To ask how bright you think your children are?

[Cheekysquirrel]

I ask because all my friends seem to think their children are exceptionally bright.
My children are average, average at best. I said as much to mil and she was aghast.
I think average (academically) is fine. I mean most people ARE average. Ds has ASD and has bigger issues than not setting the world alight academically. I’d be happy if he just had any friends.
Dd isn’t at preschool yet but she isn’t as bright as ds - takes her ages to learn anything and I think she’s going to really struggle with maths.

Meanwhile all my friends are telling me how clever their kids are.
Is it them or me?!

I wonder how many of these are made up wink grin seems to be a bit like the salary threads

I think it's more a case of no-one is now going to come on and say their kids are average, except me. If I ask my kids what they like best about school they say "break time"

That said, I kind of see intelligence as a raw material. For it to benefit you you have to be able to apply it, and typically to do that you need other skills like resilience and people skills.

I work in asset management where we are awash with really intelligent people but what we really need is more people who can just get shit done by actually talking to other people and seeing the big picture and coming up with practical solutions.

Henry VIII was right when he regretted killing Cromwell because he'd lost "a very fine administrator"

Can you tell I've had a frustrating day?

My eldest is very bright. Learning is effortless and she loves learning. She was consistently the highest in her year and was on the gifted and talented register. She picks up languages easily, is very logical and doesn’t have a weak subject. My middle is also getting very good grades but she has to work for them. But she’s incredibly creative and good at acting and dance. My youngest has speech delay, but can complete puzzles 😂

I’m proud of them all. We are not pushy parents, they are responsible for their work not me. Nor do I think I’ve done well parenting - I think intelligence is a subjective notion anyway and I’ve not contributed to their axhievements in anyway.

One very bright 13yo coaster, the 'good to excellent grades with frustratingly little effort' type. Downside is a lack of staying power and reluctance to engage with things he thinks are 'hard'. Loves to have a go in his areas of talent (fiddling around with computers and cameras/taking machines apart/languages/music) but CBA to tackle a classic novel.

One evidently bright but much more erratic (grades-wise) and less academic 11yo. Has a good feel for a lot of things, esp science, but also reluctant to put the effort in. Same re sport. Likes stuff where he can get sensory experiences - loud music, cycling fast, cooking.

One seemingly bright but principally very independent and determined 3yo. Extremely keen to do stuff all by herself.

Dh and I are academic and hardworking, so to a degree our sons are a puzzlement to us, but we both grew up in (differently) oppressive settings so tbh it's probably a good thing that they seem to feel less pressure.

My oldest is bright academically but terrible at sports etc. He'll only try if he enjoys something so bright but lazy. My youngest is quite physical and good at that, fiercely independent but not overly great at learning. Everyone's different

My DD is what you would call "highly intelligent", but with a disharmonic learning profile. She needs help with planning and structure. She panics when she is challenged and can't handle uncertain circumstances. She is at risk of underperforming and not "learning to learn", is very sensitive and doubts herself in terms of ability. So yeah......being average is sometimes better....

DD (4) has been praised by both nursery and pre-school for being very intelligent. I however, am always surprised when they say it, because to me she seems average. She's still so young, so guess it's hard to tell now. They must be seing something I'm not, it makes me feel a bit embaressed, really, one nursery teacher called her "exceptioanlly bright*", then pointed to another child who just had knocked his milk over, and said '"not like him" I dislike this focus on intelligence.

My DS (2) seems very intelligent, but I guess I'm more inclined to see him this way because he is also very restless and quite a handfull, so I think I'm looking for positive aspects in him to balance his challenging behaviour. He is also being praised by the nursery for talking much sooner than the other children and being good at "everything". This sounds like bragging, I know, which is why it is such a difficult subject, it makes me really uncomfortable, I always feel so embaressed when they are praised, although I do praise them lots myself, but it's different when it's other people. It makes me feel bad for the other kids, who are compared unfavourably to my kids.

I think estimating children's intelligence is really harmful, intelligence is not an absolute value or a simple concept, and I think that you do your children harm if you tell them they're less intelligent, but that you do just as much harm if you tell them that they are excptionally intelligent, and give them a sense of being superior to others. Comparison is just poison, in all shapes and forms, imo.

My DS 9 is insanely intelligent but rather lazy, and could try harder, has aspergers so can struggle motivationally and socially. My DS 7 is average/lower, some learning difficulties suspected and SEN but is very keen and tries hard so , yeah totally agree OP know your children.

My daughter is bright, not as academically bright as I was, but did well particularly at college. She studies art at uni, like her dad did, but what impresses me most is her work ethic, both in finding paid work, and in her studies. I'm incredibly proud of her.

My 2 are pretty average really

The older one puts zero effort in really, scraped enough in her GCSEs to do the A levels she wanted.

The younger one tries really, really hard but struggles with school stuff, not predicted great GCSEs for the academic stuff, but in the more hands-on/vocational subjects she’s flying. Absolutely mad keen horse rider - she’s really good and really brave so I’m hoping her future will involve something like that

I'm not sure - I think how bright I think they are mostly depends on the day. Some days their thoughts and understanding amazes me and sometimes I wonder if they were behind the barn when brains or sense was handed out. I wouldn't call any of them exceptionally bright and I do worry about one of mine who seems to struggle with everything.

