Should I be doing more for a very bright Year 2 child?

Hahaha, second vote for ice skating. It was my hobby as a kid and I competed until I was at uni and did a bit of coaching. Can confirm that watching DD who happily worked her way through the entire harry potter box set in year 2 and has never found a day of school hard in her life fail and fail and try again is incredibly good for her. She's determined to be better than me one day and she absolutely will be if she stays interested in it.

But yeah, anything that they find genuinely hard is character building.

ABSOLUTELY this. Best advice on the thread.

Get him violin, or piano lessons, or both. He will find these more of a struggle to master, as there are few shortcuts even if one is bright, or musical. It's incredibly good for a child to learn 'ah, here is something I have to actually work at!' - there will be battles - and music has values of its own, eg he will be able to join music groups, hopefully fostering a life-long love of music that will go ahead into his future.

My two 'gifted' daughters both struggled when they came up against the discipline required for music, the inevitable and countless 'failures that have to be overcome and improved. Adults now, they still love music and their instruments - we often make family music together, and both are in amateur music groups, tho in different instruments to the one they learned in childhood. No-one seems to hold those battles to get them to practice against me now!

When you say you're currently working on teaching him tact and when not to correct people, surely you can't be referring to adults!

A sharp response would soon cure him of that but I'm sure you must mean he corrects other children.

It won't make him popular with his classmates if he acts the schoolmaster with them!

I second this as well as emphasising social and sporting activities. I was very smart as a kid but also desperately shy and with my self esteem was and still is less than zero. I got 4 As at A-Level and got went to Oxford but completely "failed to launch" and was back home by Easter and have never really got going. I have a decent job but could have done so much more with a bit of parental encouragement.

Don't praise him for "being clever". Praise him for trying hard. This is key.

I also have an 8 year old smart arse who is frankly bored stiff at school doing her times tables when she learnt them all off by heart when she was 6.

But I don't really care about "pushing her". She's a kid and just needs to enjoy life and learn how to hang out with her friends, how to manage her friendships and fail at things.

She is very busy outside school and does lots of activities. I can recommend ice skating as an activity to fail at as it's bloody hard! That's what my daughter does 😀

Your DC sounds quite similar to mine. Luckily, the school he attends are able to identify children’s strengths and stretch them further. Same for the ones that need more support. its not my job to prevent boredom at school.

Yes an instrument would be great and perhaps coding maybe.

Does he play chess? Sounds like he’d probably like the challenge.
Good points about supporting him to develop the things he’s not good at and to encourage friendships and social skills. I wouldn’t over think it. School will let you know if he’s difficult in class.

I was clever as a child and ended up being a bit arrogant, as well as struggling with working hard (because I never had to) and failure (because I didn’t fail anything until I was 23 and failed my driving test).

I have a bright DS the same age as yours and he has started learning a musical instrument. It’s great for him because he doesn’t find it easy, has to work hard and has to cope with the teacher saying he’s done things wrong. I wish I’d had similar as a child. I often think with bright or talented children you have to pay attention to their character more than anything else.

I had similar thoughts about my ds so know where you're coming from op. You sound like you're doing fine! Just support his interests, encourage him to read a range of books, maybe do some maths games. But all in a chilled way.

If someone said that about mine-the “too clever for the teachers” thing-I’d wonder if he was being a bit of a pain in the neck. Sorry.

As the parent of a highly gifted child who is now 24 and struggling with life, I strongly suggest introducing your child to things they are not good at. They need to learn to fail as well as succeed.

No but if parents continue to tell their children they are gifted, you can end up with smug, annoying, precocious kids.

1000 piece jigsaws

Rubix cubes

Harder books

Difficult Lego sets

Learn violin/piano

The best thing to do is work on the things he isn't so good at - social stuff or physical stuff or creative stuff. It is really important for children who spoke through academic work to find somethings hard, otherwise they don't build the skills they need to persevere and wrangle with problems and deal with failure.

Broaden his interests and look at things like music/music theory, other languages, theatres, museums, concerts as well as lots of reading materials of different types and genres.

Personally I would be uncomfortable with a school discussing my child with another parent in that sort of detail.

Because there are far more (in my experience) very bright children who do struggle to fit in and relate to their peers than those who find both easy. Op was asking how to best support her very bright son, I was sharing my opinion and experience that often, when a child finds academics easy, it's beneficial to focus on other things to help them develop.

My own DD for example is very academic, but really struggles with coordination, we've found piano lessons have helped.

It's not unusual for bright children to correct a teacher. What is unusual is for them to be unambiguously correct, because, ultimately, they are 7 and whilst they might be working even 4 or more years ahead of their peers, they aren't degree educated. Believe me, the teachers can handle it and if the teacher doesn't go into the ins and outs of something it'll be down to time management, following the curriculum and holding the interest of an entire class, not because they have a lesser understanding of the subject matter than a small child.

I had a brother who people used to refer to in the same way. What he did was treated with breathless awe, although I can't imagine any person saying a child was too clever for the teachers,
What he was interested in became a real project for my parents to push him to display his knowledge and they would talk about how brilliant he was.

Result was he was rude to the teachers, who he thought were beneath him, and couldn't relate to his peers because he thought they wouldn't understand him, so there was no point in trying. He (and my parents) always found an excuse if anyone did better why he was really better than them.
He got good, not outstanding results at GCSEs/A-levels and found degree a real struggle because he'd always believed that he was so naturally good that others couldn't touch him, and he was surrounded by people as good or better.

I think the worst thing for him was to treat him as terribly clever; it separated him from his peers and made him different. They were so busy proving that he was cleverer than everyone else that they didn't worry that he had no friends.
And actually he was bright, but he wasn't that amazingly clever person they thought, and as he got older and it became more obvious, he got more miserable as he only had that as an identity.

If he's interested in something for himself, then fine, you can take him to the library etc. But don't push him to do more.
My ds was interested in WWII, I remember the year 6 teacher laughing that when they were studying WWII the rest of the form were turning to him and asking if things were right, and they'd believe him over the teacher - and the teacher said he had been always right when she'd checked.
A child, who wants to learn about a subject can learn more than their teachers, but that doesn't make them cleverer than the teachers. We did take him to museums, and he got books from the library, but it was done on his terms, not ours, and that's important.