23 Comments
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Aristides's avatar

My 3 year old started reading chapter books, not to mention can add, multiply, and divide in his head any numbers below 12. There’s something honestly terrifying about being the smartest member of your family that you know of and then realizing your kid is even smarter than you are. It makes sense though considering his Amerindian blood is down to one 8th and he got one 8th of Ashkenazi Jew from his mom’s side.

Anyways, thanks for your story confirming my instincts that I should not let him skip a grade. He’s much better off being bored at school than having the social problems you had.

Meghan Bell's avatar

I had a fling with a guy who skipped two grades and he nearly ended up in the juvie system because he started hanging out and doing drugs with older guys in high school. Was a suicidal alcoholic with bipolar disorder when we hooked up. Don't skip genius kids grades (especially boys), encourage healthy social development and nurture their gifts outside of school.

Trixie's Boy's avatar

Don't move around when your children are in middle or high school either.

ReadingRainbow's avatar

How did he learn to read

Aristides's avatar

Either my wife and I read to him every day and my wife taught him phonics. It’s genetic, I started reading at 2 without any instruction, and my wife was literate in two languages by 6 and would translate documents for her parents.

Math was even crazier. I specifically did not want to teach my kid math until he was older, but he found Numberblocks, got obsessed with it, and started badgering me to teach him the 16 times table, since number blocks only went to 10.

ReadingRainbow's avatar

Numberblocks is a YouTube channel?

Aristides's avatar

We got it from Amazon Prime

ReadingRainbow's avatar

What did she use for phonics?

Aristides's avatar

Her brain and some magnet letters. Nothing formal.

Drunk Wisconsin's avatar

I also skipped a grade and made up for it by being unemployed for a year, living with my dad and smoking weed until whatever biological process responsible for making brains mature finally caught up.

Walt Bismarck's avatar

That makes sense bc like me you talk fast and have the metacognitive preemptive frame control thing that happens when you're the young dude

Meta Ronin's avatar

This is the kind of stuff I go off about after I had two adderal I can feel the energy of that here

Interesting

Top Shelf Theology's avatar

Looking pretty dapper these days, Cap'n!

Also, "I’m kind of identitarian about not tying my shoes because when I was a kid the aunt I mentioned earlier made fun of me for taking a long time to learn and also employing the Bunny Ear Method well into grade school, such that it became a running gag in my extended family that Walt Can’t Tie His Shoes even though I pretty clearly could and by sixteen often did so with military precision" REALLY hits with me. That was exactly my position growing up. Could figure out Algebra II level equations at 5th grade, but tying my shoes was a deal-breaker.

Plus #10, uncomfortable but somehow relatable. I think every boy goes through that in some dimension. For me it was an "innocent" family vacation to Daytona Beach around 4-5th grade, and we stopped in some junk shop, Alvin's Island or something, to get a set of goggles or sandals that my parents didn't pack or my brother broke or whatever... and my parents paid no mind to me checking out postcards in the corner that happened to feature Kayla Kleevage, Pandora Peaks, and Crystal Storm on them. You don't need to Google them, the names pretty much tell the story, ha.

PhineusGage's avatar

41 in one year is a remarkable feat by anyone other than a rockstar or Saudi prince. Respect!

Walt Bismarck's avatar

Thing is I was so high on Addy that year I could barely enjoy them at the time. Lot of nice little memories tho lol

PhineusGage's avatar

That explains how you even had the energy for it

Ellie is Based in Paris's avatar

Why didn't you stay in Nebraska, man? The women are pretty. At least the ones at the yoga studio I go to.

Trixie's Boy's avatar

he shits on germanic and especially scandinavian women, but nebraska isn't as scandinavian as the dakotas or minnesota

Slutty B*tch's avatar

bro have you heard of a period