Kids more advanced. (rant)

AshleyH101310

so my husband came home from work today and looked at me and said i think were doing something wrong. i said what. he said well a guy at work was telling me how his two year old daughter is potty trained both day and night. she can count to twenty. and she knows half of her alphabet. now im trying to to potty train our DD right now. she just does not seem that into it.as for counting she can count to five, and she knows her alphabet all the way up to F. we have been singing her alphabet to her for the last three weeks every morning. Am I doing something wrong? what can i tell my husband to reassure him that she is indeed a very smart kid?

Ilumine

I suggest doing some research regarding childhood developmental (emotional, cognitive, phsycal, etc) stages. They all point to how children progress at different speeds. Then hand the information to your DH and have him read what the experts have to say.

 

It helps when you have more than one study to show that that your on track.

JOEBunny

Can you tell him there are more important skills to learn at this age?  That there is a wide range at this age of normal?   Tools of the Mind might be a good thing to share with him.  Kids at this age learn what they are interested in much faster than other things.  There are also a lot of soft skills they learn at this age that are even more important than "hard" skills, like memorization of letters or counting.  Many of these things cannot be measured until a child is school aged. 

Brewtowngrl

Tell him not to stress it.  Kids tend to even out by kindergarten.  DS has almost no interest in the alphabet and he is over 3. He can count.  He didn't PT (still not night trained) till 3.  My friends kids are all over the place.  Even in his DC they are all over the place with skills.  I asked because I was worried about letters.   

n&bcarlson

Kids do different things at different times, and all pretty much catch up to each other by kindergarten.  The kid who potty trains early and can count and recognize letters is noticed by parents because we think of these things as being something special.  However, that kid may not have as good of hand eye coordination or balance as other kids their age.  Or your DD might have learned more about people's feelings, or have a better imagination.  It's just harder to quantify that type of thing, so we parents tend to like to compare height, weight, how many hours they sleep, or how many letters they can say.

AshleyH101310

thanks everybody. my DH just informed me that this little girl has six older siblings. so she has a lot of diffrent people to influence her. she is also four months older then our DD.

KathrynMD

ask him to read any book/any chapter about child development

those tricks are really irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Is your LO curious about the world around her, does she ask questions, do you ask her questions, can she solve problems, are you encouraging her to sovle problems, etc.

LoCarb

Agree w/ PP on child development.  I'm sure your child excels at something the other one does not.  For ex., DD1 has great motor development skills (using utensils, holding cups by 15 mo) but didn't speak as much as the others when turning two.  

Simple solution?  Just tell H and his co-worker you LO will be doing long division by the age of the 3!

hersheykiss

Ditto what the PPs said.

E can count to 13, that doesn't mean she knows what 13 means.

mieuxmieux

Kids learn differently and at different rates. I think it is silly to force something on her that she isn't ready for.

AshleyH101310

well things she cain do. she can drink out of a straw. she has had sippy cups since she was about eight months old. now all of her sippy cups are gone and she only uses straw cups. shes been able to use a fork and spoon since she was about ten months old.  so there is definatley quite a few things she can do.

momtoRaegan041008

Knowing the alphabet as in letter recognition is completely different from singing the ABC song.  It's no different than saying that my child can "read" all the Pigeon books.  She can't actually read them, she has just memorized them. 

Junebug0617

I'm a 2nd grade teacher and every child develops different-a lot of it has to do with exposure as well as maturity and interest!!  You are doing nothing wrong!  DD has a good vocabulary, but is around older 2-3 year olds and picks up a lot from them at her babysitters.  I agree with another PP, there is a huge difference in knowing the alphabet and counting and know representation.  I would only be impressed if the child knew that six crayons represents six as well as the letter A makes a short and long A sound!!!  Let your LO be little while she can and enjoy her now!!!