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!

This is a very interesting thread. I have a couple of observations based on my personal experience.

I was regarded as very bright at school (got a full scholarship to one of the top 5 private schools in the country, discussions about putting me up a year). I wouldn’t say I was gifted and talented though, there were students more able than me at school.
I did learn to read at a very young age though (well before school) and I loved learning, was good at passing exams. However, I didn’t apply myself as well as I could have done (discovered, clubbing, boys etc!) so ended up with a decent degree/job etc but not stellar.I am neurotypical.

My DS has an autism diagnosis. He’s Yr10 now and at a recent parents’ evening some of his teachers said that he’s the most exceptional student they’ve ever taught. He’s operating at a post-graduate level of subject knowledge, understanding and insight in some subjects. In terms of intellect, what separates him from me is how he applies his knowledge. He is able to make connections and deductions in a way that then expands/furthers knowledge. It’s not just a case of being able to memorise facts (which he can also do) but how he applies his knowledge.

However, he’s almost 16 and still can’t tell the time, doesn’t have any friends, is too anxious to leave the house without adult support etc. It also remains to be seen if he can apply his knowledge to passing exams - which is a specific skill.

I think there’s a difference between being academically able and truly ‘gifted’. I also think that DC develop at different rates. I know people who were regarded as very ‘bright’ at school but then never went on to achieve high academic success for many reasons.
There’s also the argument about what constitutes ‘gifted’ - is it the ability to pass exams and go to Oxbridge?

I do wonder that to be ‘gifted’ you do need to be neurodiverse in some way in order to ‘see’ how to make these paradigm shifts that furthers knowledge/understanding (and also maybe to have the single-minded drive). The same could be said for those regarded as artistic/creative ‘geniuses’. I would imagine the percentage of people who are truly ‘gifted’ must be absolutely tiny.

In terms of the OP’s question though, as a neurotypical but bright child, I had no problems at school - in fact I loved it. If a DC is bright, then at a good school they will be stretched, be in top sets etc. The difficulties can obviously come if that perceived ‘brightness’ is actually due to being neurodiverse.

My daughter met milestones mostly on target until around 2-2.5 when I noticed her language was suddenly beginning to develop much faster than her peers. She’s now 3.5 and her vocabulary, sentences and ability to converse and tell stories is like a much older child. She has always loved books and has had very good attention span to sit and listen to stories etc. I don’t know if she’s gifted overall but her language is very advanced. She also began asking really deep/existential questions at around 3. She’s not had any personal experiences related to death yet but has a lot of worry and questions about death and her own mortality that are heavy and difficult to answer in a way that’s appropriate for a 3 year old.

Socially, she’s incredibly empathetic, but in a way that makes life difficult for her because she’s always worried about how others are feeling. If someone is upset or if she witnesses a minor conflict between other people it really upsets her. I do think this makes larger social situations such as nursery more difficult for her.

She’s very sensitive and takes a while to warm up to new people. Her play skills are advanced and she interacts really well with adults and older children but she struggles with children her own age. I think other young children can be quite forward/unpredictable and too much for her (eg by grabbing to hold her hand or touch her when they've only just met which puts her off).

She was difficult and had very high needs as a baby. She was never happy to just sit and look around like other babies seemed to do. Even as an infant, she wanted to be upright, moving, and seeing things. Her sleep was awful and she still doesn’t need much sleep now. It's so much easier to manage her now that her needs for stimulation can generally be met through conversation and books but she is and always has been "intense."

She’s in a fantastic early years setting part time. We travel quite a distance for it because none of the local ones would have suited her. I think generally she’s doing okay. The transition was really difficult and she definitely prefers being at home but she doesn’t seem to hate it either. I think she finds it all very draining due to the factors I’ve mentioned above. I am hoping having attended nursery might ease her transition into reception a bit but I do think it might still be a struggle. I think she’ll be “okay” in school in the sense that she will sit, do what she’s asked, and not cause a problem. However, I am worried she won’t be happy or meet her potential in a large classroom setting.

Potential Plus UK has really good information on their website and they even have an advice line if you want to talk to someone. I'd definitely check them out if you haven’t.

Aged 2 [and a] bit, ?

