Early Learning- the high points, the low points, and the absolutely absurd

[Kerileanne99]

Okay everyone, help me out here!
This week has been a difficult one for us, as a well-meaning colleague in the chemistry department here approached us and was quite adamant and vocal regarding his concerns over our daughter Alex...
Apparently, she made quite an impression at the departmental picnic, because instead of running around wildly (there were no kids there within 2 YEARS of her age!) she was quietly reading a book at a picnic table.  Apparently this is a quite serious issue as we are "setting her up for serious social and emotional issues" by teaching her to read So much so that she felt 'pressured' to read instead of playing with much older boys...
This, along with the news and updates we have been following regarding YBCR (thanks DadDude for the FTC link), have left me with a need for a bit of a laugh, and a celebration of all things Early-Learning!

SO!
Please help me out and share an outrageous, ridiculous, exceptional, absurd, precocious, or simply amusing story about something you LO's did or said that reflected their EL experience

Feel free to have a bit of a laugh or a bit of a brag!

I will start out with a slightly embarrassing tale of my own:
A month or so ago, Hubby, myself, and Alex were in an office supply store. We were in line at the register, and the woman ahead of us noticed that Alex had a brightly-colored calculator in her hands, and was punching in numbers.  This is actually a game she plays, where she enters a digit in the screen, reads the number. Then enters another digit and reads the new number, then the next and the next, giggling hysterically all the while.
The woman in front of us turned and offered us an extra coupon, saying that she was a HS math teacher and supported whole-heartedly investing in math education! Very nice, Alex said 'thank you', and went back to her 'millions'.  I honestly didn't think she was paying any attention, but was happy she was gainfully occupied!
Finally, the woman noticed that Alex was playing with numbers, rather than just a 'pretty toy' and said "oh, wow, a million! If you had one million and I gave you another million, how many million would you have?"

I think she was just being polite, not really expecting an answer...Alex was quiet for a second...then looked up at the woman and said matter-of-factly, as in, "Duh.", one million plus one million is two million. Do you really TEACH math?!
Okay, so I don't actually think she meant it the way it came out! But it was yet another one of those proud/embarrassed/ awkward moments that EL families experience

Anyway, anybody else want to share their proud/awkward/ absurd moments with their kiddos?
THE THINGS THEY COME OUT WITH

[linzy]

My younger brother has psych degree and hoping to go for his doctorate.

Recently we had a large family reunion, many kids. While there my son (just turned 6) who is very interested in energy conservation was having a conversation about his ideas for a car he'd lie to build. Stating that he was planning on builing his home on a hill and then would use something like rubberbands to store up the kinetic energy generated from going down the hill and then use that instead of gasoline to propel the car to it's destination. A pretty clever idea I thought, except of course for the question of how you get back up the hill to go home...

Anyway...my cousins were pretty suprised to hear this tiny boy talking about kinetic energy and physics. However, my brother instead pulled me aside for a serious conversation about how I was ruining my child. He said "I can already tell he's different, if you don't put him in school he will never be able to fit in the real world." Apparently he thinks bullying and exposure to sex, drugs and violence is a tempering factor in child development and that I am over protective and over developing my child in a way that will make it impossible for him to fit in to normal society.

Unfortunately, of course what he doesn't understand is that I am not trying to raise a "normal" child for an ordinary life. I feel like each of my kids is special and would be really happy if they had an "extra-ordinary" life. We got into a whole argument about how as a parent I can raise my child however I'd like and he can do the same when (and if) he has kids. Anyway...lots of tension, but luckily my husband and I are very comfortable with what we are doing and remain unfazed.

[bella]

I am also stressed about this specially at this time of the year .Most of my kids friends go away for summer holiday back home and come back when the schools start . So for almost 2 months there are some friends we didn't see and now they are visiting checking how are we doing . And at the beginning of every year , i got asked the same question : SO ARE THEY GOING THIS YEAR   and of course the whole long lecture about how much they are missing , how much his would affect them socially , specially my boy who needs to be with other boys play games learn to fight , defend himself ...bla bla bla . they don't know that part of not sending him out there is because of that . Our conversation gets so uncomfortable . i feel deep inside also i never judge them and respect their choice in schooling their kids , they  feel judged . they wonder why should my kids be any different than theirs . i just want to sit and enjoy their company but i wish they respect my choice of how to bring up my kids .
viv

[Wolfwind]

Well, this wasn't quite as awkward because I seemed to be the only one who noticed, but here's a bit of a brag and a bit of a laugh at myself:

We went for our regular neighborhood playgroup at the park last Wednesday, and I was the only one who showed up.  So I encouraged my almost two year old to start talking to some of the other kids who were there.  The first girl she asked to play sat with her but never said a word.  But then I talked to the adult with her, and it turned out her mom was in the hospital having a baby and she was spending the day with her grandma.  OK, I thought, maybe she's just feeling shy.  As she left, without any prompting from me my daughter said, "Thank you for playing with ducks with me!"

Then that girl left and another girl came, so I suggested my daughter go ask her to play.  Big Girl A walked over and said, "Do you want to play with ducks with me?"  The girl's mom answered for her, and the two girls sat down to play ducks.  The other little girl picked up a duck and said, "Duck!"  My daughter is still working on this "play with others" thing, so I suggested that they feed the ducks.  The other little girl picked up some woodchips and said, "Eat!  Eat!"  As I talked to her mom, I discovered that girl's birthday was a week before Big Girl A's.

