Is there a possibilty my child is gifted or different?

AmorieAni

So I know all parents at some point think their child is smarter than average, but I really, honestly am blown away by my 3 month old daughter and her advanced development, to the point where it's actually freaked me out a few times. I'll start from the beginning.

Birth - 2 weeks:
From the day she was born, my LO has made direct eye contact with anyone who spoke to her. She has been very alert and aware since she was born. At 5 days old, when I first brought her home I put a mobile above her bassinet and she stared at it in amazement, tracking it as it moved and smiling at it. She did this for nearly 20 minutes. From 1-2 weeks old she would copy my facial expressions, such as sticking her tongue out at me after I did it at her and smiling back at me when I smiled at her (I heard babies don't intentionally smile until around 4 weeks). She could also hold her head up while in a sitting position and while on her tummy.

2-4 weeks:
By 2 weeks she recognized all her caregivers, her dad, her grandparents, and her aunt and uncle. She could put voices to faces as well. She was always very sensitive to any changes. At 3 weeks she developed an attatchment to a baby blankey, and refused to go to sleep without it. I even gave her a nearly identical blanket and she wouldn't accept it. She was making direct eye contact and would make noises in response to being talked to, as if having a conversation. She could also read people's emotions.


4-8 weeks: 
By 4 weeks, LO would attentively watch tv and videos. She would sit through an entire 1 hour episode of sesame street, smiling and laughing when something funny in the show happened. By 6 weeks she was able to completely control her hands, by looking at something, reaching for it, and grabbing it. I would hold out a toy and she would take it from me. If her binky fell out of her mouth, she would literally pick it up and put it back in. By 8 weeks she was able to hold her own bottle by herself for an entire feeding. She would dance to music and stop once the music was turned off.  

8-12 weeks: At her 2 month check-up, our pediatrician was really surprised at how quickly LO was developing and how ahead she was on milestones. "She's actually more advanced than some 3 and 4 month old babies. This is really something", is what the pedi said after examining her. LO is 12 weeks old as of today, and is almost crawling, able to roll over, almost able to sit up, responds to any sort of stimuli, sits through entire movies, tv shows, and absolutely loves being read to. She love to watch preschool and kindergarten learning videos about numbers. She has a unique fascination with numbers and patterns. What surprised me the most was last week when I kept saying "hi" to her. After doing it several times and her smiling back each time, she goes "hiiiiiiii" and I thought it was a coincidence but she did it again! And again! She has a very long attention span and is very determined. She will not stop trying at something until she completes it. She gets bored and fussy if not constantly stimulated (she hates sleeping, being in a swing or bouncy seat, she has to be learning or doing something). She gets very frusterated when she's been trying at something for a long time but is unable to do it (like crawling, because she's only 3 months old), but she will not give up or stop trying. She's been significantly early on every milestone so far, is quite advanced for her age, both according to her Dr and everyone who's met her.  I know at 3 months it's too early to tell if she is gifted or more intelligent than average, but I was just wondering if this seems normal for a child her age

Sam_Alumni

Hi @AmorieAni I loved reading about your child's milestones, it took me right back! My babies are 16, 13 and 11 now and one thing I have learnt as a mum is to just appreciate every moment as they grow up so quickly!

How are you all getting on now?

forgoodnesssake

I'm unsure why this is on a disability site...

feir

forgoodnesssake said:

I'm unsure why this is on a disability site...

Being gifted and talented is classed as a special need. This might be why?

magunra2k

Children develop different things at different rates, my daughter has always been a natural problem solver and reads at a much advanced level to her peers ,but her maths is terrible! She has a real mental block for the number 12, or twenteen as she calls it ...anyway yes your child is special , they all are .

juliedgb

Am i wrong to say i find this story a little creepy !!!! 

zak100

I thought this site was for people with disabilities I.e. a condition that restricts their quality of life.

feir

Being overly intelligent is a 'disability' because you are more advanced than your peers and so their education holds yours back.

Disability is probably the wrong word but their education is being restricted because their peers are not as intelligent as them and so the level at which gifted children are learning is lower than it should be. They are being held back and need a special education.

An education that does not stimulate intelligent people is boring to them, i could read by the age of 3 and by the age of 4 my school were sending sending me home with books age 8+ to read aloud to my mum and she said i'd read them to her for a few pages but then just get absorbed in them and stop reading aloud. There was no special needs then but my school recognised that my literary education was further along than others my age and encouraged that. Imagine if they'd sent me home with the very hungry caterpillar, lol.

zak100

I can understand how you feel. I have a 15 year old son who has always hated school even though he has above average intelligence. I agree with you he found school too easy. He told me once when he was about 5 years old why should he have to go to school as he knew everything already. The thing was the teacher would repeat some lessons and he found it so boring. When he was in year 5 and 6 he was put into the highest sets for Maths and English. Unfortunately in Secondary school they don't have the resources for bright kids. My advice for you would be to apply for a private school for your daughter as they are based on intelligence criteria. She may get a scholarship if she passes certain exams. My son is recognised in his school as gifted and talented but the school hasn't got the resources to suit his needs. He has said to me in the past "it shouldn't be that the student is more clever than the teacher". He explained to me about a maths question he worked out and the teacher had difficulty with it and then just brushed it aside. My son is very well behaved and gets on with most of his teachers. He is very mature for his age. 

feir

My daughter loves school and learning luckily, but they haven't mentioned that she is gifted or anything, she is in the top set for everything and deson't appear to need extra stimulation.

