What did you do to make your child academically gifted??

[luckystarmaking]

My DD just started reception and I'm already concerned that she might be behind especially in maths.

She can recognise all letters, a few words and can write a couple of 3 letter words but when it comes to maths all she can do is count to 20-25 (sometimes she forgets the order from 12-20) and she can just do basic adding. She also uses her fingers to count and I read that that method doesn't help with mental arithmetic.

We've done a lot of print out activities in maths but it hasn't really gone in yet.

I really want her to do well in life as I had a crap upbringing and suffered from a poor education. I'm a cleaner, but hey ho.

If your child is gifted, what have you done right? Any tips?

Being gifted isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’d say you’re more likely to have good mates and good fun if you’re of average intelligence. Encourage creative play, reading, common sense and kindness over all else.

If you instead asked “how do I place my child in the best possible position to use their brain and be successful in life?

1. Teach them the importance of their own health and well-being by having good routines around sleep, food and exercise. Includes feeding them nutritious food.

1. Read to them and let them see you reading

1. Expose them to art and music of all types

1. Teach them good studying habits at a young age. Make them responsible for homework and studying in age-appropriate ways as they grow older.

1. Talk to them and listen to them every day - find out what they are learning and show it’s important to you.

1. Always support them and expect them to put in the effort. Praise them for the effort rather than the outcomes. “Did you do your best?” Should be the most important thing.

1. Teach them it’s ok to mess up and to try again.

1. Stay involved at school in any way possible. Find out each year what awards they can achieve. Help your child set goals for things they want to earn / want to get honors? Here is how you can do that.

This comes from my own upbringing - things my Mom did and also few things I think would have made me a better student. I’m not gifted but had the ability to be a top student. Just lazy and didn’t put in much effort.

I have assumed that the OP means academically successful rather than gifted in terms of raw IQ.

True giftedness is very rare but academic excellence is more attainable.

Marking my spot.

I’ve noticed children with high intelligence often have an unusually long attention span at an early age. Independent, confident and happy to play by themselves.

You also have to remember that different children develop at different speeds - I really think it is too early at 4 to say who is and isn’t gifted.

I could read (actual books not just flash cards) when I started school. And do basic maths. My brother couldn't. And he was always in trouble for getting up out of his chair and running around. He just couldn’t concentrate. Guess who went to Cambridge? (I did go to med school, but the point is that DBro was equally as bright as me once he was old enough to settle down and concentrate).

DS is 3.5, and has absolutely zero interest in learning letters or numbers. He’s ok with practical maths (counting, sharing), and loves stories and imaginative play, but is definitely not studious in the same way that I was at his age. I don’t think there is much point in pushing it until they are older tbh.

Read, take her on trips out to learn about things (if you watch Go For A Walk on CBeebies, that is the sort of trip I mean, looking at things happening around and understanding how they work, not trips around museums). Practise maths at home, sharing, adding up, counting money in shops, etc. Try to make her inquisitive about the world around her.

Marmite133 is exactly right. Being a good reader is self fulfilling, it gives the child a confidence and belief in themselves. I'm also an early years teacher and wanted my own to be good readers because then if they did rebel later or didn't achieve their potential they had the ability to go back to education. Also loving books means your child can find out about anything that interests them. So in terms of what you can do now, read your child stories every night, say how much you enjoy the story, let them join in with repetition and rhyme, make it fun. imdonenow you're not alone in trying to interest an active boy in books! You could try when they're tired and want a cuddle, if they get out of bed say you'll read a story but that's it. Get them to turn the pages/ lift a flap / find the hidden object books. Use silly voices, ask for their help, where is the teddy in the puddle? Follow his interest and find books about trains, insects etc and build him up ie I bet you wouldn't be scared of that beetle, shall we find out more about it? Heaps of praise and exaggerated love for books. It really is worth the investment now, it's hard but the payoff throughout their school career is huge.

I am 50, have a doctorate from Oxford in a science subject and still use my fingers to count at times.

Intellectual giftedness is much rarer than academic success, and doesn't always correlate to academic success (there are people with IQs over 140 out there who did terribly in school and have no qualifications to speak of, so it isn't a neat correlation).

I would never tell him this, but i'm 90% certain this is my dad. He doesn't have a photographic memory, but it's clearly not far off. He absorbs information and ideas like no one I've ever met and can articulate and discuss them at whatever level is necessary (he would have made an incredible teacher or professor I suspect). He barely finished high school. He did have a very successful career however as he's highly competent and had no problem passing the relevant exams for progression. I suspect that if he'd been a child in 2020 vs in 1940, his experience and life would have been very very different.

@Fiftysixthnamechange I am v interested in your comment re private school. We DO luckily have some pretty good academic state schools around us but not the one DD is at and possibly not entirely to the level we need. She's not gifted (I don't think) but we are increasingly certain that academically we will be holding her back if we don't move her before she finishes primary. I'm glad to hear others have done it and it's worked out.

Is this serious? This child is in reception and you’re worried about her not being gifted and how you can make her so???! Let the poor girl enjoy settling into school! They learn at different speeds and what one child finds easy another will find harder, they might click now or in a year. Sounds like you’re putting waaaaaaay too much pressure on the situation when she’s been in school for about 3 weeks?? Jeeeez. Give the kid a break.

eeyore, when I saw the title of the thread, I was thinking the same but, reading between the lines, it was pretty obvious to me that the op was just hoping to give her child opportunities she felt she didn't have.

I do agree that there is too much pressure these days. Schools push harder and parents can be very competitive.

