What to do with a bright child?

[Mumanddone]

I will be accused of bragging but I really am looking for genuine ideas here please.

4yo DD has started reception. She is in a private school. She can read fluently, writes and her maths skills are great. She is basically bilingual. She carries a conversation like a grown up - she’s hugely imaginative and great fun to talk to. She’s not some prodigy - she’s actually a bit of a silly little girl prone to not listening but she is objectively very very bright.

When I observe her peers, I don’t feel like they are on the same wavelength for the most part. Some of them are barely able to string a sentence together and they still seem to have very infantile form of expression. DD makes friends easily and is happy to play with anyone but at the same time - will this hold her back?

we decided for private school to boost her, but wondering if this is enough. I suppose there is a sliding scale to private education. Are there places better suited for her? Or is there something we should be doing to support her at home/ outside. She does the general run of clubs ie: drama, swimming etc.

My DS is exceptionally bright, like yours bilingual and was able to read in both languages at the age of 3 when he started school nursery.
Private education wasnt an option for us as we’re not high earners. He’s 11 now, just started comprehensive. He’s done amazingly well in primary, the school were amazing and created more advanced work for him and have pushed him to the point where he was doing GCSE maths practice papers in year 6.
If your child is reading yet, my son was obsessed with books from a very young age and reading early opened up a whole new world for him. He loves books on facts and learning about lots of different things. His general knowledge is outstanding for a child of his age.

As a PP has mentioned, my DSs biggest issue was emotional. He was unable to deal with failure and losing when he was younger so he had to learn it’s ok not to be the best and it’s ok to lose etc. Everything has always come easy to him, he’s exceptional at sports, flew through the first few piano grades etc. He is literally the child that’s good at everything. It took him a while to cope with team sports as he couldn’t cope when the other players weren’t as good as him and would
miss a goal, or get out in a cricket match etc. He would have meltdowns on the pitch and meltdowns at home if he couldn’t get things first time. It’s taken a while but we barely see that side now. A lot of people won’t agree, but we put strict consequences in place for meltdowns, a meltdown in football means he would
miss the next match etc. We would prepare him before matches that there was a chance they would lose, remind him of consequences of shouting at team
mates if they made a mistake, that type of thing. Whether people agree with me or not, it worked.

Lol do absolutely nothing. At 4 there are massive differences in apparent ability due to age and temperament - very normal for girls in particular to seem ahead, especially if they’re one of the older ones in the class.

This - we're state but my DC are summer bron with some underlying issues but they caught up - in DS year there were some autum born girls mothers massively put out by that.

Swimming lesson - music instruments and supporting any hobby interest shown - but otherwise just enjoy she's not struggling but doing well and as you've chosen the pirvate school actually trust them to stretch her if needed.

I think being fluent with attendant conversational skills are quite likely the product of being an only.

You seem to be a very engaged parent @Mumanddone, maybe scrutinise your motivation and that you're not projecting onto your daughter that which, you feel, was lacking (academically) in your own childhood.

We all, want the best for our children.

This article may also give you pause/encouragement?

I have a very clever adult daughter, who found everything easy academically, she did struggle with social skills, we moved when she was 9 to a small town with a small school and she thrived socially.
It is about finding the right balance for yourchild to enable them to go out into the real world.

I really empathise with your desire to support your daughter to achieve her full potential, when you feel as though you haven't done so yourself. I am in the exact same situation, having been a bright child who wasn't pushed or much encouraged. I've ended up ok; perfectly good but not high status job, home owner etc, but I feel I could have had a different trajectory if I had worked harder. I see my daughter top of the class, drawing admiring glances for her reading etc and want her to achieve what I have not. It's me I have to work on, not her. My job is to remember that she is her own person and not my second chance to excel. I can see she is vulnerable to perfectionism so my job for her is to reiterate that mistakes are fine, try your best but it doesn't need to be 100%, happiness is more important than success.

Our friends Dd was like this. She was having actual intelligent conversations when the other kids were at “want banana”stage. She’s now a bright girl but everyone else has basically caught up.

Sounds like my DD was at that age but school gave her so many non academic skills, experiences and opportunities which is where she struggled.
I suspect some ND tendancies in DD as she was very rigid in her thinking , didn't like make believe type games as they were "lies"
She was never held back and achieved really well academically, still is at Uni but she certainly needed to be in a group environment to learn how to interact (or even tolerate) others.
Also, while she was way ahead of most of her peers at 4 many of them caught her up and a few even over took her so you never know

We have a bright and capable child. Not at private school though, just the local primary in what is a nice but deprived area.

We focus on opportunities. We both came from single parent low income households and we aren't well off, but we're doing alright. We aim to give our child opportunities that we didn't have as kids and see what he's interested in and hope that he will become well rounded as a result.

For example -

He's tried his hand at a few sports clubs, the ones he's keen on hes continued, the others he hasn't.

