A few weeks ago, my mom made an innocent comment about how Punky is running circles around me at that age in terms of her development. For some reason, that comment really made me think. I mean, I think I'm fairly sharp. I was an "A" student. I breezed through school and college with very little intense studying. I learn things quickly without much effort. I have a high IQ. Sometimes common sense eludes me, but book smarts I've got.
So, my mom's comment, in combination with Punky's first evaluation at daycare, really made me wonder exactly how advanced she is. I never spent much time around little kids. To me, Punky's development is normal. I have nothing to compare it to, really. Yes, of course I think she's smart. What mother doesn't think her child is a little rocket scientist? But I wanted facts. I wanted to see where she should be. I wanted to see "normal" so I could somehow quantify where she is.
In the last few weeks, I've spent a great deal of time reading just about everything I could find on child development and advanced intelligence in toddlers. And I've reached a frightening conclusion: Punky is not "normal"...
The average three year old can recognize one color. It is not normal to consistently choose the correct color toy from a choice of five at thirteen months.
The average four year old can recognize some letters. Letter recognition starting as early as seventeen months with all 26 mastered well before age two falls way outside the norm.
Saying "Look, Mommy! It's a boat!" at twenty-six months old is expected. Saying "Look, Mommy! I'm using my imagination and pretending this bowl is a boat in the water!" at twenty-six months old is fairly unusual.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Some other "not normal" things include her long attention span with activities she enjoys, her interest in the concept of time, her interest in the computer, counting and number recognition before age two, her incredible memory and ability to recall facts, and even her sense of humor.
I was really quite surprised by some of the things I read. The biggest shocker was that they are now linking advanced intelligence in toddlers to advanced maternal age. As Punky's half-brother so delicately put it, that alone should make her a genius. Smart ass. But seriously, I find it fascinating. I hope they discover why. Maybe aging, desperate eggs are just smarter. Maybe maturing for thirty-five years gave Punky's egg a jump start in brain development. Ah, who the hell knows.
Anyway, I also never knew that early physical development is also a large indicator of higher intelligence in kids. I just never considered a connection between the two, but I guess it's logical. The brain is the control center; the body develops the physical strength and muscle, but the ability to coordinate, control, and accomplish those movements comes from the brain.
When Punky braced her feet on my inner thighs and pulled herself up to standing from a sitting position the very day she turned fifteen weeks old, I honestly blamed the steroid shots the docs gave me to mature her lungs because they thought she was coming early. I knew it wasn't really "normal" at the time, but I certainly didn't think it was a sign of intelligence. Apparently, from what I've read, it was a big one. And the normal range for that skill is eight to nine months.
Going back even further to minutes after her arrival, she kept rolling on her side on the scale when the nurses were trying to get her birth weight. We had a hell of a time keeping her on her back to sleep right from the start. She insisted on being on her side no matter how many times we rolled her back down. Most babies roll onto their sides around three months of age, and roll completely from stomach to back between four and six months. Punky first pulled that stunt at only three weeks old.
I found one website that cited five levels of higher intelligence in children and listed the age at which certain physical and intellectual milestones occur in kids in each category. Based on her development thus far, Punky falls somewhere between levels two and three depending on the skill in question. The website claims there are approximately one or two "level two" kids in any given elementary school class, and only two or three "level 3" kids in any given elementary school with about six hundred students. Putting it in that perspective is, well, scary as hell. Seriously.
I took comfort in the fact that most parents have the exact same reaction to this realization...fear. Knowing your child is in fact as smart as you always imagined she is unleashes a new level of pressure and panic. How do I keep her engaged? What activities should we do? How do I feed her intelligence without pushing her to learn things before she is ready? How do I keep her social development on track when she already chooses older children and adults over kids her own age? Will she be bored in school? How the hell will we pay for a more prestigious university on a community college budget? What am I saying? If she really is that smart, there's bound to be scholarships. Right?
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