My DD struggled considerably at this stage and, tbh, what with the school's interventions and suggestions, it just made me more neurotic, which didn't help her. She ended up at a good state comprehensive (on paper, at least) but the pressure was high, as was the cost to her mental health, but they got her through her GCSEs and she is in a nice 6th form now and is happy.

My son is far brighter but he is a lazy bugger. There is a determination about my DD that he doesn't have so it's not just a brain that's a guarantee of success. I did OK at school and ended up at university, after which I crumbled. Now I work in retail . It's not my dream job but it's low stress and I have a good report among my team and the hours suit.

I think we're oversold the idea both at home and in school that the only way to be worthwhile is to have a professional job

rapport damn it

Also aim high - anecdotally I was horrified when helping on a school trip to hear late primary girls with a “not for the likes of us” mentality - already self limiting. Their mothers were single parents and waitresses / cleaners the girls with professional parents did not have these attitudes and assumed works their oyster. Thought it so sad

World

@Marmite133

Not a parent, but a teacher! Firstly, counting on fingers is an important part of development that is vital to developing an understanding of number. The very gifted children I have taught have one thing in common : reading. Being read to/reading themselves as much as possible from a young age. The younger they learn to read, the easier everything else becomes. It develops comprehensions skills that help them with understanding concepts in other areas including maths (the concept of numbers comes up all the time in reading). Also experiences. Going places and doing things - lots. Lots of engagement from adults and conversations about everything. Number is all around - talk about it and explore it every day. The rest will come and remember she's still very young.

Have to say, this is a curious opinion, coming from a teacher.

What about the children that have been read to as much as possible from a very young age and still struggle because of undiagnosed learning difficulties? Things will never be easy for them, no matter how hard they try.

Anyhoo---gifted children are not made. They are nurtured. There is no amount of hothousing or tutoring that will make a child gifted if they are not meant to be...

He got my dad/ his dads brains 😆

Dh parents had manual jobs were unable to help him with any school work and no one in his family ever been to university so he got into Cambridge on his own merits. He even appeared on local radio as anyone getting in from his area / school was so remarkable 😁. His parents certainly hadn’t done anything and were slightly baffled if anything!

Dd is gifted, identified at an early age by school. Very high iq yet is fairly useless at life and struggles with mental health due to expectations.

She never had to revise for exams so she has a fairly lax attitude to discipline.

Trust me being gifted isn't always something to covet for your child.

If it makes you feel any better, my son has just started reception - he can only recognise the number one, and can’t recognise any letters at all. He can count from 1-10. I would absolutely love him to be at the stage your daughter is - it sounds like she’s doing great.

@SpaceOP

Intellectual giftedness is much rarer than academic success, and doesn't always correlate to academic success (there are people with IQs over 140 out there who did terribly in school and have no qualifications to speak of, so it isn't a neat correlation).

I would never tell him this, but i'm 90% certain this is my dad. He doesn't have a photographic memory, but it's clearly not far off. He absorbs information and ideas like no one I've ever met and can articulate and discuss them at whatever level is necessary (he would have made an incredible teacher or professor I suspect). He barely finished high school. He did have a very successful career however as he's highly competent and had no problem passing the relevant exams for progression. I suspect that if he'd been a child in 2020 vs in 1940, his experience and life would have been very very different.

@Fiftysixthnamechange I am v interested in your comment re private school. We DO luckily have some pretty good academic state schools around us but not the one DD is at and possibly not entirely to the level we need. She's not gifted (I don't think) but we are increasingly certain that academically we will be holding her back if we don't move her before she finishes primary. I'm glad to hear others have done it and it's worked out.

Our local school is a performing arts school, about as far removed from DS as its possible to be 😂 we have a very academic Catholic school, applied but didn't get in because we're not Catholic. It was a difficult decision to go private but honestly, I wish I'd done it sooner, it's a very academic school so not suitable for all children but perfect for him and he loves it.

I was apparently a gifted child. Accelerated at school into higher year/s. I appear to have lost quite a bit of that aspect of myself !!

My siblings were not gifted. We were all enabled to be our very ‘best’ - I’d say through a combo of early reading, lots of travel or activity type experience and music. None of it ‘forced’ or experienced as being forced or particularly ‘important’.
Not sure you can create a gifted child but you can allow a gifted child to be ok with it and non gifted children to be their best. Really think it’s key not to worry about or put pressure on the whole thing.
Good luck op (and dd).

I was a “gifted” child and teenager and agree it’s not all it’s cracked up to be! I was bullied in every school I went to, ended up with crippling self esteem issues as I didn’t feel like I was valued for anything other than academic success and have had to teach myself how to work hard at something as an adult because as a child I rarely had to. I went to Oxford, had a mental health breakdown in my third year (part stress and part childhood trauma), dropped out and worked as a TA on minimum wage. I’m now training as an AHP and am not likely to make big bucks in the NHS, although I am doing something that I love. Anyway, being “gifted” is neither a guarantee of health nor wealth. Chill out and enjoy your child as they are; there are so many more important things to be than academically successful.

To create brainy kids, have them with a brainy person. And hope they take after the brainy person.

However beyond that, count things, sweetie, cars, lego bricks, teddy's. My mum's favourite is the stairs.

And read to them.

OP, your daughter sounds pretty ahead of the curve to me! Most kids can't recognise all letters, read words or do sums before they start Reception and many can't recognise letters or more than a few numbers. Just chill, for your child's sake and your own. I get it's an anxious time, but don't stress it.