When did you 'know' your child was gifted?

[SoloMumJustMuddlingThrough]

Were you aware (or have strong suspicions) that your child was 'gifted' before school age?

Did they enjoy nursery? Were they able to flourish in a typical early years setting?

If you are the parent of a gifted child, what have been the main challenges you & your child have faced that a "bright" child wouldn't have?

I find the topic of giftedness very awkward so apologies for my clunky sounding questions. I never know how to phrase it without causing offence to someone.

Thanks in advance!

I was a gifted and talented child along with my husband. We both earn well enough but we are completely normal, not special individuals. Don’t put too much stock in a school label.

My dd , now in her 30s, spoke straight away in sentences. Was completely talking like an adult at 3. She was practically born knowing how to read. She never needed phonics just read. Her first few weeks at Primary she brought in Heidi to read whenever she had nothing to do. She could do 100 piece jigsaws from 2. She found school difficult at first as wasn't stimulated at all but she loved the friends and play/ art etc. Then in her second year she had a wonderful teacher who just let her off so she wrote stories/ poems while the others wrote sentences. She was very good at Maths but exceptional with words..Saying all that she found it difficult to find a career. She could have been an eternal student as she loved studying but none of it led to a high brow career.
She is a complete people person and works now in adult education. My 2 ds were more regular and have good careers.
She is doing her second masters, more out of interest than anything. She is fascinated by learning. Luckily her dh has a good job and totally supportive. She has had poetry/ prose etc published but mostly its just for herself.

When school rang me to say "we think she's bored...", tried her on the end of year assessments for the year above (so content she hadn't had covered in lessons) and she came top in English and exceeded expectations in Maths...

My eldest DB was gifted from an early age, in a lot of things and a lot of ways. I first took it for granted, him being my first. He eas an early talker and reader. He had epilepsy and mild undiagnosed autistic spectrum. He passed away before his 23d birthday. I have his blog that I read and reread. He was very mature for his age, well read, philosophical and I sometimes find it hard to believe that some posts were written by a 15 year old, you would think the writer was 40.
My second DS was bright as a child in Maths, used to be an original thinker, was recommended for Cambridge but failed the interview. He regrets wasting his time on video games etc and wishes that he could have his childish creativity back.
My third DS was slightly delayed in everything and quite delayed in speech. I devoted a lot of time to him and by Year 5 he was good at most subjects. Later he became clever but also less happy.
My youngest DS is the most normotypical of all my DC, and also gifted but not so much in one discipline though he is a good musician. It's about his overall intelligence, strategic thinking and organisational skills. I asked him if he wanted to go to a boarding music school (most children who get a place, get a bursary ) and he said, absolutely not. I thought so. His interests are too wide to stick to one thing, and I am glad he is this way. He was close to a passing grade in an outstanding grammar school and won two scholarships in a private school, but we cannot afford it without a bursary. The school phoned again and offered a further discount, but we cannot afford it even with a discount.
I have recently read an interesting article about gifted children. It's not just about academic achievements. Apparently, gifted children are very INTENSE. They worry about injustice, care about the world and all sorts of problems, are sensitive and emotional and have a high level of empathy.
And they can be very challenging to their parents.
I recognised it all in my philosophical, intense children who can be really challenging at times. The main challenge is not that they behave badly. The most difficult part is that they find it hard to be happy.
I started thinking about myself as a child and realised, that though most of my school grades were average, I felt like a person without a skin, taking the world's problems too close to heart, being empathic and often feeling overwhelmed with problems that were not my own. I was very intense. Now I have children who are very intense, too.

Not my child but me as a child in case it's helpful. I spoke & read very early and spent my whole childhood feeling like I didn't fit in (with my nose in a book), A's at GCSE & A-level without revising. I had my 'giftedness' recognised at school but my parents were more concerned that I was a 'good person' so didn't really care (!) and being smart would have got me bullied so I learnt to dumb it down. I think it affected my self esteem and self image tbh, I just really wanted to be 'normal' but just felt so different (until I got to top uni and was with other smart people). If I had a gifted child, I think I would try to be chill about it and help them find their tribe as early as possible, and not overindex on how amazing it all is.

