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!

Our son could read full books at 2, and was obsessed with maths. At that age, he could add, subtract, multiply 5 and 7 times table. It was a little freaky to be honest. He’s still nursery age, and what we’ve been told is that children like this really struggle socially as they have a tenancy to hyper fixate on learning. Apparently early intervention (speech/OT), full time daycare and a huge focus on interacting with other children is key and can really help later in life. It can be really tough when the reality of a gifted child hits as there are some really hard parts. There’s a few FB support groups with ideas and resources that can be helpful.

My youngest is, according to school. He’s 8.
He’s not your typical “read age 3” kind of child. He learned to read in year 1, but what makes him different is the how. The moment reading clicked for him he was able to read and understand complex texts, on secondary school level. Similar with maths - he usually takes a bit to get things, but once he gets it, he gets everything. So once he understood basic fractions, he also immediately knew how to multiply them etc.

I would add she finds loosing hard, she’s used to winning and loosing a game to her brother etc makes her horribly sulky and I’ve tried hard to teach her not to be sour. Similarly with sport, she’s not the best, she was one of the best in primary and she’s not now and she doesn’t find that easy.

Oh Another thing (!) is she’s not good with revision and she will literally say she doesn’t need to because ‘I know it already’. Her not so academic brother works really hard and gets good results, he’s much more resilient in some ways.

When he was 4 years old and I sat crying in a laybe because we were lost - he picked up the map - found the right way and rescued us 😂

Adding to the pattern here he’s high Iq, photographic memory with ASD but actually isn’t academic. He can code a computer better than he can read and write!

My experience has been this too. Average to walk, slightly later to talk. Then 2-4 seemed very average with milestones but with very intense interests and intense curiosity. But still seemed academically average. Then he started school and became academically ahead....and continue to pull away.

The common theme seems to be intensity and curiosity among those that are gifted and a want to understand the world and situations in depth and a very strong sense of justice.

I used to worry about how this would work socially as nursery and reception were hard. He was constantly outraged or upset by peers and their age appropriate behaviour. But interested have widened to sports and music which he is excelling at, which helps hugely socially.

NEVER stops talking or making noise. I had considered he was just bright and energetic and slightly neurodiverse. A few playdates and feedback from other parents have confirmed the "lovely, brilliant but intense" situation.

Glad to hear of other gifted/talented kids who took a bit longer to show their potential!
mine slso never stops talking and is really intense and excitable with really high energy levels. Potentially ADHD, but school thinks probably not, at least not at the classic level.

Oh you reminded me of when my eldest took the handle apart on the locked back door to get in - also first they picked the lock of the tool store to get the screwdriver and to this day my neighbour and I have no clue how they did that bit!
Read the story time book before home time to the nursery group. Helped me deliver Avon brochures - when asked even numbers in reception, recited the odds too. They explained “my mum does Avon” (door numbers into early hundreds!)
Best bit was they weren’t pushed at school but instead helped their friend.

Gifted...? Pardon.. ? Do you mean Neurodiverse, Learning difficulties, learning disabilities (2 different classifications), additional needs? Not applying the correct terminology, is fairly uncalled for.

Speak to your GP and get a professional diagnosis, so you can enable your child to get the correct support they are entitled to.

My middle child was reading full books , newspapers and anything just before she turned 3 , she struggled massively in nursery and school , still does , she was diagnosed ADHD age 5 . She also achieved all her physical milestones early , crawling at 5 months , walking at 9 etc

My dd has autism and was non verbal until 4 however had taught herself to read fluently, once she started speaking she could already read chapter books and do mid primary level mathematics. I’d exchange all of that for her to able to interact with the world better!

Not my child, was me. Reading at 18 months. Hated maths, but language and words were great. I remember nagging to see Mary Rose at 3. Had run out of school reading/library books by year 4. Hated nursery - refused to go unless could do reading in the afternoons. Ok with primary (very supportive), Loathed everything up to 6th form - bullied. Went to oxbridge. Ok now, but I learned to hide intelligence as people thought I was showing off. From my experience, gifted is NOT common sense, not always in all areas, and just go with what makes your child happy.

The questions he started asking me at 4. Mind boggling hilarious sometimes what a wild sense of imagination children can have

I started to suspect it with DC1 when they were around 7-9 years old. They read voraciously, loved museums or anything else where it was possible to pick up lots of info, such as a National Trust property.

It only became clear when they started secondary school and in a year group of around 250 they were top in maths in the CAT tests and they were in the top few in the other tests too.

DC1 got 4x Astar at A-Level and a 1st in a STEM subject at a top uni. Nobody at preschool or primary said anything along the lines that they could be gifted.

At her 18-month check-up, DD1 demonstrated to the surprised paediatrician that she could name all the colours he pointed to (I remember "grey" being a particular surprise).

Aged 3, she opened our kitchen door as far as it would go, so it was right back against the wall (i.e. had moved through 180 degrees), then said "Mummy, if I put a piece of chalk under here (pointing to the bottom free corner of the door) then close the door again, it will draw half a circle on the carpet." It took me a while to realise she was right.

There was also the Toast Calculation when she was three. Every morning I used to ask her how many pieces she wanted her slice of toast cut into, and had explained the words (half, quarter etc.) One day she said "I’d like five pieces today, so that will be two quarters and three sixths."