That girl left and my daughter went back to playing on her own, including digging up some dirt, smearing it on her arms, and telling me, "We forgot our sunscreen so we have to use dirt, like elephants!" a cute but pretty typical statement.

As we were packing up to leave, another mom came with a crawling boy and a boy that looked like a preschooler.  He was doing the playground alone and wanted to go down the fireman's pole, but his mom said no.  He cried, of course.  She said that if he was that upset maybe they needed to go home.  His answer was, "No home!"

I went home and asked my husband, "Do you think our daughter is verbally precocious?  I'd always thought she was pretty normal, but today..." and I told him these stories.  Maybe I'm just naive, but I'd never realized that she was advanced! 

As an epilogue, I told this story to my parents, who babysat Big Girl A for the weekend while my husband and I were celebrating our anniversary.  My mom replied that they took Big Girl A to their block party Friday night and at one point my mom held a conversation with her - so typical that she doesn't remember it - and her neighbor, who has taught preschool for a decade, said, "She's how old?  My preschoolers don't speak that well!"  Yay for EL!

[Kerileanne99]

Wolfwind-
I had a laugh at your post because I know EXACTLY what you mean! We hear it all day long, that is the norm for us! Mostly I don't even notice a lot of it. Yes, of course I am super proud of my kiddo- but you take a baseline from THEIR usual.
.......And then when you suddenly see them in close proximity to other kids of their age, it suddenly blows you away!
Alex attends gymnastics with a group of children her age or slightly older...she fell from the bar last week onto her bottom, and stood up, rubbing her tailbone. Then she shouts across the room, "mamma, I think I bruised my coccyx and I need a kiss!" When most of the kids rarely speak more than a few understandable words.  There is a four-year-old with a PAcIFIER?!! I don't know if he can talk or not...

So, I feel your pride and pleasure, as well as the pain!
And I love her comment about dirt and the elephants, and I love that you aren't worried about discouraging her rubbing herself in it

Someday, when/if we can get all the BrillKid children together to play, we should give them all little microphones! Can you imagine the conversations and imaginative play if they all had each other to build off?!

[LDSMom]

We carpool to Kindergarten with 2 other neighbor children because our school of choice isn't close. The other day I had a pile of library books in the car and each kid insisted on having two each to read. The other two kids looked through the books and at all the pictures, but soon their books were closed and they were listening and looking at the pages of the book my son was reading. He read the story very well using all the voices and the other kids loved it. Proud mommy moment.

[LDSMom]

I should mention the book was from the Fly Guy set by Tedd Arnold. We absolutely love these books! I rarely buy books anymore because they take up space and we visit the library enough that it doesn't seem worth it to buy them when he will be on to new books so quickly.  Anyway, I just bought the Fly Guy set, which should tell you that they are good. such fun little books! Our favorite so far is There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Fly Guy. Just thought I'd share.

[jane_dmitrova]

One very funny moment happened to me. The only thing that was still missing in our curruculum is chess. I have several books but I am not playing myself so for me it is very difficult and really do not have time to figure out how to play. As I am alone so I was looking for a chess school around. And after several weeks I found that a chess organisation of our region is around the corner. So next morning I run there. I asked whether they have courses or private lessons for small children. They asked how small. I felt some tension so I answered - for almost 4 years old (my son is 3.4). Well, afterwards it was a silence for 5 minutes and one guy started to say the usual speech that it is too early, let a child play and so on. But then another guy turned and asked with sarcasm - MAY BE YOUR SON IS PLAYING VIOLIN AS WELL? I answered yes and they were completely out for a long time this time. They took my mobile number saying that they need to think for a week!!!! But I do not think that they will call me back. But ok, I needed to check.
Well I was laughing the whole evening. Sometimes I am asking myself may be I am really crasy

[MummyRoo]

I love how our perception of normal is so skewed! 

I find it odd to think that is isn't normal for not-quite-3 year olds to be incorporating full scales into their song creation (he rarely sings 'proper' songs, though he knows lots and slips in a few bars here and there). We've played only 16 days of the LMus program, and he knows three chords and can sing Twinkle Twinkle in solfege (actually, that took less than a day to learn). We already learnt the do-re-mi song from Soft Mozart, so he knows do-to-do, though gets muddled going backwards.

I doubt many non-EL parents have their child remember 'cachma babboons eat shark eggs in mermaids purses' after watching a kid's nature program a couple of times. I am often astounded by the amount of detail he remembers.

My son might not be reading yet (he lost interest in LR and obsessed over the alphabet for a while, but now he's back into LR and knows his letter sounds so I expect it will all click together eventually!) or doing sums, but he LOVES music. And writing - he doesn't draw or colour, he writes! There are only a few letters he can make legibly, but that is really a lack of interest on his part, since he has a lovely cursive 'handwriting' that he fills pages upon pages with. 

I know my son is far behind some of the EL achievements found on this site, which is partly down to my lack of consistency initially, but I know it will all fall into place when he is ready for it and he has a solid foundation in enjoying learning and that is, after all, the most important thing we can give our children!

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