Edit to add, previous poster said:

"Apparently, gifted children are very INTENSE. They worry about injustice, care about the world and all sorts of problems, are sensitive and emotional and have a high level of empathy."

This was me, it was all exhausting!! And I felt crazy for caring so deeply about things whilst other people were able to carry on. It was so isolating. I think I could have really done with learning the skills to cope with this somehow.

My niece who was is now a junior doctor has a brilliant memory. Soaks up facts. When she was in primary school she was given extra homework and extra schoolwork as she was always finished twice as quickly as the other kids. I think she was bored in school a lot of the time. She was also bullied in school especially by the girls who I think were jealous.

wittyretort, yes I feel that finding their tribe would help, but I am not successful.
My youngest was in a fantastic primary school but preferred to mix with the naughtiest boys who never did their homework:) Found them more interesting.

When the health visitor asked me how
many words she knew and I said hundreds and the HV said most kids of the same age only know 10-20 words.

I knew very early and they got top marks in upper high school level exams at the age of 9. I relate to a lot of what you wrote about your child.

I can honestly say though, while they are still obviously intelligent and have intelligent friends, as an adult you really wouldn't know if they were so advanced or not at a young age. They just blend in with all the other people in their field who probably went through school at a more standard pace. In the end - it doesn't really matter that much.

Focus on breadth of experience and social and emotional competences if academics come easily. These children often are more prone to struggle with mental health later and giving them the best chance to manage that sort of thing is very important.

I wouldn't say DS is gifted but even at 2 he had a phenomenal memory and was a storyteller. He knew things - names of dinosaurs, cities, kings etc. He would play for hours with Lego and figures telling me amazing stories about castles and battles (spent every weekend visiting various ones).

Academically he was the Covid year for GCSEs and would have got higher if he had sat them, he got 3 As at A Level. He's about to start his Masters (RG university but I don't really hold with all that!). He is an excellent public speaker despite being quite quiet.
He still builds Lego and is currently writing a novel. He's ASD.

He was reading prose by 3, was multiplying by 12 shortly after.

The main thing was that he was able to grasp concepts and learn facts very quickly even before starting school, no matter what subject was covered but then, that may possibly has more with his ADHD than being in the 98 percentile for IQ.

By the time he was 10. When he was young I thought he was a bit dim. It just took him a while to get into his stride.

My eldest DD is incredibly bright, definitely Oxbridge material. Straight A* and As on all her subjects, and is about to start year 9 and GCSEs.

I was aware she was very intelligent but never knew just how bright until her teachers all said that they thought she was brilliant at every open evening since starting high school. To be fair, Norwich High for Girls is the best place for her, and she's thriving there, yet still moans how bored she is. Potentially she could push herself to extend the best grades even more, and her maths teacher believes she is more than capable of doing even past the advanced extra work he sets her.

The thing that madd me realise just how clever she is was when her history teacher told me with great sincerity that she should run for Prime Minister if she had the chance. 😳 I'd be surprised if that's what she ever ended up doing but he did look pretty convinced she would be great at it, so God only knows 😅

In all seriousness, I'm absolutely more than proud of how brilliant she is, but whatever she ends up do8ng, if she is happy, then that is all that matters.

Plus, every teacher said she is able to grasp things extremely quickly, see patterns, and think outside of the box a lot. And her confidence and gregarious nature has been evident from the day she was born, and my mum declared she was a character then. 😅😳

Very vocal in her views, extremely unique sense of humour, very mature way of thinking, and writes brilliantly. Her prose is beyond her years, reading George Orwell et al probably has something to do with it!

My DD is extremely clever/gifted (and is neurotypical). It was always obvious to us from very soon after she was born: she was super alert, very quick, needed little sleep, met all milestones unusually early from day 1. She was clearly gifted, but both DP and I were gifted children as well (both also neurotypical), so it was pretty normal to us.

