Very advanced children

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I just happen to have landed on a bunch of threads by parents with 'gifted' children, and one or two about parents who think their kids are more gifted than they are.

It's reminded me of an 18-month-old I once met, who talked more eloquently than most 7-year-olds can. He had a very enquiring mind, asking intelligent questions (I was at work) and telling me about stuff he'd learned. He could read and was good at arithmetic. He was a little charmer, really, a delight to meet - if somewhat wearing; he never stopped asking questions.

He evidently had the mind of a toddler despite his advanced skills. He was quite physically developed, though still within range for his age. His mother told me her biggest worry was that people couldn't help treating him as if he were older, expecting him to be more responsible or experienced than he was able.

One of my nephews suffered from this as a young child, too - nothing like the prodigy I've just described, but he was verbally advanced due to spending nearly all his time with adults and was also big and strong for his age. Kids shouldn't have to keep telling adults "I'm only three, I can't do that!" but he did have to.

I sometimes wonder how Prodigy Child turned out. His mum said she was prepared for his development to slow down until others caught up, but lifetime prodigies do exist and I don't think they always have an easy time.

Have you known any DC like this? What happened to them? Alternatively, feel free to share about the deluded parents of normal children you have known!

I found this article about child prodigies fascinating. It is focusing on sport and music but I wonder if it could be extrapolated to academics. It’s behind a paywall but the main gist was-

“When they crunched their data, a reliable pattern fell out. In every field, elite youth performers and elite adults were almost entirely separate groups. Around 90% of superstar adults had not been superstars as children, while only 10% of top-level kids had gone on to become exceptional adults. It is not just that exceptional performance in childhood did not predict exceptional performance as an adult. The two were actually negatively correlated, says Dr Güllich.”

www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2026/01/14/why-child-prodigies-rarely-become-elite-performers

I knew of a 4 year old in a school I worked at who was in the pre school class. He could do quite difficult multiplication and division in his head. It was incredible. He was also a fantastic reader. His parents were surprised (as they were of average intelligence) but delighted and constantly told him how amazingly clever he was.
He is year 6 now and while still at the upper end of ability level in his class, he has definitely evened out and his friends have caught up. This has hugely affected his confidence and sense of self worth because his parents put so much emphasis on how clever he was. He doesn’t know what to be if he isn’t clever.

I also agree with a pp that there are so many different types of intelligence that get ignored. I once taught a child who struggled with his literacy and numeracy but anything that was broken in the classroom, he could fix it. He was an incredible problem solver and amazingly practical. Another little girl I taught had amazing emotional intelligence and seemed to be able to understand and support her friends so well for her age.

I did also work with a teen with autism who could only have very basic conversations and couldn’t count past 2 but if you asked him any date in the past or future, he could tell you the day it fell on. It was incredible. He did it in a flash too, no working it out.

my own kids are pretty average academically so I haven’t experienced being gifted and talented with my own kids. I just would be wary of the label because sometimes children don’t know who they are other than a ‘gifted child’ which can cause problems later on.

@RazedBeds sorry I misnamed you, I meant someone else. Conflated two posts with rather different tones.

(my son is 'gifted', if you want to call it that ~ I am ... not :D )

I do have quite an advanced 6 year old but I am well aware that it is probable that the others will catch up and she will level off.

I am quite academic and have pg level education and her dad went to a super posh school on an academic scholarship so odds are she will be reasonably high achieving, but I don’t expect her to be remarkable in a weird way-I actually hope she isn’t. She was a very early talker, early reader and is very strong on maths (her dad’s subject) so time will tell. She spent 3hrs today doing times tables workbooks for 8-9 year olds (by herself, that’s what she does for fun, it’s not our idea!).

She can’t run properly though, her gross motor was really at the bottom end of the curve. Took ages to walk and she gets upset at soft play as 2 year olds push her out the way for taking so long to get down slides etc. She’s crap at ball games and the like. I’m hoping over time she evens out as I don’t want her to be the weird kid, kids are brutal.

I was academically bright as a kid, went on to achieve top grades at school and uni, but more because I worked hard rather than being naturally gifted. After uni, I had no idea where to go. I ended up in a job I don't particularly like with very little chance of moving into another field (as I can't afford to start again on a lower salary). I didn't really know what to do with my grades.

I now have a child who is clearly bright, with an excellent memory, naturally curious, very verbally strong and with advanced Reading and Maths. I am worried I won't know how to get them to make the most of their skills and any available opportunities. It keeps me up at night.

DS was nationally recognised as being gifted and talented in Year 7. For a while, the school ran an after school club for those students deemed to be gifted and talented, but that disappeared by Year 8. He was also invited to go away some weekends to do various projects. They were quite expensive, but I was happy to scrimp and scrape for him, however, he never wanted to go!

