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 completely agree. My son has taught himself to read, write and speak Japanese. He did thatvforc16 hours every day for about a year. When it came to applying for universities, he said no way. I thought he could have done a degree in it.-apparently not. 😩 He just wants to be at home with us. He shows no interest in the outside world. He just randomly tells us facts about prehistoric creatures these days 😐
Yes, he has been diagnosed. I could cry sometimes but he does make me smile a lot ☺️

Same with my son. He could read books at 2.5 and people were stunned at his vocabulary but we didn’t know that this was actually an indicator of autism. DS is very intelligent still but it hasn’t translated into an easy life. My other child will probably get higher exam results.

My younger son (young adult) was always very, very smart but has zero application or motivation so he just wings things, not always with great results. If he’d apply himself he’d be soaring professionally but he’s happy muddling through (at uni). He’s still young enough to not have doors closed on him but I do wish he’d knuckle down more. His school reports were always stellar and the teachers were quite awed by his intellect but he has a ‘meh’ attitude. 🫤

Is that gifted though? Loads of kids get solid 9s. I think it's probably 'better' for finding life easy than being the sort of neurodiverse gifted that marks kids out and much of the thread is about.

I must say I hate the 'twice exceptional' terminology. It's a prissy sounding way of denying autism and trying to separate the 'good' autistics from the 'bad'.

Yep, this was us!

Knew every nursery rhyme and dozens of poems by age 18months. Could play them on piano at 3.
Knew all the dinosaurs and most cetaceans and British birds by 2. By the age of 3 she'd moved on to the Latin names of most garden flowers, then wild flowers, then fungi.

Told the teacher at her pre primary school open day event that she thought she had learning difficulties as she couldn't understand some mathematical concepts and was worried about this.
Played 3 instruments to grade 7 standard by mid secondary school. Excelled at Maths, English, Science, Art, hated sport.

Struggled with friendships and had a lot of angst about this.

That's ASD.

He began speaking at ten months, reading at three, loved collecting facts and making museums and little.illustrstrd books out of his bits of knowledge.
He was badly bullied at school, by a couple of children who seemed to actually hate him from day one. I ended up taking him to a child counsellor who told me "sometimes less academic kids seem to want to knock off the bloom from a thriving child."
It's hard.

Do also investigate Hyperlexia as well as G+T.

@MsCactus it depends what you mean by ‘gifted’. I got top grades and a first from Oxbridge after working hard, but I’m not ‘gifted’ like the children the PPs are talking about. I was just hard working and good at school - English rather than maths - so excelled at that at Uni. Gifted is something much more exceptional than that.

I have a very bright neurotypical child whose teacher (she is 5) says she ‘finds the curriculum and the other children babyish’. She seeks out kids in year 6 to play with. Has an insatiable thirst for knowledge and remembers everything, is ‘greater depth’ across the curriculum. But she wasn’t reading words at 20 months or anything wild like that. I think that’s ‘gifted ness’ - and is usually accompanied by ASD or some neurodiversity - whereas DD is just very bright for her age.

Talking from 6 months old, full
Conversations singing full nursery rhymes and asking questions at 12 months. Knew all colours and numbers and counting to 100 at 18 months old also drawing intricate pictures. Reading and writing at 2.5/3.

I was a teen mum I thought this was all normal / great . But there were also huge problems and development issues and at 6 yrs we got a diagnosis of Autism.

My "gifted" one did not enjoy pre-school but it was an awful pre-school (we should have moved her; benefits of hindsight, others had issues with it too we found out later, particularly brighter kids or ones with additional needs). My average child had a wonderful time at her better pre-school and I'm sure they would have been great for my older child if we'd sent her there. My academically able child did very well and loved it at her childminder who tailored her education to just the right level to interest and slightly stretch her.

We slightly suspected she was very clever when she talked early as a baby but it wasn't super obvious till she was aged two and was basically no longer a toddler just acted like a junior school child. She was reading and writing well before pre-school.

My son was around 2.5 years old when I knew he was gifted and talented. I sent him to a montessori private nursery at age 3. His artwork and reading levels were beyond his years.

He started school and in year 2(age 7) he was put in a gifted and talented class with a few other children. We then moved to a different county where at middle school he was placed on the official gifted and talented register.
He was able to move to the next year group for English lessons. He was also enrolled into a programme over holidays to push his talent in art.
Sadly we moved again and he never had as much support thereafter. He still flourished academically and went to study Psychology at uni.
He has always struggled though making friends with people his own age and just generally maintaining friendships.
His younger 3 brothers all have autism and are also very intelligent.

My cousins. One was the youngest professor in medicine in their country. He could carry proper conversations at 11 months. He would understand and do chemistry equations and complicated maths at 3. He was way above everyone at school and entered medical school a year earlier at 17. He’s in his 30’s and has an incredible body of medical work behind him but he has no common sense and his personal life is the hottest mess.
His brother was clever but not on that level yet still managed to be accepted to study Maths at Cambridge. He’s doing good in life and made plenty of money to retire at 39.