I know their strengths but even then there are times, particularly when being with people who have the attitude that being bright or strong is an area is when it's all fun and effortless, that I think even with my oldest who has long passed me in his abilities in maths and to me, he's a maths whiz who seems to get many things beyond that very quickly often just seeing one example & just needs a bit of help working on his communication skills (opposite of me in being very brief of written word ), he's spent years working at and wrestling with many things to get to where he is now. I think a large part is who we see as our sample both for our kids and ourselves.

When it clicked that the parents who went on about how their home educated kids just learned to read or do advanced maths with no input (for a long time I thought I was the only one who had to teach these things) were actually putting in a lot more work that they rarely talked about because of the atmosphere that kids should and would just pick all this up naturally was a relief.

For myself, as a kid I moved a lot and in some schools I was the brainy try-hard nerd and in other schools, I was the class idiot. I spent years as an adult feeling pretty dumb because the last school I went to had people who went to Yale and other Ivy Leagues and so many other kids I was nowhere close to that and most of the people I spent time with were in the advanced placement class so my sample was skewed. I figured in the schools where I was the nerd it was just big fish in a small pond thing or my reading hobby rather than my intelligence, and it took years until it clicked that my GPA was in the B+/A- range, wasn't really that bad. It's like when I feel short having spent days with really tall guys when I'm average height for my sex, my perspective is heavily influenced by my environment.

I like all the humble bragging in this thread, just proving the point of the OP...too many parents think their kids are the more intelligent than others.

My 6 year old is bang average academically, but has lots of friends and is a happy child which is more important that being ' bright'.

Not humble bragging here. To clarify just plain bragging. So sue me😂

Only one at school age and has asd, so is unusually bright in a lot of subjects, some complex, but we have found has to have an interest in them to excel. Otherwise is a drifter and does okay- so I would say averagely overall.

Pre Schooler, no concerns from hv or any other professional, speech and language skills are impeccable for age, but too early to say how will continue educationally.

People will never say their kids are thick as shit, will they? Yet, there are so many people who are...

I wondered the same about the person who said their 7 month old was a genius because she's crawling and seems more curious then other babies. Surely...she must be joking. 🤔🙈

Nope.

I don't care if I think my kids are brighter than they are. I don't care if I think they're more beautiful, funny, and all round tip-top people than they really are either. Suits us all just fine.

My DS who is 6.5 was assessed as being exceptional (in terms of IQ) by an ed Psych. He doesn't show any particular sign of it though - his reading is good but not exceptionally so (i.e. he's one of but not the best in the class despite being young for the year). He loves maths and is years ahead but his handwriting is awful, always forgets capital letters and full stops, learns his spellings easily for the test but forgets them instantly when actually writing. Emotionally and socially I think he is quite immature for his age.

DD is in reception and different, much better fine motor control and quicker to write and colour in, a decent reader but not as good as DS and much more mature socially. NO idea what her IQ is (my son was only tested due to concerns of his social development).

As a parent I obviously marvel at both my children's achievements - however ordinary but don't spend time obsessing about their academics. As long as they're happy, trying hard and I haven't been told to be concerned by their school I don't give it a lot of thought.

Maybe I'm unusual though because the achievements I tend to be most proud of are the ones which the DC have worked the hardest on (usually in areas they're not naturally good at). Mil told me off for only posting things that make the DC sound like they're underachieving.

It's hard as parents to not view our kids through love tinted glasses.

I think believing your child is above average even when they're likely not is the same as all parents thinking they have the most beautiful baby ever.

Most babies are "meh" looking at best, Really weird heads, wrinkly, dry skin, double chins, scaly scalps, fat rolls, bald heads which are made worse when chavvy Mums put headbands on them, and those inhuman looking eyes when first born.

Yet most parents still think their baby that closely resembles a potato, is in fact gorgeous.

Slightly above average in maths. However, DD is a self motivated hard worker therefore, is doing well in class. But she is by no means gifted.

Mines do ok.
Eldest probably more academic than most of her classmates but I would not say gifted.

My youngest is a clever wee boy - not at school yet.
But he is not really interested in learning so I think he will be a bit of s clown initially when he goes to school.
He’ll get there at time.

Difference between me and some other mums (only a handful in fairness) is I don’t plaster on fB all my kids achievements.
I like to keep that just within the family.

It’s hard to say, he’s only 2!

Sometimes I think he is pretty bright, but then he seems flummoxed by very simple obstacles, so who knows?

I was an early child prodigy, reading age of 12 when I was 5 etc. But everyone caught up with me by 6th form. DH couldn’t read until he was 7, but then did brilliantly at A-level, university and postgrad. I’d say we were similar now, I am “quick” but he thinks far more deeply about things. There are lots of different ways to be intelligent, even academically.

I would add that both me and DH were very average all through primary (DH maybe slightly below average in some areas) but both went on to get top degrees and PhDs. I have many friends who are bright but not academic who have forged just as happy and successful lives as us so while I think academics are important to an extent they're certainly not the be all and end all.

No humble bragging here. Just going on what they’ve achieved.

Bragging doesnt mean its not fact based!

one nursery teacher called her "exceptioanlly bright", then pointed to another child who just had knocked his milk over, and said '"not like him"*

Sorry but I really hope that this is made up as a weird sort of way to boast about your kid, because if it's true then that's a terrible way for a teacher to be speaking to parents!