Is my baby a genius?

[FTD3]

My daughter is coming up to her first birthday (she's our only child after many years of ivf) and, whilst I'm sure every parent things this, I think our child may be a genius.

She learns new commands pretty much instantly, for example, my Dad joked that he wanted her to salute him, it took less than a minute for me to teach her how to salute on command. If you ask her "where's your lion" or other toy she will go and get it, even remembering once that she'd hidden one of them in an empty tissue box.

My post was sparked because we recently bought her a hammer and blocks set and without any coaching from us had learned to use the hammer to hit the blocks through to the other side and it just seems like she's doing these things way earlier than she should be.

Am I just being an overly proud first time parent or is she way ahead of the curve right now and if so, what's the best way to help encourage her without pushing her too hard?

Thank you :)

She sounds marvellous, FTD3, really bright.

It's lovely for you to have a longed for child who shows great promise.

When she goes to nursery or wherever, don't make a big thing out of what she can do because it gets people's backs up. Just enjoy amongst yourselves and carry on encouraging her.

Congratulations.

She sounds like a lovely bright little girl, agree with keeping quite about it at school though. One parent in DS's Reception Class made herself very unpopular by constantly bragging about how well her DS was doing. She used to make him read Shakespeare out loud when they had visitors when he was about 7, poor little sod.

I would treat her the same as any child- it’s ok to be proud but it can be very difficult being ‘different’. For a start, you can start to see being smart as your whole identity. It’s a lot of pressure. Just offer the resources for her to follow her interests, but don’t push. As others have said, don’t talk about it too much, for the reasons stated. I would suggest always praising her for working hard, or sticking at a task till it’s done etc (when’s she’s old enough to understand that obviously) rather than praising her for being clever which is not something she can control.

Having known very smart people, it seems to be common to feel pressure to follow a certain career path to live up to expectations, whether or not the parents actually have or express those expectations and it causes so much stress all through life. For instance, choosing to go to university because of a perceived pressure to be academic when maybe their heart lies in something less academic like working with their hands, or art or hairdressing I suppose. Meanwhile, parents really just want them to be happy - but over the years the child has been taking in the pleasure the parents get from every A grade, every certificate etc

Basically, don’t enroll her in every extra curricular activity, but give her time to be bored and get creative on her own, and learn what her own likes and dislikes are, and if she asks to go to music lessons, or to learn a language , then let her. But be aware of the pressure as in the end it’s happiness that really matters

There are some good tips on improving maths skills here.

If she is clever, you'll need a few tricks to keep her entertained, and Maths games are as good a way as any

She may be a genius, she may not. It doesn't really matter.

At that age they tend to pick up things like a sponge, especially if it gets them attention-so if you get all excited because they imitate you, then they'll do it more. The issue is trying to get them to still put their plate in the dishwasher when they're a teen and it's expected rather than an amazing feat.

Best thing to do is enjoy her. Enjoy what she does, whether it's discovering she can build a tower of 5 blocks or spit Weetabix 2m to knock that tower down. Let her try things, let her play with things, let her have fun, secure knowing that you love her.
That's the way that she will learn best.