I tend to have more problems with my sons, my youngest was in the top sets for everything as well but he is bored (same for my oldest son, he hated school), my middle son's got special needs and learning difficulties and i doubt he will ever get near the tops sets because even though he is a deep thinker and questions things, very emotionally aware, and i'd say philosophically hes great there but when it comes to memory he fails and he doesn't even know the months of the year, his information processing is good but his memory recall is terrible.

zak100

My daughter has epilepsy and has underachieved in all her subjects. It really gets to her sometimes and she says she's a failure and isn't good at anything. I feel really sad for her as her memory and concentration is not good. She has also had problems with anger in school with teachers and pupils. I think she just gets frustrated as she can't keep up. Unfortunately there are no resources for children like my daughter who finds school very frustrating. Her Consultant told me children with epilepsy present with 5 x more behavioural problems. I do believe this to be true. As she is the elder sibling she feels inadequate compared to her brother who just sails through exams even though he has missed many days due to stomach ache. I often wonder are these pains brought on by stress by not wanting to go to school. 

feir

Don't know about the pains, has he given off any hint that he doesn't like school or is stressed? Loads of things can give off stomach ache, it'd be hard to guess what is causing that exactly.

My middle son got sent to a school for behavioural problems but the kids there tend to be more not mentally disabled and it's their personality that is a problem, after 2 years the education authority realised they'd sent my son to the wrong type of school as he'd never displayed behavioural issues there (at his 'normal' school he did but he was being bullied and acting out because of that), He did get sent to a school for disabled children eventually and that was when he started to enjoy going. Wonder if your daughter would be eligible for a school for disabled children? I found a big improvement with my sons self esteem at one, it took a few years but eventually he was coming out of his shell and started to trust adults again.

zak100

I have thought about that and wonder if the bad behaviour was because she couldn't keep up with the lessons. She has also missed many days due to her epilepsy. There is a lot of pressure put on kids to get good grades a.nd unfortunately some kids need more support. I asked her once why didn't she ask her teacher to explain if she couldn't understand something b
ut she said the teacher got annoyed and said she should have got what she said and carried on with the lesson. My daughter also said she didn't want to look stupid in front of the class.

feir

Sounds like a SEN (or i think they changed them to SEND?) plan could be handy if nothing else?

And yeah way too pressure for kids to do well, one school my kids went to were asked to keep the kids in after school so they could study for exams.

Ninny

I have a child who was really forward..  talking at one and I mean having a conversation. She memorised film dialogue and whole songs and stories at 2/3yrs old. When she was 5 and at school i noticed she seemed to have blind spots generally not being able to see things in front of her forgetful stressed. By the time she was 10 she was 2yrs ahead of reading I taught her before starting school   But I noticed she couldn't follow or maintain  the story if she's read it. She was being bullied and extremely vulnerable. I pushed and pushed the school. In the end of year play she's got the lead and knew All her lines /songs and everyone else's, however I didn't see her learn lines. Eventually she was diagnosed with visual perception problems and dyscalculia and I suspect she has some other undiagnosed stuff.   She can't keep information in her head and this effects all aspects of her learning. My mother was paying for tuition with kipmgrath for literacy and numeracy.  Primary school were brilliant  I had a meeting with child psychologists who was shocked at her continuing 2yr ahead reading level.. However she wouldn't read books. She was known as having a spiky profile. At 11 upon starting secondary nothing was put in place to support her. She was suicidal and we were on our own again. After many meetings to access support i took her out of school to home ed. I paid for a dyscalculia  maths program,  music,  theatre group and I covered everything else myself. My kid was failed by her secondary school. It wasn't easy she was broken. We had to deal with education welfare officer who wasn't nice in our area .. She was  appalling. It was so hard but I knew my kids life was more important than passing tests. My childs got hidden disabilities,  so it's really hard to get people to understand. She's 17 at college and the fight goes on. Tutors aren't equipped to understand her disability. So she doesn't get support needed. However I won't ever give up we concentrate on her gift of music.. What she can do. So battle commences. Sorry this is long..  I am alone with this.  Society isn't set up for kids like mine and is quick to judge. 
Many Thanks ?? 

newborn

Did anyone see Etre et Avoir? A charming french documentary about a village schoolteacher with all ages in his single class..

I suggest the notion that large numbers of children are rounded up and expected to learn at  a uniform pace, based on age, is a strange idea.

Many in several generations of one family are self taught achievers, often discovered  to be readers, nobody knows how, long before school.   The family is all pretty bright, but one of them never went to school nor was taught,  yet achieved great things as an innovative scientific engineer.

  Another was almost equally unschooled, but on arriving at a mainstream school, at secondary age,  needed to be 'jumped' two years in age group, but persisted in the habit of quietly self learning, far ahead of the class,  till the staff accepted it was simpler just to hand over the A level books, for barely supervised study, ignoring O level.  They reasoned correctly that the challenge of having missing chunks of syllabus would ensure the work remained difficult enough to hold that pupil's attention.

Good teachers do stream, within a single age class, but it still seems to offend all logic to teach a group by calender age, or admit to school in the first place in the strange way u.k. does it, I. E. All or nothing, from zero hours to a full school day and five day week.   

 It must be obvious that some are ready for part time learning far younger, and others still not ready for full time, far older. Also, the 'wrong birthdate' children who find it hard to keep up with the initial class, will feel a dispiriting knock back which could have lastING harm to their confidence.   There must be an extra problem for those on the autistic or dyslexic or attention deficit range, among others, when  an entire school career is based on unfavourable comparison, in flexibly stuck in a group purportedly identical, on basis of being born within a twelve month period

alibabi67

My son was extremely smart as a kid, went to nursery at a very young age knowing how to count beyond 100, being able to write his name. He achieved milestones way early. He was always over achieving. Turned out he’s autistic! During A levels he was at school only 53% of the time and he got A*  He’s 20 now, at university studying history and politics.