Wondering if any other parent of a 4-5 year old can read this and tell me what they think. There are some unusual – I think – aspects to my little boy that I can’t quite put my finger on. He’s been quite a challenging child since toddlerhood (needs a lot of stimulation) but on the whole is happy, very good with his little sister (1.5), seems to like his routine/home/preschool etc. He seems bright to me but I don’t have much to compare him to, my nephews were very different at this age. Also, please, this isn’t a boast at all, I just want to see if there are areas we can help him with based on other’s experience.
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He’s 4.25, reading pretty much fluently since just before he turned four. He can read any book aimed at his age I put in front of him, e.g. Shirley Hughes’ Dogger, Oi Dog/Frog and so on. He reads for about 20 mins every morning in bed independently. He taught himself or suddenly got it almost in a week, his nursery had been doing the alphabet and sounds for a while. A relative is a retired teacher and tested his reading age at around 9 years old.
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Since 2 he’s had small obsessions e.g. for a while number plates, then barcodes, then bus routes and numbers, now back to number plates. He has a huge interest in numbers and a seemingly endless memory for figures e.g. door number of a friend’s house we last went to 18 months ago. Quite useful when writing Xmas cards!
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Barcodes got to the stage where he was memorising barcodes of library books without me realising. For example we had a library book out – he loved it so much I bought a hardback version for his birthday two months later. When he opened it he flipped to the back and said ‘but it isn’t the same barcode, the other one ends in 623 (or whatever)’ – I realised the library one had been a paperback and hence the barcode numbers were indeed different.
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Number plates – he’s memorised the numbers part of a number plate on around 10-20 cars he recognises in our one mile walk to and from nursery – we take routes but he’ll suddenly say ‘on this road the brown car number is 439’ or whatever.
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There’s not a day that passes when he doesn’t ask me some huge sum e.g. 1 million plus 5 thousand plus 439.
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Over Christmas just gone he suddenly matched the alphabet to numbers e.g if I say what is H, he’ll say 8, if I say M he’ll say 13. He does it in one second and can do it the other way round e.g. if I say a number he tells me the corresponding letter of the alphabet.
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Play: not a great player with toys. He has the usual train track/marble run/some Playmobil/Duplo/Magformers etc. He’ll play in a very restricted way e.g. with Duplo he only wants to build the tallest tower, with cars he can only race them up and down the kitchen. I’ve never heard him invent a little scenario using imagination and then act it out e.g. build a castle from Duplo or a zoo. He’s getting slightly better but he used to destroy a train track etc we’d set up for him at his request, minutes after us making it. And get quite angry. He’s always been like this, no interest in a play kitchen as a toddler etc. Absolutely no interest in art or drawing or play dough – just scribbles like a toddler when asked to draw something.
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The play aspect is the bit that worries me slightly. We’ve had a few playdates where the friend settles down to do train track or play with a garage and cars and he just stands by watching with little input. His friends are getting into films - Star Wars etc - and superheroes. He has zero interest, he can manage about 15 minutes of a film before wandering off. His mates come over and fly their superheroes up and down, making noises and scenarios. It would never occur to him to do this.
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What does occupy him for a long time is for example counting all his marbles into bowls/sorting my button jar, a task like that.
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Socially can be a bit odd. Once knows people chats away but particularly on meeting people/going into friend’s houses can be strange – for example on a recent playdate roaring like a lion in the hallway for ten minutes before coming in to actually see his friend and settle down. Makes decent friendships with his nurserymates and seems popular.
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Can have horrendous tantrums, 45 minute long rages if what we have said we are going to do doesn’t happen e.g. a place we wanted to go to is shut. But hasn’t had one like that since before Xmas so perhaps it was a phase?
Sorry it’s so long, I just don’t know what to think about him! Apart from we love him very much and try and encourage his interests.