My view - you're the expert of your child so any suggestions are vetoable (whether from a professional or MN). I knew quite complicated maths & reading before nursery but rewound a little at nursery & y1 as it's mostly play and their methods were different so I felt both stupid and clever at times. I had a similar problem with our youngest ds top student but not confident socially. My only suggestion is too give her things to do that stops her being bored at home & that are off curriculum (she'll always be ahead naturally anyway) in that way she has a wider scope for anything she decides long term. I know some parents push for very young kids to pass exams but I think that rarely works out to create a satisfied rounded adult.
There's my 2penethworth good luck to you 👍

When her primary school teacher met me on the school playground on the first day because she had gotten rather frustrated with my daughter’s questions and answered “just because”. She told me she had been teaching for 20 plus years and prided herself on never doing this. DD was just so observant I mean at nursery she argued that she was a boy because they were building when the girls were playing dolls. When asked she said she was a boy, no gender confusion she liked to do what she wanted and took everything as a personal challenge sometimes to the extreme. She was diagnosed with autism at 16 but still people question because “she is so bright”. I mean having autism doesn’t mean you aren’t bright but people defer 😡. For all of her gifts her mental health is so fragile she struggles to switch off and thinks of things to the extreme.

Now my eldest child was classed as shy, quiet, average yet went to university got her masters funded and got on the civil service grad scheme and now has a great job. So again just meet them where they are.

i was classed as gifted In school, I could read before nursery and play poker like a card shark but I often felt the world overwhelming. I was diagnosed with ADHD at 46 and to be honest it was such a relief as I learnt more about myself which has changed me completely. Also ended my marriage which helped lol.

My philosophy as a parent is to meet the child where they are without any pressure. If they love maths, then get them something that feeds the desire to learn. For me my girls also loved sports especially team ones it just helped to burn up the endless energy. To be honest with a child that didn’t need sleep it was often exhausting but for me seeing my kids happy was what pushed me. If that meant freezing my bum on an ice skating rink at 5am or listening to a night of opera. I think the wealth of experiences we can give our children is the best we can do.

I know it is a different lifestyle but homeschooling is always a need for most of gifted children at some time through their schooling.
so that they do what they are thriving for
so that they get rid of bad etiquettes that stick
so that they can rest and not be with people all the time
…

Your concerns are valid. Not all are the same though and some are eagerly going to school at every step.

Wishing your child the best :)

My son was in the Gifted and Talented from age 5 until 16.
He could do puzzles 1000 pieces aimed at adults in minutes and at 5 had the reading age of a 12 year old.
The school approached me when he was 5 to say they didn’t have books complex enough for him to read and sent off for a set fur senior school children.
I will say though he cautious as he was bullied for standing out and he didn’t want to. So he hid his intelligence.
He went to Uni and did well but he averaged out as he got older.

Probably pre going to nursery. There was a huge train obsession and I took her to the local heritage line to watch the trains and she got into a detailed conversation with the station master at age 2.

Didn’t play with toys, wanted to read or do maths.

Her key worker at nursery scored her abilities as 3 years ahead and said she didn’t know two year old could do the things she did. Demanded to learn , not play at nursery. Very bored and behavioural problems started. Got sent for a referral to check for autism and was told no, just bright.

Bored at Primary School and told the Headteacher aged 5 that she wanted to learn more and made a complaint to the Head asking for more work.

Got moved up a year. School recommended scholarship for an independent school which might suit her better. Sailed through the academic scholarship, and now has one for Art, currently working towards a music one to add to the collection.

Plays sport at a high level, music, drama.

I was the "gifted child". I was reading political press at 3, then was very bored at school for several years. I held full on conversations from the age of 2 and by 8 spoke fluently in four languages and wrote & directed plays at school. I had top grades and never had to work as hard as others. I won national spelling competitions.

The teachers suggested to my DM many times that I should 'jump' a year or two up in school, but DM decided I was not emotionally there and I think she was right. I was dead bored a lot of the time, however.

I then ended up scoring top for a top private international school (we lived abroad) and several high schools. Chose a slightly worse school to frustrate my father, it looked fun to me. Breezed through it with zero effort, got top grades and exam results with minimal preparation. Got several degrees, I had a scholarship, a sponsorship through my employer, and I've enjoyed a succesful professional career for many years now.

I was never diagnosed with ASD or ADHD but I certainly have traits of both which took me years to realise. I'm great at masking and I have a very rich social life, you couldn't tell, but I'm a bit of an imposter copying other people's social behaviours. I get overstimulated and exhausted easily. I find mutisensory environment overwhelming. I have always suffered from anxiety. I thrive in routine, cleanliness and I like predictability, patterns and being in control of the situation. At the same time I am the person who works best between 11pm and 3am and in those 4 hours I can produce work in one night that other people would take a week to produce. I have always been this way, my brain is able to absorb and analyse a huge amount of information very quickly.

My father is definitely autistic and the most intelligent person I've ever known, extremely gifted. He is also the most difficult person to be around and we are NC. He is gifted in maths, science, geography and politics in particular, but has phenomenal general knowledge.

