To wonder where all the average children are?

[Blueoctopus]

I am beginning to wonder if my DS is the only average child in the UK.
Listening on the school playground and reading here on mums net there appear to be two groups of children the super genius level 2a by the start of year one and the SEN children.
Am I being unreasonable to think my DS is not actually only child plodding on, making satisfactory progress in some areas and not much in others? Surely other neuro typical but not very bright kids still exist?

My child is super genius level and has SEN. She can discuss complex molecular chemistry with my prof husband and his collegues without batting an eyelid but has nearly burnt the house down several times because she can't comprehend the dangers of the microwave.

She could read War and Peace aged 7 but still can't 'read' a person aged 19.

She can think outside the box and create brilliant solutions to mathematical problems but she can't create a friendship.

ChitChat Yes it is actually. The whole "SEN children" thing just strikes a personal chord with me as my DB has down's syndrome and we feel like we're constantly correcting people who come out with pearls like "Oh he is down's isn't he?." No he isn't "down's" actually he's DB who HAS Down's.

In reality it probably doesn't happen as often as we think, but when I do see something similar written it leaps off the page at me.

Thats amazing Debeezeandbirds

DS1 has always had a high reading age but the comprehension side has kept his levels down, his actual reading age has always been double his age from the age of 3 but his comprehension apparently only makes him a level 3 at the moment (he's 6).

I was incredibly proud of DS2 (pre-school age) the other day when he said 'mummy - W is for willy and B is for bum'. it was the first time he had said what letters a word started with other than his name!

I have one average, one above average and one with mild learning difficulties. I think that makes us average as a family.

I have one average child and I am so happy for that, as she started the year as very below average.

Two unknown, as too little for school.

All three are wonderful kids.....I might be a bit biased :)

I think that if 80% of the children you come across as above average, then 'average' necessarily has to be redefined.

Or you live in Lake Woebegone.

MrsSutherland That's fab, I also love the words chosen to express his new found skills!

Yes I am very lucky! He is also the same child who told his new YR teacher at move up day that he likes red wine and chocolate!

MrsReiver - Fair point!

Erm.... those getting annoyed about the term SEN children, everyone has just been using Average Children instead of Children with Average abilities - is that not exactly the same thing?

Depends. Do you think referring to children as 'average children' marginalises those children and leads to them feeling isolated from the rest of society and less valued? Also is 'average child' used as an insult against children with average abilities?

My son has a very high IQ and is profoundly dyslexic.
You can be 'super genius level' and have SEN.
Do those facts cancel each other out to make an average on your scoresheet, OP?

Kladdkaka A poster said earlier "Please dont ever call your children "Plodders" - I was called this my whole school life, and can still remember it with shame."

Let's not start that one, I'm dyslexic so is DD1. No it isn't the whole story, but it does define a great deal of how we interact with the world. It goes far beyond reading and writing.

I don't have average DDs, if average is measured by IQ and DH would worry that I'd been sleeping with the milkman if I did.

I have a lovely average sister and some lovely average old school friends.
DD2's nicest friends are the more average ones.

I think a lot of MN are MC graduates, we expect our DCs to be reasonably bright and genetically many of them are.

DD2 has two English teachers for grandparents, on DHs side. Both died before she was born, but their influence lives on.

Can I apologise again for the SEN children slip. As I said that is how I was taught to refer to children with SEN when I was at university as they were trying to reduce the use of the phrase learning difficulties ( although I think that may be accepted again now). Can I assure you I have taught some wonderful children on the autistic spectrum and a lovely girl with downs syndrome and never once considered them anything other than children first and foremost.

Kladdkaka - On this thread, the term 'average children' isn't making them feel less valued, but the thread is in response to a situation where people feel having a child of average abilities IS less valued by others.

It was just a point, but looking carefully I don't think a single person who has a child with SEN has used the term 'average children'.

They are all crushed neath the feet of my genius Super Kids.

The best school I ever went to made it their job to find out what you were good at and then encouraged you like mad, while making sure you got the basics. I wondered for ages if I had had rose tinted spectacles about it but then discovered an inspirational primary head who had also been there and modelled her teaching and schools on it. So no child was average. A was academically brilliant but B was a great gymnast, C could draw and D was a really good actor and E good to have around the form and responsible and F told cracking jokes.

It was a happy school where everyone achieved. Parents were not very involved, just proud of the acting, daubs or whatever.

I have I think a kind Ds, though who knows, and as long as, in his primary school motto, he is nice, works hard and makes friends he does ok by me. Not all if them achievable all if the time, but overall a good mix.

That's rather unfair pinkpyjamas, DS is autistic and has the qualities I described earlier. Blueoctopus Made a point that there seems to be no middle ground on the playfield of academia. That if the parents are to be believed the child has the reading age of an adult or requires extra help, no one seems to be doing exactly as they should. She did not state the two were mutually exclusive.

Thank you debeezandbirds, that is exactly the point I was making and no of course the two are not mutually exclusive.

Please excuse me from the thread whilst I pick my child of poor to average ability up from school. :)

To be fair to parents though, it's only natural to think their child is smartest/nicest/best reading/best painter/best everything else in their class regardless of the reality. We are after all their number 1 fans.

Well, DS1 is average at languages, 'gifted' at art and ICT, poor at sport unless it has a motor involved, and has SEN.

DS2 is a slightly above average boy with a genius for self-publicity and the organisational skills of a goldfish.

DD is quite possibly gifted at writing, solidly average at maths, poor at science, dreadful at sports.

So all need help in some areas but come out with startling stuff in others.

I have taken the precaution of sending my children to
a school with a deprived intake so although they seem very bright when they are infact decidedly average!

Actually if I could persuade dd to spend as much time studying as she does on Facebook, picking her spots and looking in the mirror I reckon she could be up there with the best of them. She's got a brain like a steel trap but refuses to apply it to anything more taxing than whether to get her eyebrows waxed or threaded, and trying to persuade me to pay for said waxing or threading.

"That's rather unfair pinkpyjamas. Blueoctopus Made a point that there seems to be no middle ground on the playfield of academia. That if the parents are to be believed the child has the reading age of an adult or requires extra help, no one seems to be doing exactly as they should. She did not state the two were mutually exclusive".

Neither did she state that the two can occur in conjunction, hence my post to point it out.

Deja vu or what?

There was a thread almost identical to this a couple of months ago with almost exactly the same wording if I remember rightly?

mine are obvious genuises or is that genuini I thought everybodies children were as amazing and gifted as mine [sarkycow]

mine do fine they plod along and 1 is a coaster