He could have done his 11+ and would possibly have got a place in a grammar school about 15 miles away, but he just wanted to go to the local school with his sister. There he could just coast along without having to try very hard. He then went onto college to do his 'A' levels, followed by uni where he graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Computer Science. He now has a job he really enjoys which pays a very good salary. He has a wonderful group of friends all on the same level as him, or higher. Way out of my league!

This is a good summary for many of those in the Gifted and Talented school programs.

www.facebook.com/100079768890347/posts/pfbid032cK8bpU6jmbaSu1WKqGtECsb8LM7f5VKzptX8ZFYAKTYo5mpRgXr9wkNKHXbJpAVl/?app=fbl

Get her assessed for dyspraxia . I wish I’d done it earlier for my kid.

This is worth reading too IMO

https://www.facebook.com/100093532782833/posts/pfbid0zeBzUVJsrwcaAGKFGtLtPHPwS7rFgefh3r1w36MCv8rYBttZEchrMy28AuvBd5CJl/?app=fbl

Yes, DS was. He started secondary school in 2006 and did exceptionally well in a maths exam, so was then recognised nationally as being G & T. I still have some of their letters.

I was pegged as ‘gifted and talented’ at my comprehensive school in the 1990s - and could speak before one, read early etc. I don’t think I am genius by any stretch but always found learning easy, did well in exams. Eventually got a PhD and now an academic on a reasonably good trajectory, have written and published books, articles etc. So reasonable achievement, but always feel I wasted what ‘they’ thought I had.

My DC was a very early talker and very advanced with language and subject understanding. 7 years old and yup… still way ahead of peers. Tested literally off the chart on IQ testing. Some kids really are different. It feels like there is this huge reluctance in the UK
to acknowledge that there is a spread of ability and some kids and people really do have differing levels of intelligence and of course other skills too. In our case, it has come with a lot of challenges too. A psychologist put in perspective that you would not expect a child with an IQ of 50 to function like an average child or be successful in a regular classroom, so why would you expect a child with an IQ of 150 to function like a child at the mean?

Our DC is also tall and was in a mixed age preschool and we had to repeatedly remind her teacher that she might talk like a 6 year old but she was THREE.

I am thinking the 18 month old reminds me of Stewey from Family Guy😂
Are tou really sure this happened?

I’ve also seen an influx of these threads over the last few weeks, either a subtle brag or asking what’s ‘wrong’ with their child. There’s nothing wrong with their toddler.

As a former nursery teacher, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any gifted children. I personally believe a toddler is far too young to ever give that label, they all develop so differently.

My toddler just turned 3 a couple of weeks ago, at 20 months old she was reading numbers. Is she advanced? heck no. She just really loved her counting fox tonie and we began writing down the numbers so she could see them. You also can’t tell that she was sitting at 4.5 months, crawling at 5 months and walking at 10. She’s just a normal, happy little girl.
Just enjoy your toddler people, they grow up so fast. If they are gifted, you’ll continue to see it as they grow

She still has time. My DS was very good speaker took me time to realise he answered alot for my DD once she had time apart from him she started talking alot more. Used to get told the nursery gossip as she listened to the staff and repeated it when she got home lol she was about 2.5 yrs.

So I find this quite interesting. My eldest seemed like she could be pretty gifted as a 3 year old she’d create imaginary worlds with rules that were so elaborate, advanced speech and reading but really I think it was a response to social isolation during Covid. As an older child she is bright and perceptive but nothing out of the ordinary and has some clear strengths and weaknesses.

I always thought my youngest was less clever as such because she is less visible and quieter but actually I think she finds academic stuff quite easy. I think she’ll be solid but never that showy about it.

childhood is long and bumpy. You can never really know what is thrown at you. There will kids identified as high potential at 3 who have some form of SEN, another chunk who are bright but nothing special, some that are very bright but lazy and some that are so exceptionally gifted they need special education arrangements.

I was very clever when I was younger, could read and write before going to school and used to make books and comic strips constantly. I ended up being moved up a year- it didn’t work too well for me as I didn’t have the social or executive function skills to go to high school at 10. I got all As/A*s at GCSE and A level, then went to a normal redbrick uni and got a 2:1.

I am now just a normal person with a normal job- a SENCO in a primary school. I read lots still, have a disturbingly good memory and am quite good at languages, but I’m not particularly clever anymore. I don’t really think any of it did me any good to be honest.

