What was your gifted child like as a baby?

[Peridotty]

Hi! What could your gifted children do when they were a baby? I read that a sign of gifted ness is a first word before 9months. Is that the best sign?
My baby is 8 months old. Pretty advanced in her motor skills I would say compared to others that I know (rolling from 3 months, sitting independently at 5 months, crawling and pulling to stand at 6/7 months, standing independently at 7 months). However she has no interest in books, she just gets grumpy when I put a book in front of her, all she wants to do is crawl and pull up to stand!!! She doesn’t make many speech sounds although she makes lots of vowel sounds in general. Only just started making ‘ge ge ge’ sounds at 8 months when she is whining. No Ms or Bs yet. She doesn’t look like she pays attention when we are speaking. Doesn’t try to imitate our speech or mouths.
So i was wondering what did your babies do? And is my baby basically not gifted haha.

75 books is probably doing more harm than good to be honest. Babies and infants like repetition. Pick 10 and put the rest away for now. Just talk through your day to your child. Narrate everything you do and what they do and if they point at a ball and grunt say yes that's right a ball. It's a red ball etc etc.

My daughter was an early talker. She probably only had 5 words by 1 but by 18 months she was talking in short sentences. She then never shut up! I'm not sure if she's particularly bright but she can definitely talk as well as any adult now at 3!

My youngest dd said flower as clear as day at 7 months old, and hasn't shut up since (now 15) honestly don't rush it 😂

@sylbunny interesting!! I didn’t think of it like that before.... I guess repetition will be less confusing even if less interesting for us adults.

75 books...wow.
Strange post

Mine isn't gifted - no one ever gave that label but he is super clever and able at school. He finds school boring and easy.

As a baby, he talked from 9 months, was fluent by 18m.
He developed a sense of humour from 1. I think this is a sign of intelligence. He future thinks, always has done so he sort of strategises in his play, actions. Hard to describe but it's clear he is planning things and thinking ahead.

At school he was utterly unremarkable in YR with the maths and reading scores. Maxed out on all the social ones.

In Y1 he went from not reading to entirely reading overnight. Everything. He enjoys reading. He is gifted with maths.

He still falls over and goofs about and has ridiculous amounts of energy and is pretty normal really.
I hope he has a happy and easy life because he has been blessed with his brain.

You can't teach a baby to talk or read early. Some people think they can/did but they are smug and delusional in equal measure.

A child will do what they are able to do when they are able to do it. Just stand back and enjoy every little achievement.

Babies speak before 1 if they are ready... there isn’t a magic way to make it happen. Neglect can delay speech but normal care will generally equal a normal baby. Your baby sounds normal.

Parental education & and socio economic status has the biggest correlation with educational attainment. Parents with lots of resources, give kids lots of resources, kids do better against the measures this elite group of parents have created.

So basically you’re hoping your child is gifted, even though she’s only 8 months old with absolutely no reason to assume she is anything other than a normal 8 month old baby.

Cool.

Started talking at 6m, full sentences and nursery rhymes at 9m
Conversations at 12 m

I thought people were jealous of me (I was v young) and it’s only since I’ve had more dc I realised how unusual she was.
She was on the gifted and talented register, got level 9s in GCSEs and is doing a degree but does have ASD which was diagnosed late. For all the academic successes we’ve had equal amounts of social and other problems

You sound like my husband's ex, she was convinced my stepson was gifted (he was clever but not in the sense of genius) it put so much pressure on him to do well, if he looses at anything even a simple game he feels like he's let himself down.
He is extremely hard on himself because he believes he must be the best at everything which of course he isn't.
He makes up elaborate lies when he does things wrong to make himself seem perfect.
If you have done things he has done it 10 times better (even if he actually hasn't)

Don't be that parent, it's too much pressure, let your child be a child.
They all grow in different ways.

My eldest child didn't meet any milestones as a baby, so much so global developmental delay was a query. Everyone else's children were walking and he couldn't even sit himself up...

Now age 6 and despite missing most of his first two years of school due to c19 he's about a year ahead work wise.

A friend of mine has a Dd who talked extremely early. Early to say her first words. But also full on conversation at 2yo. I’d say her speech was at a similar level than my then 4yo.
She is bright but not a genius.

Dc1 was/is gifted but wasn’t that early in walking/talking.
What was obvious early on was his ability to associate concepts and generalised what he saw. (let’s say shape and colours). He clearly found it very easy to learn. But didn’t learn how to read that early either.

FinalSongbird sounds just like my child! I have had the same experience.
To think how much I used to worry when he was little. Amazing how they can develop.

