to be very very slightly perturbed that Ds1 currently demonstrated more actual usable intelligence than me?

[colditz]

I was playing scribblenauts on the DS.

Now, Ds1 has never seen this game before, and for those who don't know, it's a game where you add objects to your situation to solve a puzzle or conundrum.

So... I was trying to figure out a way of stopping bombs falling across a path I was trying to cross, and was messing about rigging up invincible slides, putting wings on my character etc etc.

Ds1 peered over my shoulder and announced "You need to put a roof there"

"Well I can't" I snapped peevishly. "A roof would fall down without something to hold it up, wouldn't it and if I put something there to hold it up, I can't cross the path"

He looked at me as if I was the stupidest person he had ever spoken to, then sighed and said, "Use a static roof. Static means it doesn't move. You told me that when we stayed in a static caravan, Mummy."

Now, I always had myself down as a relatively bright person with a good vocabulary, and I've just been whupped by an 8 year old.

Ps he was right, it did work. The little snot.

Little bugger.

Are you sure he hasn't been playing the game in secret :o

I don't quite understand - surely the default situation is for a roof to be static? Does the static roof in this game just have posts holding it up at the edges as opposed to having walls all the way round?

Or is the idea that it would hover?

I feel your pain. My 5 year old whupped me at chess last week I'm not a very good player to be honest, but I was trying really hard!

dontya just love em

Remember - the shelves in your child's brain are empty and new information slots easily into place and is easy to store and retrieve. The shelves in your brain are full of the jumble of years and it is much harder to store and retrieve new information (particularly if it isn't especially gripping information!).

He hadn't been playing the game in secret, I'd only just bought it and was refusing to share trialing it for suitability.

Yes, in the game, something static floats. Because it's static, you see, it stays where you have put it. If you put a NON static item in mid air, it falls on the floor.

bonsior, that's the peeving thing - the ease with which he will whip information out of his brain for his use. I have to rummage.

We were sat eating pizza last year and I asked DS if it was nice and he answered me in French

Didn't even know he did French at school.He just comes out with these things.
Like when he showed his D Sis how to play recorder
BTW if I ask him what he did at school he always says "Nuffink"

LOTF my DD has started doing the "I don't know" reply after school as well. She's not even 4 yet! :(

Love the shelving analogy, Bonsoir. It does amaze me, the things she comes out with (DD I mean, not Bonsoir :o) - started talking about satellites taking photos of Mars the other day. WTF.

That's real education though IMO - not the reciting of times tables, but the way DCs seek out information and use it in a way relevant to them. Amazing to see. :)

Ds1 (10 now) is a bit like that, by the time he was 2 1/2 he would tell people what cars they were driving and it was not just a Ford it was a Ford Focus or whatever it was. Now him and grandad sit and talk about anything and everything, thats where I think he got the abillity to remember facts cos it sure aint from me! He was answering questions on eggheads much to my dads amazement, he got it right (with reasoning for his answer) and they got it wrong.

I remember how delighted I was when DS was nine and beat me at Lexicon (the thinking person's Scrabble) thereby proving how good his vocabulary was!

Your intelligence sadly declines after early twenties.i was reading that most radical inventions were by under 25s

Oh wahhh. So I'm just going to get thicker and thicker and thiccker while my kids get brighter and brighter and brighter?

And the reason I used to think my parents were thick when I was 13 is because compared to my childishly stellar intelligence, they were!!!!!!!

And Ds's will think the same when they are 13 and they will be right .... ohhhh WAHHHHH!

DH and I were pretty hacked off that DS was chosen for interview as a 'Gamesmaker' for the Olympics, and they didn't want us!!!

at "the little snot"

Only the type of intelligence that allows one to drive a silver granada without crying and wear Birkenstocks with not a trace of irony (generalises wildly)

In my head I am 24 and I am a sparkling wit.

I actually am 24, but my wit certainly isn't sparkling!

Oh and by the time a child is 5 they can wup any adults butt when it comes to computer games.