She loved pre-school, played with dolls etc., went to ordinary state primary and comprehensive schools, got 5 top-grade A Levels and has now got an Oxford maths degree. She’s not a terribly sociable person, though, is happy with her own company and finds it hard to make chit-chat.

DD2 was highly competitive so insisted on doing 6 A-Levels (to outdo her sister), aced them all and also went to Oxford. She is much more sociable and sporty and has lots of friends and interests.

I'm not sure I really know the difference between being gifted and "just" being highly intelligent. Either way I wouldn't make a big deal of it. We’ve all seen sad stories about "gifted" children pushed too hard by their parents and ending up as unhappy misfit adults.

I was an early developer so that can be a thing too. I could read really early and was in two classes above my age group at primary school. But it evened out as I got older. I was lucky to find exams fairly easy but I am definitely not a genius or abnormally intelligent anymore. It is also about application. I didn’t try very hard at A levels or Uni so even though I got a 2:1 I probably didn’t fulfill my potential. My daughter seems very bright but totally struggles at school due to her ASD. She often gets the 1% question right on the 1% club quiz show though, so being academic and being intelligent can be different gifts.

The reception teacher told me he was but I didnt think he was anything special. Excelled at primary school, got into a very competitive selective secondary and then it hit him that there are actually lots of bright kids out there! Was a shock to the system to go from top of the class by a long way to just bang average once surrounded by lots of other clever people 😂 sadly the natural intelligence means there is very little work ethic as it comes naturally. Means he has excelled in academic exam based subjects but flunked those that had coursework elements due to not being used to putting effort in. I let him fail which might be seem as being mean but he needed to learn that just being naturally clever doesn't mean you succeed at everything!

I don’t think I really thought about it in terms of being ‘gifted’ as I don’t really like that term. However we obviously noticed our eldest was very intelligent and hitting milestones much earlier than his peers, but I think we sort of expected he would be clever as both my husband and I are pretty intelligent. At school he always excelled and then in year 3 the teacher said we should look at special gifted programmes for him for secondary (which we did and he secured a fully funded place at one of the countries most selective schools). With our youngest, again we assumed he would be intelligent and then when he was leaving preschool the teachers tried to insist he should go up a year straight into year 1 and miss reception, but we wanted him to stay with his correct year group, so he did. He was offered a place at our eldests sons school after the entrance exams earlier this year, but it was no surprise as if anything he is even more gifted academically than our eldest, or perhaps just in different ways. Neither of the boys has ever had any issues from being academically gifted, but they are also both incredibly sporty and compete to regional and national levels in several sports each - I think that helps as it makes them more rounded individuals. Some of their school friends who don’t do sports or music or something other than academics can be a bit grating I find!

I was a gifted and talented child. Unfortunately school was hell for me. I found I got bored really easily in lessons and a lot of the stuff I was learning was beneath me. I feel school stifled me a lot and I was a child that could have probably benefited from home schooling with a private tutor tbh.

I also got bullied relentlessly.

My parents knew I was gifted when I was able to add, subtract, read and write in full sentences by the time I was 2 years old. Their other 3 children couldn't do that.

A lot of people who thought they had “gifted” kids later discovered it was actually autism.

My DC2 has recently been diagnosed with ADHD while a university student. School put me off the scent by telling me they had screened them for all kinds of conditions including ADHD (because their mental health was so bad) and all had come up negative.

Probably started to have an inkling when my daughter was around 14 months and could count to 20, recognise all shapes and colours and could draw a smiley face. She’s now 3 and is so smart. Only downside I’ve noticed is she picks up on EVERYTHING and can be very sensitive. She’s so in tune with her environment.

My DD is neurotypical and is gifted. Shes 14 and is on for 9s in all of her GCSEs. Her senior school teachers have all been trying to encourage her to take their subjects for a levels since year 7, and when she first started they would often ask what primary she went to as they were shocked at everything she knew. She’s a summer baby but has always excelled in school, she has a natural love of learning and picks things up easily. Primary sometimes frustrated her as being academic wasn’t rewarded much at her school.

Met up with friends with babies of the same age when DS was about 13 months old. Their babies were all dating a handful of words each. DS was speaking in sentences.

He’d autistic. Probably ADHD.

My sibling is gifted and neurotypical. My parents first thought she might be gifted when between 15-18m she suddenly counted 37 biscuits. Then stopped as that’s all there were in box. At 3/4 she would answer my spellings and tables (I’m 4 years older). She got straight A at GCSE and 6As at a level (no A then) a double first from Cambridge and then a postgrad at Harvard and is now a magic circle lawyer earning £££.

she’s also happy, popular and well adjusted with a wife and 3 kids.

My Dd having an eye test at our Opticians, because she was only young she had to identify shapes rather than letters, she confidently stated 'rhombus' , the Optician said 'oh, well most children say diamond, but yes you are right it is a rhombus' . She loved the woodlice under the stones in my mum's garden, and she asked if she knew that woodlice were not insects but crustaceans and related to lobsters. We used to ask her where she got her facts from.and she would pat her head and say ' from my head book' 😅😅😅 she was ahead of her nursery pals by a mile, but fortunately not too far ahead at primary school, she now has a law degree and is working towards a Solicitor training contract