believe that sports are great for youth development
-Ren already “plays” the piano. I am not musical, at all, but we have a lot of musical talent in both our families. My SIL has already offered lessons when he’s more in the 3/4 year old range since she teaches by sheet music, not by ear. Again, as someone who’s not musical I can’t quite explain what he does with the piano but he absolutely understands that each note has its own sound and he likes playing around to put things together. He’s certainly not playing but he does seem to have an aptitude for sounds. He also likes music and now spends all day singing songs around the house. (Wheels on the bus is currently his JAM)
-As much as a COVID toddler can be “social,” he is. He’s always happy to play with other kids at daycare and the few times he sees them at places like swim practice. He likes to play with his cousins who have been a solid presence thanks to our COVID bubble. He is not affectionate though - he’s not much for physical cuddling or anything like that unless he’s sick or tired. He is fine with eye contact and emotions though.
I worry that you might not take me seriously but I urge you to not discard my reply immediately and to at least think through what I say.
Please, get off college confidential. Your child is not even 2, it’s wonderful that you want to support him in every way possible, it’s nice to see parents that really care about their children and that want them to be stimulated and grow.
But it’s so, so, early to be on college confidential for him. I know that you’re looking for advice on how to best support him and how to give him the best education possible, but you need to consider that, even though you’re being mindful of not pushing him, you might end up doing it inadvertently. It’s just too early.
I follow this mom on tiktok/Instagram, her username is @/lackofinmpulsecontrol. I’m suggesting her account to you because she has a lot of parenting advice that could be useful. Please, note that I’m only recommending you this because you’re here to look for advice, and I’m not sure if this you first child or you already have experience parenting.
On her account, she shows how she talks to her children to explain difficult topics (she never actually shows the kids in the videos, she’s not that kind of mom), like how the reproductive system is formed and how periods work.
She also explains how she deals with certain situations. For example, she noticed her kids weren’t ready to self-regulate their screen time, so she’s trying to introduce these devices to them gradually, so they can use them for good and without getting addicted.
I think her videos are interesting and helpful, and might give you some of the advice you were looking for in your post.
@catastrophee I’ve been on CC since I was in high school. I know you mean well but these people have known me for well over a decade. I’m not turning here because it’s a college forum, I’m turning here because I’m comfortable with these people.
What does he enjoy doing when he isn’t on an iPad and isn’t reading a book? What books does he like? Does he discuss the stories with you?
How does he tell you that he is hungry? Does he ask to read his favorite book if he can’t get to it himself?
Puzzles, coloring, the music keyboard, singing, blocks, letters, an easel, etc.
He tells us he’s hungry by saying “I hungry” and signing “eat” or he’ll bring us something from his snack drawer. If he needs help with something, he brings it to us and says “help” or “please.”
He loves playing with his letters and numbers like this and telling us the number.
Or putting together things like this B and 11 and being adamant that it’s “ball”
He has a box now that we’re trying to encourage him to play make believe with lol.
I understand your mind is made up about the screens, and I don’t blame you for using them as a tool (especially during a pandemic). However, from my 25 years as a gifted teacher, I can tell you that screens are already pretty normalized and they have lost exactly zero appeal for today’s tweens and teens. Kids know everything there is to know about League and Instagram, but many of them can’t vet an online source, use a search engine effectively, or even cut and paste in Word. Growing up as a digital native isn’t an advantage if you’re only comfortable with video games and social media (not that this yet applies to a 2-year-old). Not trying to judge your parenting or anyone else’s, but I recommend keeping an eye on it.
Your son is probably too young for this now, but this book might be a useful resource as he ages, or for others. I have found Paula Prober’s work to be really enlightening for thinking about the full picture of giftedness.
Many of us have known Romani a long time now and this is part of a life cycle after those years on this site. No way you would know that but that is what is going on here!