My 9 month old blew a raspberry straight after she farted the other day to immitate the sound and that’s probably the “smartest” thing she’s over done 😂
Totally normal to just want to crawl and pull up on things. She’s focussing on mastering that skill.
Let her be little and enjoy the baby cutest. It really does fly by

Lol - my gifted child hit the milestones at regular times but was a late walker (nearly 2) and a late speaker.... though when she spoke it was almost in complete sentences. Also, although she did the usual letters and numbers in her nursery we didnt do them at home (though she was always read to) . She was a fluent reader by the end of the first term. Not sure what all this means but each child is individual - enjoy them as they unwrap!

Didn’t like being a baby - very frustrated that older sibling could do things. Crawled at 5 months (good god) though didn’t walk until almost 12 months. Speaking in whole sentences and could recognise colours by 22 months (only remember that because the health visitor rolled her eyes when I said he could do this, then at the end of the appointment he asked me to put on his blue shoes). Started nursery at 3 and could read fluently before then - learnt words by sight as we read to him at night (he used to repeat them after us under his breath - drove me bonkers). He’s a lazy sod now though, does the bare minimum and breezes through school at the top of the class.

I remember a friend saying when he was 2 that he was either going to save the world or destroy it and she wasn’t sure which. Since then have focused on trying to instil good morals above all else.

My DS said his first word at 8 months (cat) and had about 200 words by 12 months (embarrassingly I made a list just before his birthday for his baby book). He started pointing at 7 months and I think that kickstarted his speech. He was speaking in sentences by 14 months. He’s nearly 3 and his speech is still very advanced but I don’t think he’s gifted - his peers are catching up with him and he’s not unusual in other ways. Just chill out and enjoy your baby.

What do you mean by gifted? My DD got 11 a at GCSE and 2 As and 1 A at A Level. Interview at Oxbridge etc. At a top uni.
Wasn’t physically advanced at all, walked at 14 months but speech was good, first words by 1 and chatting in sentences by 2. No idea she was bright until her first parents’ evening.

My dd is gifted and has ASD. She barely spoke before she was 2. Her physical skills have always been a bit behind. From the beginning her receptive language skills were very high and her memory was shockingly good. She was actually evaluated at 18 months because we were concerned about the speech delay. When she finally started speaking regularly at 2 it was in full paragraphs. It was like she didn’t want to speak unless she could speak like an adult.

Ds didn't talk until he was 4 and he goes to a special school. He learned how to read last summer (he's just turned 7) and he didn't stop. He can write/read and understand quite a bit of a lot of languages, including mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, russian, Greek, some native American language which I forget the name of, Japanese, Korean, Swahili, and probably more, I can't keep up! He knows every flag, country, capital city, language system, fruit and vegetable, plant, tree (even strange exotic ones I have never heard of). He just loves all this stuff.

I'd say this is some form of gifted? He didn't hit any of his main milestones early, and he was massively late for any communication milestones.

[quote Peridotty]@Ohalrightthen thank you!! Don’t worry I’m not a tiger mum!![/quote]
“Normal” parents don’t buy 75 board books trying to make their 8 month old “gifted”

Jesus op..this is quite sad to read in a funny way, let your baby be a baby ffs. Of course shes not talking and wanting to read books, I suggest you do a bit more research on typical child development

I really wish they wouldn't use the term gifted, it can apply so much pressure to families.
I've worked in early years for over 18 years, I have only met one "gifted" child in that time. So advanced he was moved to the 2-3 room at 18months,he couldn't walk, he bottom shuffled his way up there.
He was confident in addition and subtraction by two, it was all organic, nothing forced by parents. Their main concern was his huge lag in social skills, at a party he found an abicus and instead of joining in with the games, he sat and did his counting instead.
He was going to private school regardless but his family really focused on his social skills. He is now incredibly musically talented with a good friendship group around him, because his parents knew although being super intelligent was fantastic, at some point he would realise his emotional needs were no where near being met.
You can look up expected milestones online, obviously they are just a guide but please don't apply pressure to your child or indeed yourself.
Books, just rotate them I love books and think it's one of the nicest things you can encourage your little one to enjoy.

My (bright but probably not gifted) just eight year old couldn't give a toss about books until she was about 5 or 6. She now adores reading and is managing books meant for kids a bit older (eg has finished Harry Potter series). Don't rush it and enjoy your baby.

Dd was a nightmare didn't sleep and screamed constantly, she was later diagnosed as having autism but was years ahead at school.