I think one very important part is being a role model, so educating yourself about personal finance, investments and entrepreneurship. I think "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" is brilliant - agree with others that Kiyosaki's ideas are simple and he wrote 20 books saying the same thing, but his main book is brilliant and I think every parent should read it. Much more important than learning about savings accounts etc., I think it's important for kids to learn about entrepreneurship, to not raise them with the mindset that they need to get some job they don't like some day in order to pay bills. There is a great TED talk by Cameron Herold "let's teach kids to be entrepreneurs"
http://www.ted.com/talks/cameron_herold_let_s_raise_kids_to_be_entrepreneurs.html

this is really fascinating, thanks for posting! I had heard about these Hungarian sisters but had always thought that their father had been a grandmaster himself - looks like he wasn't! Then it's even more impressive. interesting that her father was a psychologist doing this as an experiment. I have actually noticed that in many reports about gifted children, their parents "happen to be" psychologists - I think they just know a bit more about child development and are able to bring out gifts accordingly. In my experience, most psychologists would be against the kind of EL practiced here, but they would definitely dedicate a lot of time to learning and discovery, answer all the questions patiently, take their children to museums, encourage free play and experimenting etc. which would give the child lots of learning opportunities.

I am a psychologist too and I notice myself also doing these "experiments". basically it's a very liberal approach. BUt let's say when we do painting, my 2 year old loves to spill the water over the painting. it's a big mess. So most parents would think "she's naughty, she's trying to spill the water and make a mess" but I think "she's doing physics experiments, she wants to find out what happen to the paint when it is mixed with water, let's see what happens" and I think this kind of approach leads to a lot of self-directed learning that less open-minded parents prevent. Very often, when my daughter does something that others would define as "naughty" or silly, I decide to see what happens next and then I suddenly understand why she did this - usually, she is trying to find out something or trying to copy something she sees her parents doing.

this chess experiment is intriguing by how well it worked. There is also another story of a high school in Budapest that had one inspirational maths teacher (Laszlo Ratz), and somehow many famous mathematicians/physicists/nobel laureates of the 20th century happened to have been taught by this particular maths teacher, which again showed the importance of stimulation and learning and how genius can be created with the right set of circumstances.

Tanikit - it is amazing! I never expected it to go so fast, I thought you spend months of flash cards before you see progress. I was quite sceptical about it all to tell you the truth, but being the scientist that I am, I decided to try it out for myself rather than listen to what others say. It's indeed incredible how fast little children learn.

a little update... one week into our suboptimal flashcard practice, the results are absolutely amazing. My 2.5 year old can now  read her name, her sister's name (which has four syllables), the word "song" and the word "school" - and these are just the ones she volunteers. I was most amazed that she read the word school - I didn't actually do a flashcard for it, but recently I bought her a book called "starting school" and she must have seen it there. I know she can read it because the other day I had my laptop open and on the website it said "your guide to top schools", and she pointed at the webpage and said "school, start school!". I was extremely surprised. It's not on the flashcard but I think once I told her that I will teach her to read and started flashcards, maybe she just pays more attention to the words she sees in books as well. I can't wait to see how things evolve over the next months!

my daughter got a wooden melissa & doug puzzle (zoo or jungle puzzle) for her first birthday and a wooden xylophone, she loved both of them.

I can answer it myself now that I have bought both books :-). Fit Baby Smart Baby is indeed the same but it's a much more modern edition - it seems better edited, more recent pictures, better visuals, more easily readable summaries and action plans. I much prefer Fit Baby Smart Baby.

totally agree - seat cover vs potty is a big improvement! My daughter still prefers the potty though so it doesn't always work - I think we got her to love sitting on the potty, because to get her to like it initially, we used to sit with her singing songs and reading books while she was on the potty, and she seems to have fond memories of her time on the potty :-). We bought the tommy tippee seat cover when we went to Thailand on holiday for the same reasons and really liked it.

As to the "Why didn't I think of that sooner", there are lots of things I am doing with my second daughter that I wish I had done with number 1. This is a bit controversial (though not among GD followers I guess) but I put my second daughter on her tummy to sleep at nights, and it has made a world of difference. With the first one, she had really narrow airways and whenever she had a runny nose, she couldn't sleep on her back, but we always always put her to sleep on her back and it was a nightmare for over a year. She could never sleep and woke up screaming all the time. Even when she had a full-on cold, we would put her on her back because of the SIDS recommendation, and she would immediately wake up having trouble breathing and scream. With the second one, after digging into the actual SIDS research and reading about how beneficial tummy time is, I decided to try out the prone position for naps, and when she suddenly napped for 3-4 hours in one go, I decided to try it at night. My daughter sleeps through (as in 9 hours and then another 3 hours) at 3 months, she started sleeping through at two months. She is also incredibly advanced, already crawling and rolling over at 3 months. I think I could have saved myself many sleepless nights and a lot of trouble trying to manage full-time work with having a little child if I had known the magic ingredient with my first daughter.

The funny thing is, when I mention this "secret" to other moms expecting them to be horrified, almost all of them confess they are doing the same!!

thanks - very good article and very convincing. What I find surprising is how she mentions her work and her boss - is she actually managing to work while also homeschooling her kids? I can't understand how that can work? This is my only worry about homeschooling - you would really have to do it full-time. Even if you only spend 4 hours per day, someone has to supervise the kids the rest of the day as well. She mentions she can't afford private school - where I live, at least if you have only one or two kids, an excellent private school would generally still cost you less than what it costs you if you quit your job. Once you have more kids obviously that can change. I am not trying to say that the decision should be decided on a financial basis only, I am just trying to understand what moms who homeschool full-time do - do some of them work and if so, how, and if they run their own online business and the like, then it must really cut into your sleep? Would love to hear how homeschooling families do it.

thanks a lot for sharing your experience, Krista, that's really reassuring to hear! I am really glad to hear it worked for you using many more cards in one session. I was just worried she can't really memorise a lot if we do too many and change all the time. But my daughter has quite an amazing attention span for her age so I think she just wants more and can concentrate. I've found 15-20 is the right amount of cards for her per session. How are your kids doing now? What are they up to?