He has swimming lessons (out of the realm of possibility when we were kids) and has discovered a love of sea swimming

We go to museums (which he loves)

Hes been to the theatre a few times (which he really doesn't enjoy)

He's tried some instruments which he was disinterested in more than liked/dislikes, so that's something we'll revisit in time

We go places - whether that's a trip to the next town, a nearby city, or an overnight somewhere further away.

And in amongst these things, are opportunities for development - resilience, social skills, team spirit, being kind - the sort of stuff that doesn't come from academia

Priorities should be

1/ being able to do skidsies properly in socks on a shiny wooden floor. How far can she go exactly?

2/ wheelies on her bike. Bonus points for no hands

3/ monkey bars whilst being tickled on the belly.

Private schools don’t have smarter children firstly so not sure why you don’t understand that kids would be at all levels? Loads of kids of all levels are both at private and state.

Your child while ‘bright’ will even out with the other kids. A lot of kids are this way when four and the other kids catch up. You also don’t have the detailed knowledge of the other children or how bright they are to compare (and it isn’t a comparison).

Let her be a little girl.

She sounds like a lot of fun to parent! My dd1 was like this. I would:

• get her involved in music eg learn piano
• teach her to play chess
• take her to museums and libraries, in nature walks
• get her some puzzle books, STEM and board games - snap-circuit boards, gravitrax, Monopoly, Scrabble etc

But what do you want, exactly?

It hardly got you anywhere in relation to what? You'd like to do more for her in what way? She's happy, she's social, she's hitting and exceeding milestones.

What more do you want for her? Perhaps knowing the answers to that, you can talk to her teacher/principal about what could or should be put into place?

This is/was my daughter. Reading by four in English and DH's language, correcting the nursery teacher, very switched on. I had to have a word with the Reception teacher because she was reading all the teacher's confidential emails as they flashed up onto the screen!

She is now eight. Still ahead academically but less when it comes to the obvious stuff like reading and comprehension. Plays chess. Loves science experiments. Writes amazing stories.

I also very strongly suspect that she is autistic (Asperger's as was) - as I have subsequently been diagnosed. So that's something else to perhaps hold in mind. It's not inevitable, but it's a common profile for late-diagnosed women.

Some children do appear to be very ahead of their peers at 4, she may remain so but equally may not after a few years at school so as many have said it is better to focus on developing interests, good social and soft skills and enjoying learning. You are going to alienate people by saying that some of her peers are barely able to string a sentence together as most 4 year olds are fairly fluent speakers barring those with speech delay. My daughter was like this at 4 , apart from being bilingual, and although she has always done well academically has not remained streets ahead as she appeared at a young age.

(I'd add - I was like this too. As an adult I am not a squillionaire with a planet-sized brain, which is probably what my parents were expecting. I have a "spiky profile" and an ability to learn new things much faster than most people so in the right situation I absolutely fly, but I also have shortcomings that would seem absurd to many.)

Don’t make it her whole identity. I was bright and never had many friends (later discovered I’m autistic). I can tell my parents were disappointed when I chose a fulfilling career not a high flying one.

my dd is the same. Grandparents her father etc all excessively praise her intelligence and will call her bright when describing her before any other attribute. She has such a fragile sense of who she is, hugely upset if someone else gets a better score than her. Even when she’s done amazing she always wishes she did better.

it’s not healthy. Kindness, resourcefulness, drive, self control. Soo many other things to be proud of a child for and better for them to be praised for

I have seen high fluency early on but it’s been in ND children. Didn’t want to start mentioning that earlier

You have to ask how the child has learnt to recognise words before being taught letters and sounds

I read when I was 3, some people do.

OP, give her books, books and more books.

Apart from the obvious stuff, reading is one of life’s great coping mechanisms if you get in there early enough to treat it as relaxation & make sure she always has a book on the go.

Bookshops, Art galleries, nature walks, weekend trips, gardens, you name it, should keep her brain cells fed.

Nothing at 4. The others will catch up abd ut will even out. As pp mentioned teach her not to be bossy with others, teach her to try, fail, try again etc, teach her social skills. Girls are often ahead in communication and reading at this age but it evens out. Also be careful she doesn't get so use to winning/ deciding/ leading that it affects friendships.

We do all of this, so good to know I am already on the right path!

By being read to.

I learnt to read at the age of 3 when my 8yo sister read Heidi to me (we'd recently had a new baby, I suspect I was feeling left out). The first couple of chapters are very murky in my memory, but by the time we got to Frankfurt I was definitely reading it myself.

While synthetic phonics are the most popular learning schemes at the moment, they aren’t the only ones.

This is definitely something I tell myself. Don’t want to burden her with any expectations but at the same time, I want to nourish what is there.

Edit - sorry quoted totally the wrong post, goodness knows how.

What would you say counts as fluent vs not? I had finished the entire reading scheme at school before the end of reception and was allowed to read my own books after that. I was reading Sherlock Holmes by year 3.

One of my uni friends learnt to read before she was 3. Her parents apparently discovered it when she started talking about the sports on the back page of the newspaper.