I am now watching my DS who isn't even in primary school yet and is multilingual, studies books about human body and can name most of the bones (?!), never shuts up with the 'why' questions, builds things which look as if they were built by an 8yo and recently his brain exploded and he's telling us stories about the things that happened when he was just over 12mo which he somehow remembers - they are correct and we never talked to him about them in between or gave him any prompts. He is fabulous but also very much like me in many ways and this can be difficult. No idea what he's going to be like but he's certainly above average in many ways.

Handed in his notice 🤣😍

My eldest was talking in sentences at 9 months 'can I have a scone of my very own?' at her 1st birthday party.
Adding numbers 1-10 at 2.
Asking strangers in the street how their day was going at 2 🤣 and named all the plants by their Latin names (and herbs by scent)
Taken to a retirement party at 3 she sat next to a woman she'd never met and asked, 'what do you think are the bare necessities of life?'
Health visitor told us she was exceptional at her 2 year check and suggested we find her a private school place but this didn't sit well with our ethics so she went to the primary school and thrived. Recited an entire book when she won the school poetry recital competition at 6.
Peers caught up and she's no longer exceptional really (except to me of course!) Her Eng lit teacher said she was the best writer she's encountered, but she's a brilliant mathematician too; she finds different approaches to others. Waiting for gcse results now. She spent as much time out with friends as she did revising. I often ask her for advice, she instinctively knows how to deal with social situations. She's hewn from ancient rock. No ND.
I am encouraging her to go for oxbridge but they don't do maths and English double honours and not sure how she'll choose.
The little one is on similar trajectory.
I blame the grandparents ❤️

My 2nd DS is 28 now. I noticed under 2. I was reading the newspaper with him on my lap when he started picking out words. His preschool teacher noticed straight away (I said nothing to her) and again in primary his teachers noticed very quickly that he never did his homework but acknowledged that he didn’t need to.
His interests became very binary in secondary school; very much literary, no interest at all in maths and sciences.
He went to oxbridge. English degree 1st. Prizes on the way through. Highest mark for his masters dissertation in many years. Interests veer creatively so decided against PhD.
Now working for a very well known publishing company and writes plays. Hopes to be able to make a living off playwriting… who knows. But progressing well in a very competitive company and enjoying his work. He is neurotypical although was unusual in his interests (philosophy, politics etc) as a teenager. As he’s got older he has met more people with his interests. He has lots of friends and a lovely girlfriend.
His intelligence has allowed him to make a good living in his area of interest which is niche. He’d be a LOT richer if he had any interest in science/maths/economics 😂😂

Not my child - but me. I was recognised as G&T at school and put on a special pathway in the 90s. This was before those things were common. I could read by 18 months, longer chapter books by 4/5, and long adult books like Lord of the Rings by 7. I was very verbally precocious. Very quick minded. Because my reading level was advanced I often read things that in hindsight were too emotionally advanced - like The Colour Purple, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings when I was 9 or 10. I was always trying to get involved in the ‘adult world’ and this led to issues with adults and in my teens with risk taking. Academically and work wise I’ve done ok, though not lived up to what I and others considered my potential, which is difficult. I have struggled socially and romantically throughout my life and often feel I am very emotionally immature. I think because in some ways I excelled as child and was very bright, people assumed I could cope with things I couldn’t and also my extreme emotions due to my mind outpacing my body/my peers were punished. I now wonder if I have some form of autism. I certainly had (and still have?) what I now recognise as ‘meltdowns’ pretty frequently.

The positives are that I really trust my mind. I like feeling sharp and that no one can outwit me. I find even quite difficult work ‘easy’ and have found a career that means I can take advantage of free time because I can work quickly.

I hope my daughter doesn’t inherit my mind and is more balanced and emotionally secure. I often look at people who are simpler (I mean that in a non derogatory way, I have complex emotional and intellectual needs) and envy how straightforwardly they can find happiness, enjoyment and peace.

My DS has an almost unique skill that only a tiny percentage of humans have. This started to manifest when he was about three or four and at first we thought it was coincidental (we’d look at each other aghast) because he’d been able to do something, but it quickly became clear that he could easily do what most people cannot. As the years went by, he realised that his skill was an exceptional ability and it’s sort of led to what he’s doing at Uni and will likely be his USP in a related career. His school identified him as a future high flyer but he’s never wanted to be academic, he’s very bright but gets bored by forced learning. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of things he’s interested in, but not traditionally academic subjects, so he’d be brilliant on Mastermind, but not so great on University Challenge. The only time that it’s been a worry is when he was under 10 and continually asked me existential questions that I couldn’t answer and he became very distressed, especially at bedtime. The GP was no help and just said “it’s best not to dwell on these things”. He’s mostly happy now and enjoys good friendships with other lads whose highlight of their week is the quiz at the pub!

You’ll be pleased to know most schools don’t use it anymore.

I'd just given birth and as the nurse was cutting the umbilical cord, my newborn turned to me and said "Thank you for birthing me Mummy, it's nice to meet you".