I recently bought GD's book "Teach your baby to read" and was going to get started soon - I had just prepared 100 flash cards myself and was waiting for my daughter to get better (she had high fever the last days), as GD says to do it only when the child is well. But when I was in the kitchen doing something else, my husband had grabbed the flash cards and just started with my 2.5 year old daughter. Apparently she had seen the flash cards and gotten excited. Things have unfolded somewhat unexpectedly - I was wondering what other people's experience is.

Things that are going according to the book:
- my daughter seems to love the cards and is really excited about them. I couldn't really believe GD when he said kids will love it and beg to see the cards, as a flash card without pic seems so boring, but despite her fever she was jumping up and down and loved it
- she's also really eager to learn, and when I show a flash card she tries to shout out the word (even though of course so far she has no idea which word it is), but she tries to guess as soon as I open my mouth and guessed a few correctly
- for fun (and more to get my 2.5 year old involved) I also showed some cards to my 3 month old (the cards that say "baby", "milk" and "dad"...) and she also seemed to get quite excited about them. I feel a bit stupid showing these cards to a 3 month old, but she definitely seems to be curious

Here is what is much more difficult and unexpected and I wonder how people handle this (at least those working with manual flash cards):
- as my daughter saw me making the flash cards, she decided she wants to make them herself. So now she took all the flash cards and the red marker pen and started "writing" on them. Luckily, I managed to convince her only to write her "words" on the back of my flash cards. It's cute that she's trying to write, but now she seems more interested in writing them herself rather than looking at them
- GD says to stop after 5 cards so they are hungry for more - but I've found this absolutely impossible! I now do a set of 15 in one go because there is no way I can stop after 5. We just get started and it's over? Impossible.
- My daughter wants to hold the cards herself actually and then gives each to me to show her, but often she is looking at my face rather than the card, or she is already taking the next one from her hand rather than looking at my card

I don't mind too much because it's just a game after all and there's no hurry - she's so young and even if it takes 2 years until she can read, she's still be far ahead of her peers. But if you have experienced similar issues, I'd be extremely interested to hear how you have handled it. Probably an easy solution is just to use the Little Reader Software instead :-).

Hi KL! what a great idea for a site, I found brillkids last week after trying to find resources about Glenn Doman online - I love this site! You know, I have been looking for a site like this for a long time. I especially like how international it is and to connect with parents from all over the world. I'd really love to hear more about your story and how your daughter is doing! I guess I will have to browse the forum a bit more :-).

Thanks Tamsyn! I love your blog by the way! So nice and thorough! Was trying to get my husband to build a monkey ladder after reading yours but he's not up for it (our apartment is too small!).

Mario - are these 3 blogs in your signature all yours? You must be busy! Look forward to checking them out.

BT - thanks for sharing your background! Two questions - how old are your children? And also - what's the name of that company doing home gyms? I was trying to encourage my hubby to build a monkey ladder but he isn't up for it - thinks it takes up too much space in our small apartment - he has a point and we do have a playground with a monkeyladder near our house, but it's high up and over concrete floor so not really suitable for children under 3 or 4. I will PM you soon as well!

great to see some more Londoners here. I guess we usually hide :-). I've only discovered Doman very recently. My flash cards just arrived today and I am excited to get started! BT - great idea about meeting up. I have a newborn at home now but maybe in the summer it could be great to meet up for picnics outdoors or something like that!

MummyRoo - so far I am not as crazy as consider homeschooling ;-). I totally believe it is much more beneficial in educational terms, children could learn far more. But the social side is very important for me. Plus, maybe it's important for the children to learn that parents need to earn money as well. Or at least, I think I need some time to be productive, especially in London where rents are so high! At least, I find if you really look, in London you have great schools, it may be harder if you live in other parts of the UK. My older daughter is starting at a lovely Montessori school with a huge garden very soon, I think it will be great for her. I guess I will just "homeschool" the rest of the time and in holidays :-).

[http://www.geniusexperiment.com]

Hi everyone! After hearing about Glenn Doman recently, I've tried to read everything about him and have landed here very quickly. I am so happy to find a place to communicate with other parents who believe all children can be amazing and have fantastic talents. Some of the ideas are quite unusual so I think people I know here will think I am a crazy helicopter parent if they here I am teaching a toddler to read (to be honest, I did found the idea crazy but was converted after reading How to Teach your Baby to Read).

I have two lovely daughters, one is almost 2 1/2 and the other 3 months old. I tried some things with the little one like placing her to sleep on her tummy and doing tummy time every day - which I didn't do at all with the older one. Even at 2 months, she was far more advanced physically than her older sister at 6 months. So I have discovered that Glenn Doman knows what he's talking about. The funny thing is, I have a degree in cognitive psychology and I specialised in gifted children, but still I had never heard of Glenn Doman. It shows you the huge gap between what practicioners know and what academics have learnt. But I have discovered this in many fields since having children anyway. So I am really curious to read about lots of ideas here and try them out to make up my own mind.

By the way - I've been keeping a small blog for a while where I write about early learning, home schooling, gifted children, and fulfilling potential, not only in the intellectual but also the spiritual sense. You can check it out on http://www.geniusexperiment.com - would really love to hear what people think. I really look forward to talking to you all!