My eldestt is what was once assessed as gifted twice exceptional, I don't know what it's called now. He basically was tested by an educational psychologist as part of my fight with my local authority to get him a statement of education (now known as an EHCP).
He is extremely bright, has many interests, has ASD/ADHD and suffers from depression and suicidal ideation. He is currently doing his Ph.D. so on the face of it very bright, but major mental health issues.
I knew something was up when he went from non-verbal to talking in complete lengthy complex sentences with complex vocabulary overnight aged 2. He would memorise complete books, and taught himself to read. He once drew the attention of a crowd of people at a museum by completing a logic puzzle that adults couldn't do, he was just 6. At the same time his brother joined in at age 3, who is also a very gifted mathematician that can't cope with stress, and has twice runaway during his teens
There is very little support I find, just often accusations of being a pushy parent, when all I've done is try to nurture their interests.
It's hard work. I don't have a life of my own at all

I think there needs to be a clear understanding too there there is a difference between being bright/clever and gifted though. I could read before starting school, was in top end of results with little or no study but I was just bright not gifted

This is probably true for many who initially are described as "gifted". My DH went to school with somebody who was very bright and had been assessed as gifted, he was brilliant at Maths, though well above the average for eveything except art, and got on with everybody. In those days you could go to a grammar school and classes there could cope with bright children - today he would probably be given a scholarship to a private school.
He took all his exams early, did brilliantly, and went to Cambridge early to take a Maths degree. He never finished the degree, finding it uninteresting and missing what he thought of as normal life and friends. Eventually he got at job as a milkman at home in the west country - no idea what he is doing now (he would be over 70) but apparently he loved being home with his friends and did his job very well.

Nobody thought of him as different or nerdy, they just admired his special abilities.

I am very gifted and neurotypical. I just have very high intelligence in learning and making connections, interpreting etc. I’m pretty bad at learning languages interestingly, but can turn my hand to almost anything else. Have a phd, two masters degrees, play two instruments to concert level, written and published seven books in four different genres, am a pretty good artist, I nail maths stuff….. everything was always very easy academically - got the top grades, won the scholarships, with what seemed like a third of the effort and anxiety of those around me.

I’m comfortable with it now, but spent a lot of my life feeling isolated socially and guilty for having an unfair advantage. I’ve felt and internalised a lot of anger at me…. From a sibling, from a threatened dad, from teachers, from peers, from fellow students, from colleagues….. carried a lot of insecurity that deep down most people find me unlikeable etc. But at the same time, there is no denying that it has brought massive advantages to my life.

I’ve become more comfortable by giving a lot back and focussing my life more on areas in which I’m not gifted. That’s more physical stuff that gets me out of my head - dancing, looking after my own body (which I used to view as an inconvenient appendage that carried my brain around), learning to enjoy sex much more, volunteer work that’s physical, rather than mental…..gardening…. Stuff that makes me feel normal. The mental slowing and brain fog of peri has also been a good leveller!

I think that would be my advice in parenting a gifted child. Don’t let it all be about that. Get them digging their hands in the soil, or running, or laughing, or splattering paint around, or appreciating a beautiful view…. Anything that feeds and recognises their full humanity…. So they don’t feel abnormal all the time or that their value comes from delivering brilliance. And please, please check your own beliefs and the subconscious feelings you are projecting onto the child. From my dad I got ill suppressed anger and competitiveness because he wanted to be the smartest one in the room. From my mum I was told again and again how unfair my advantages were over others and I should hide them. Both were toxic in different ways. They did their best and were really good parents, but both had deep down beliefs about giftedness that I absorbed. That it was ugly, irritating, threatening and unfair in some way. Many parents also project too much excitement- too much desire to live through and boast about the child’s achievements. This can create huge anxiety and the worry that their giftedness is the only thing that is of value within the child. OP, when you say you hate the word gifted, that sets off alarm bells that you could be communicating toxic feelings about her giftedness onto your child. Either it is sincere and you must ask yourself why you hate it, or it is a defense mechanism because you are anticipating bullying/attack/jealousy. You may have grown up gifted or having other gifted family members or attitudes to giftedness that have implanted these feelings. I’d work on that before worrying about the details of how to handle it day to day.

I will also say it’s hard to tell early on how it works out. I thought my DD was super gifted - she was reading big books fluently and playing chess age 4. At 15, she is bright but she’s upper end of normal, and fits very nicely with her peers. She struggles with major topics academically and is towards the top on some others. They just all caught up, versus her ending up being that far ahead and increasing gap. I was worried for her with social isolation but there was no need.

A great post, @financialcareerstuff . There have been several others whilst I have been away and I apologise for losing track of them. I am very bright and reasonably creative across the board (though I cannot draw or sing) but I could have succeeded equally in several fields. However my mother worried that my intelligence made me a bit of a freak and this rubbed off on me. It made me ashamed to be effortlessly tops in everything but music and art. My sibs were more ‘top ten centiles’ bright and then DM was more relaxed about DB, the subject of my initial post here.