I was very much like @wittyretort, and had a miserable time dumbing myself down and being bored at school until I got to university. DP got dragged around educational psychologists and Mensa and weird gifted kid crammer schools by his parents (ironically, his parents are not neurotypical!) and was socially isolated and very unhappy.

We didn’t want either of those experiences for DD. So far we’ve been lucky that she was in a good state primary with good resources, and quite a few other very bright kids around to compete with. We’ve tried to encourage her and give her a range of opportunities without too much pressure or making a huge deal out of it (no IQ testing or special courses or Ed psychs or cramming). She’s naturally very driven and competitive, so we have always had to work on helping her not become too perfectionist, whilst also not letting her become bored.

DD got an academic scholarship to a (good but not super prestigious or hothousy) independent secondary, that offers a lot of extracurricular and creative opportunities. We explicitly didn’t want her in a super-academic, super-pressured school; but one that is good, but also unpushy, happy and balanced. She’ll get the chance to do the academic subjects she wants, but not with an overload of school work, and we hope she’ll also enjoy and develop other skills that she enjoys and is good at (art, dance, etc).

We try not to make her academic ability a big thing and treat it like it’s normal. It’s bad for a child’s self esteem to always have to think of themselves as “the clever one”, and it doesn’t make for a healthy relationship with others either. Both DP and I struggled with being bullied, internal perfectionism, and fear of failure/procrastination as teenagers, and were pigeonholed by others as “brainboxes” or geeks. I don’t want DD to feel either defined by her ability or hobbled by it.

I think my DD is neurotypical.

Neurodiversity is a spectrum that we are all on somewhere, and I would say she definitely sits on the neurotypical end of the spectrum.

Along with her parents / grandparents / aunts / uncles and cousins.

All of her Parents / Grandparents / even Great Grandparents and Aunts / Uncles etc have been highly intelligent / "top of the class", with several of the above going to Oxbridge

@WinniePrules I am so sorry to read of the loss of your son.

Mine has just graduated with a first. He got all A *’s at A level and mostly 9’s at GCSE’s. He was given prizes at university at the end of the year for having the top mark across his year in his subject. At school, in primary the school didn’t recognise it at all, they just found him difficult as he was active and easily bored. At secondary (ordinary comprehensive) they recognised immediately, he did the cats and his reading ability was the highest they could measure. It was very nice to go to his parents evenings as the teachers really enjoyed teaching him, I think for them, they enjoyed having someone so different to teach. They also encouraged him in lots of sport and in any extra curricular going to keep him interested. His RE teacher at GCSE said she sometimes had to limit his questions as otherwise they were doing A level philosophy rather than gcse RE. His politics A level teacher said he differentiated up to degree level for him. I think we were very lucky in the way his school handled it. Not an easy child to parent, very intense, needed lots of stimulation constantly. I don’t think he’s neurotypical. I did say to him once whether he wished we had sent him to a top private school, and he said he would have hated it. On reflection I think he needed a mixed peer group to balance out the intensity.
I hope he will live a happy adult life, I imagine we will always be supporting him with practical details as practical tasks are not a strong point! In some ways with giftedness, I think be careful what you wish for as that intensity is not always easy to manage.

I suspected ds seemed different before starting school, but it was tricky to put my finger on - mostly bouts of extreme frustration, anger and anxiety, but also hyper focus on things he found interesting, which was where he put most of his energy. He seemed bright but not gifted.

He tolerated school but often found subjects boring. In secondary he would tell me he knew more than his teachers in a couple of subjects (which I took with a pinch of salt as it was a highly rated school, and his scores were good but not exceptional). He was extremely well behaved at school, but stressed out and on a short fuse by the time he arrived home.

At 11 he asked me to find another music tutor because his current one had reached the limit of what she could offer for his instrument. I'm not a musician and so I was sceptical, but I did find another tutor, and after a couple of years, another and then another further afield....

