help needed with G+T 3 yearold

[mummydoc]

I rarely post on this topic as it seems to cause so much derision, but my nearly 3 year old dd ( who is G+T) is driving me bonkers, I struggle to answer her incessant questions , particularly as I have never wanted to fob my children off with fantasy answers, e.g. why do flowers bloom mummy..( recent question) easy answer would have been "the fairies make it happen" , does anyone know of a children's encyclopedia type book I could use which would help me with sensible but child friendly answers. I am reasonably intelligent ( as is DH) but why do flowers bloom and how does the sky stay up have got me stumped as to how to explain them.

also good stuff on BBC websiste \link{http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/here}

But it's not a question about being gifted or talented really or relevant to any kind of testing. It's how to answer the typical kind of question that young children ask.

My parents solved the god question issue by inviting the local jehovah's witnesses to visit every (I think saturday but it might have been sunday) morning. they would discuss passages of the bible with my very athiest DF. At one point he was on the official training route for new missionaries, on the basis that he was ideal at "challenging faith". Each week he would challenge particular viewpoints, and they'd study the bible and come back with arguments in response. Our house was littered with Awake and Watchtower.

Kind of weird now I come to think of it, but I always did well in RE.

Hi I don't think Those questions are particularly indicative of a gifted child its pretty normal behaviour from my experience of 2 and 3 year olds. My daughter asks stuff like where does the wind come from and why does it rain and has done since about 2 and a half. Its just curiosity but I think some kids are more direct in asking you and have better language skills so manage to ask. Dorling Kindersley do childrens encyclopedias if you want some short answers. There is also a good Miles Kelley book which is like a general natural world thing which is handy to look up things and will be useful in the future. Oxfam bookshops usually have a good supply of DK encyclopedias.I think if you answer the questions properly then its easier than if you say 'because it is', as if she is anything my my daughter you will set of a string of whys which you eventually really can't answer.

do you say 'some people believe' Aloha

I appreciate these may seem ordinary to some of you, and you probably all think I ma being precious , belief me far from it. Thankyou closetpagen, sympathy is welcome, sometimes I tell dd2 to "please just give your brain a rest" . Aswell as the questions , she is reading on the oxford reading tree level 3, can add,multiply and subtract numbers to 50, swims without armnabds, rides abike without stabalisers ( I cannot even spell that) , writes simple sentences and is picking up my dd1's french vocab book and sounding out the words - all this unaided pretty much by me as I subscribe to the benign neglect school of parenting. plus a recorded Iq of 141 makes her pretty interesting for not quite 3.

PMSL Laila my dad was a bit like that. He was invited to a conversion discussion group (invited repeatedly- eventually gave in and went). He discussed (nothing rude just started going on about the romans). The discussion group was changed to prayer meetings.....

and all i wanted was a few suggestions for a good book we could look together to get me off the hook of thinking through the answers to some of the more challenging questions.

opps my typing is soooo bad ...i am clearly not talented

Mummydoc I would definately track down the Miles Kelley book. Its worth it for answers on just about everything from dinosaurs to flowers and has really good pictures. I think its called the Miles Kelley book of the natural world or something similar and its about £20.

I reckon google is your best bet. A book wouldn't cover the full range of questions for sure. Ds loves to google.

Well, that's all marvellous, but these are still commonplace questions from small children, and can be answered quite straightforwardly. In fact, they should be easier for you, because the only tricky bit is translating the explanation into language appropriate for the child's understanding.

Gess, yes I do (but then say, 'but it's not true' )

Lailsamum - thankyou , sounds perfect,sure dd2 will love it , i am off to amazon site to track it down

if being able to swim is related to iq then my DS is right there with the mini-twigs.

aloha. Poor ds is going to be confused to bits by us - dh atheist, me practising CofE...

Poor mummydoc. She's only asking for a bloody encyclopedia to help her out. I'm glad some people have seen fit to answer the OP.

ooops its Miles Kelly not kelley might help you track it down.has a silver cover.

IQ tests in toddlers really aren't a reliable indicator of future performance (not even school performance). Lots of literature out there on that. I suspect part of the problem is that early developmental tests are designed to pick up children with problems, rather than distinguish and categorise between children without problems, so they're not that reliable. Bayley scales are used a lot in toddlers for example but they've really been developed to identify children whose development is not on track.

desiderata - thankyou, I was beginning to wish I had never posted, as i said before so rarely do as people just love to make you seem like a precious pushy parent on these threads.

PMSL Aloha. That's dh's approach.

Still think google is the best place to asnwer any question.....

All anyone has said is that these questions are perfectly normal in most people's experience, and suggested Google or various books. You don't need to take it so personally. And if you hate the reaction to posting on G&T, why put the question under this category?

mummydoc here it is The Miles Kelly Book of Life: A Guide to Everything Living on Our Planet

wasn't sure where else to put it, but will once again say thanks for all the book suggestions, now must go off and do some very talented brain surgery.....

mummydoc - good suggestions for books have already been made. I don't know where you are but if you contact your local branch of The National Association for Gifted Children you will find lots of parents struggling with the same problems!