He also tested highly across the board but the drive and the gift for absorbing an entire discipline as if it were a comic book, or air, was all about computers. One of his PhD mentors told me that my brother was the only student in a generation the mentor knew who had a good grasp of the whole discipline.

But I am most proud of the many memorial letters and postings about how kind and modest and funny and principled he was. This was through a series of high powered jobs. The tech world can be brutal and my brother was a gentle soul, so it was always a relief that he got the recognition he deserved.

I’d maybe get her assessed for ASD. What would have been Asperger’s in the older days but all under one label now. You might find that being gifted becomes specific in certain areas - special interests as she gets older. You’d maybe need some advice from ASD specialists as there can be issues with emotions keeping up with IQ, or with socialisation with others as well. Or other people have higher expectations of behaviour due to their outward ability in sounding older than they are but them forgetting their actual age milestones for many things.

I say this as a parent of an autistic teen who is probably average in ability. No one really sees their autism as come across ‘normal’ but behind the scenes we have alot of issues with sensory things like toileting, showers, food etc. we also have some issues around organisation. She’s not on the gifted spectrum of ASD but for alot of her younger years did exceed a lot of the learning being offered. It did plateau as she got older and it special interests have changed a lot over the years.

You often see advanced reading skills in children who are later diagnosed with autism. Parents are usually delighted, thinking they have such a clever child.

I was like that. I was utterly bored in the early school years and was reading books far above my reading age. Teachers thought I was so clever!

But I wasn't. It was precocious, that's all.

Both of these posts absolutely resonate with my upbringing too.

Hard work for parent, overwhelming for child.

Found it very hard socially until I 'learned' (observed and mirrored) to dumb myself down to fit in better.

Hasn't served me especially well in life - in school no-one likes a knowitall, in early career it can be very derailing to need to know WHY everything has to be done/done a certain way...can result in very poor ability to follow instructions!

Late diagnosed with ADHD (because tends not to be picked up in high-ability, social masking individuals). Self-medicated with alcohol for years, which ultimately killed enough brain cells to be closer to 'normal' anyway ;) Still suffer from raging overthinking & emotional incontinence - although meds have now helped somewhat. The rollercoaster of perimenopause makes it all worse again just as you think you're making headway.

Any unbidden "advice" for your DD OP? I would perhaps say try hard to find things she is NOT good at, and then help her find strategies to cope with the frustration & persistence needed to overcome that? This is what life is like for most of her peers all the time, so she'll find it easier to integrate & make friends if she realises that life isn't a competition to know the most, and that other people find new things hard & don't have the same drive to just keep going & going to learn it all... Also socially when to button it (watch for teacher/group leader cues of exasperation & peer frustration before the point of getting thumped - but give her some tips for how to make a mental list to hang onto to ask the same question at home later, or come back to it at a more appropriate time in the setting she's in).

Learning to be a loser in sport/board games is a useful thing too, as things don't always go your way! And not loosing your s* when that happens is pretty important beyond pre-school age & when parents aren't around to mop up the pieces.

Try to give her as much language as possible to process emotions & frustrations & develop empathy for the fact not everyone is exactly like her - and also that getting something wrong or being told off occasionally isn't a badge of shame to internalise for weeks ;)

If leaning towards ASD, may do very well in academia, lifelong study. If ADHD, likely to struggle more to stay on task for that, but be more sociable - beware risk taking & addictions.

If very well balanced/'neuronormie' with it, then GREAT. But if not, you can do a lot to open up early conversations, help her develop strategies, identify situations & not end up off the rails trying to process it all alone in her own head.

Good luck!

We knew our DD was bright from very early on. She was a curious and inquisitive child and relished anything new. At her 2 year check, the health visitor was amazed at her vocabulary and understanding. She wrote this in her red book. DD was an easy baby and toddler, slept and ate well and loved being out and about.

The troubles started when she started primary school. She could already read and knew about number (not just counting by rote but real understanding of number) She hated her first two terms in Reception and turned from a happy, sociable little girl into an anxious one. Her teacher said she couldn't provide what she needed! The example being when she was talking about clocks and time, my DD could already tell the time with some accuracy "It's 17 minutes past 3" etc.

Reluctantly (because of cost) we put her into independent school and the difference in her after just one week there was amazing. The small class size of 12 meant that she was getting the stimulation she needed. She finished prep(primary) as head girl. The same for senior school.

Our now 30 year old DD is the friendliest, most humble and down to earth woman. She's great fun. She's a GP and has empathy and the will to continue learning. She is most certainly neurotypical.

Me and her Dad are in the professions but quite average by comparison. However, her DD (our DGD) is now showing signs of being bright too.

@giftedbrotherIm so sorry for your tragic loss.