Alongside this, at a similar age, he set up an online business which took off so he contracted out work to others for a percentage of profits.

I sympathise with the awkwardness in discussing it with others. Ds was bored and frustrated at school, and I was rather at a loss as to how to facilitate his strengths, but just didn't know who to talk it over with, or how to find advice without it sounding like a boast. I did as some suggested and tried to provide lots of experiences, not focus on grades but on establishing friendship groups and encourage a broad range of education.

In retrospect it wasn't a good strategy. What he really needed was the time and expert guidance to a focus on a few subjects of interest - he's highly competitive and grades with a clear purpose, achievement and performing at the top of his field really motivated him. He didn't find that until he went to a top independent Sixth Form on a scholarship.

Whilst bright, neither of mine were gifted.
But as an ex-teacher, if I could have a £ for every parent who claimed their DC was gifted, I’d be a rich woman!

Aw I love reading everyone’s stories about their lovely children 🥰 I don’t want to jinx it but I think my boy might be going in this direction! He’s 20 months, had a meeting with his nursery and they said he’s one of the brightest children they’ve ever come across, so far he can count to 30 and knows the alphabet, both numbers and letters in and out of context, he can add one digit numbers together from 1-9, knows every animal and the sounds they make plus little facts (eg an octopus has 8 “legs”), can identify each planet, knows all shapes (including hexagon and pentagon), all vehicles and their sounds, knows all colours and what you get if you mix certain ones together, and is now speaking up to 5 words in one sentence plus is able to sing entire nursery rhymes! Also if you give him toys he wants a screwdriver to try and figure out the mechanics of it 😅

The last child I saw like this was my younger brother who’s currently at one of the best grammar schools in the country and predicted all 9s for GCSEs so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

My DS is classed as gifted and has struggled with school ever since he started. He’s now 13 and suffers from crippling anxiety. He probably completed about 10 full school days last year. He has expressed a want to end his life multiple times over the last 12 months.

We’re really unsure what to do next. I really feel for kids who are gifted it’s very very hard for them.

Interesting but also kinda dismissive. It's natural for a parent to be proud of their children but "gifted" (which is a label I refuse to use irl) is more than bright and straight As, as you know. I don't think any parent would actually wish for their child to be off the scale because it presents so many challenges and difficulties, and often mental health issues down the line. My brother for example was studying a level maths and further maths at age 11. He has a great mind and natural a mathematician but suffers with depression and works in Tesco (nothing wrong with that of course but he is unhappy and can't function in the real world). I was very bright straight As, musical (grade 8) and a good all rounder but in no way exceptional. I got on much better than my gifted brother.

On both sides of dds family there is a history of "giftedness" 🤢 but I wouldn't say that is a good or desirable thing.
Personally I think that dismissive comments make it more difficult for people facing challenges raising bright or gifted children to openly talk about them for fear of being labelled "that parent".

Then why doesn't her math teacher get her something appropriately challenging for her?
E.g. would she find this too easy? https://ukmt.org.uk/competition-papers/jsf/jet-engine:free-past-papers/tax/challenge-type:69/#free-past-paper-anchor
If it's a matter of not having time to make an extra set just for her, you could send her with UKMT challenge/kangaroo/Olympiad papers
Or check out https://ukmt.org.uk/enrichment/mentoring

I think while they are little, being particularly bright is more noticeable.
DD spoke before 1, could do puzzles and games easily, reading and writing came early - infant/primary and secondary identified her as gifted in English in particular. But other children catch up, it’s just that early achievements feel special to us parents.

Im not sure she’s a little genius, she’s very bright and emotionally intelligent, she’s been told her whole life by her family and school that’s she really good at school - so her confidence and self belief can be quite strong, although teen years are tougher going.

Basically she likes to learn, she’s confident and has a remarkable memory, making things like languages much easier - she’s learnt mandarin very quickly.

(I do maintain however she is a gifted artist but others might not agree!)