I have a toddler who speaks really well and counts stairs with some degree of accuracy at 21 months. People always tell me he is very clever, but I’m trying to push the social side a bit more with him and take him on lots of play dates etc because I see myself in him. He says ‘scared! Scared!’ if he has to go into a room with lots of people.

A 20 month old recognising numbers IS advanced. Ok, so you taught her some numbers by writing them down and telling her the names. Guess what, reception teachers up and down the country are doing this too, that’s how you teach numbers. And some kids don’t get it. Getting it at 20 months is advanced. But I think you know that.

My daughter is similar. She had no words at 20 months…but then I have a video of her at 22 months counting to 7, pointing at my fingers showing 1:1 correspondence. She’s now 6 and is currently very interested in prime numbers. Over the last couple of months she has basically taught herself the times tables up to 12x12 by watching numberblocks. Yes there’s been a bit of teaching there (mostly by the tv!) but as a someone who taught y5/6 maths for years, there were plenty of kids who had lots of lessons on times tables and didn’t remember them, and plenty who couldn’t retain the information on what a prime number is or work out if a number is prime. Being able to understand all thi years ahead of other kids with little effort is advanced.

@TebheagYeah I’m not worried about her :) Her development seems totally within the range of normal. I just feel like I’ve been unnecessarily hard on my son in treating him like he was older than he was. Daughter being age appropriate developmentally just really highlighted that.

He never went through the terrible twos either and would always sit nicely at the table in a restaurant doing maths with sugar packets whilst we waited for food etc. My expectations of him to walk really far and always be well behaved were very high.

His (truly awful) meltdowns have only started since he started pre-school hence the SEN referral.

I don't for one second believe that an 18 month old spoke more eloquently than most 7 year olds 🙄
I would've believed you if you had said 3 years old.
But really 18 months?
Boring

Interesting thread. What is defined at school as 'gifted' is often high achieving kids, perhaps top 5%. DS was defined as gifted at nursery (the nursery teacher called me in because she discovered he could read before having been formally taught) and was obsessed with numbers. At primary he was very obviously very advanced in certain areas and school organised some special sessions from a secondary teacher. He was not a particularly early talker
At secondary his mathematical ability was very quickly noticed and I remember clearly his A level Maths teacher saying she thought she had never actually had to teach him anything.
He ended up at Oxbridge, was in the top 5% consistently for his subject, a scholar and graduated with a first. I remember the anxiety of wondering how he would fare at University after being so far ahead all his school life - in the end it was all fine, he loved being amongst very clever people but he said that the top 3 in his year were clearly something else - off the scale clever with one boy he knew actually doing 2 degrees at the same time, one at Oxbridge and one from an overseas university remotely (Covid times). Those top 3 or4 were profoundly gifted, I'm guessing most of the kids on his course would have been labelled 'gifted at school.
I guess I'm saying that 'gifted' also comes with a very wide range of abilities, some of which might be easily spotted early, some wont be. Lots of early readers/talkers will even out, many late readers/talkers will be late developers and so labelling children too early can have a very detrimental effect on their confidence - likewise arriving at university and finding they are perhaps not as special as they might have thought. Better to encourage hard work, variety and a range of interests.

Why are people so obsessed with clever children 🤣
I've worked with children for so long amd let me tell you one thing, despite how quickly children grasp things, or how early or late they talk, on the whole children are quite similar by age 10.

Only difference at that age is usually parental input, i.e how much is expected of them etc
One 5 year old child was seen to be extremely clever, he had a wide range of vocabulary etc
But his parents had a wide range of vocabulary, and they travelled a lot, so he had real life experience. So obviously he will seem clever to some people, but that was just normal in his circle.

That same boy had no ability to go to the local shops independently and buy things and come back home. He was escorted from activity to activity with his hand held.
But kids in some areas do, I remember the shock of seeing my nephew and niece going shops alone, they went hand in hand bought what they wanted, how old? Age 4 and 6. The corner shop was about a 5 minute walk and they had to cross 1 road. They were extremely street smart and aware of danger etc
But in that area, that was seen as normal, and no one bats an eye lid.
So my point being, children just become what they are exposed to.

100%

It’s just not true that children are similar by age 10. Some 10 year olds cant read, or will be reading at a 5/6 year old level. Others will be capable of reading texts from the GCSE syllabus. Some will be struggling with basic addition and subtraction. Others will calculating complicated things in their head.

SATs tests have a vast array of scores, with some scoring full marks and others scoring 0, or close to. These are vastly different scores with vastly different underlying abilities. Children are not all the same by 10. The gap widens as kids get older.

Yes parental input is hugely important (probably the most important factor). But some children will struggle academically regardless of how much effort their parents put in and how much they are exposed to, it’s not all down to this.