I also so resonate with caring most for the tributes that recognise his character rather than his gifts.

The quickest way to bring tears to my eyes is for someone to notice that I am kind. I have a large troupe of people who look to me for advice/ value me for my brain (including in my career). I have a tiny group of friends, and I treasure them because they see and care about my humanness.

Taught herself to read at 2. Bored out of her mind at primary. Since diagnosed with AuDHD but has got top grades in GCSEs, A levels and got a first in her first year at a top university. However it has been anything but plain sailing and much harder work than my other, NT, non gifted child.

Completely agree if there is a good reason for labelling at all!. How do we define gifted though? I’ve read most of the posts on this thread and 99% of the kids sound like they’re bright, not exceptional. Obviously we all like to think our children are exceptional but I don’t think it does them any favours in the long run 😄

Thank you so much, @financialcareerstuff

Your gifts are luck; your character is largely (not wholly by any means) what you make of it. A good upbringing with a lot if live but also a certain amount of training helps a lot, but ultimately it is on you. So I think you should be proud of your character, to the extent that this isn’t an oxymoron, as I hope DB was proud of his.

Thanks also to those who react anonymously. It means a lot.

Edit: with a lot of love

Same. Went from zero to 1000, super bright but can’t cope with life. Being amazing at ready kind of loses its shine by about 9 years of age. Being able to hold a two way conversation and use public transport would be more useful.

Thank you, @Beachtastic

@QuantumPanic "It's what you do, rather than what you are, that counts."

This is so perfect.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to share your experiences. I can't reply to everyone but it has made for an interesting thread!

@financialcareerstuff You make some really good points. I'll clarify my position on the term "giftedness". I don't like the phrase gifted because it sends a message that you have been given something you need to be grateful for. It puts pressure on the child (or adult) to use said gift without considering whether or not it is something that interests them or they wish to pursue. I believe the label "gifted" takes away from individual achievements. Say a child puts in a huge amount of effort into a piece of work (perhaps in one of the weaker subjects) and because of the label this effort is not recognised, exceptional is expected. Anything less than exceptional and people start wondering why they are not 'fulfilling their potential'. I think the term is too broad - it's unfair to label a child 'gifted' full stop, maybe they excel in one area, maybe several but they (like all human beings) will face challenges in some aspects of their life.

When a child receives straight As or goes on to get a first at uni, the world applauds and celebrates with them. As a parent, of course I would be happy for DD if she were to achieve good grades and the other accolades of success we place so much value on. However, it is my job to raise a decent human being. I would be PROUD of DD if she were to grow into a person with integrity, who showed bravery, tolerance, who stood up for the kid being bullied in the playground etc. These are the things that matters most in my view.

Children all develop at different rates. As we have seen a non verbal 2 year old may overnight start speaking as if they were an adult, while an early talker may average out at school. My worry with DD is that she is clearly an early developer - whether she will turn out to be academically bright, gifted or ND, who knows? Time will tell. For the moment I am thinking about early years settings and feeling concerned that they won't fulfill her needs. (I'm not worried about her being bored btw, it's more I want her to experience being challenged, feeling frustrated, so she learns not to give up when things get hard and to develop a good work ethic. I think these seeds are sown early on).

Sorry for the ramble post, I'm pretty tired. But I hope that clarifies my position. Oh and @financialcareerstuff you also correctly identified the defense mechanism, I know it's a sensitive topic for a lot of people - it comes from my fear about not wanting to sound like a braggy mum.

Great post, OP

I was a magpie and collected musical instruments (I'm 3rd generation musician).
When the kids and grandkids all picked up instruments and played them immediately, (around 7), it was obvious they had the gift of music.
Gd has just got a 1st in Computer Science.

You really don’t need to label your child as gifted. You don’t need to do anything, except what you would normally do for any child - love them, support them, show an interest in what they do and give them opportunities to pursue their interests if you can.

”Gifted” is subjective and also, as you say, does not mean the individual is perfect - they will have flaws. I know loads of people who would seem to meet your definition of gifted, but because I know so many, to me that’s just normal. They don’t need special treatment. They achieved things by as many different routes as they are individuals.

If a child has a gift they will pursue it regardless of you, as long as you don’t obstruct them.

“Giftedness” is totally irrelevant and you don’t need to think about it. If you think about it too much, you risk skewing your child’s perception of themselves in an unhealthy way. (Although you don’t need to avoid mentioning their talents or anything like that.)

Are you replying to me or another poster? I haven't defined giftedness so I'm not really sure what you're getting at?

Hyperlexia is a possibility https://www.webmd.com/children/what-is-hyperlexia