When Liam was an infant I cared nothing about making him a "baby genius." I never purchased those vocabulary cards for your baby or made him learn sign language, or trained him to process math problems or ideas. I was not one of those parents who liked to push education on my kids let alone a baby. I just loved him and let him learn at his own pace and I just followed his lead when he was ready to learn. I felt he had the rest of his life to learn let him be a baby now and not rush learning. But to my surprise Liam really caught on quickly to learning. I remember teaching him to walk when he was a year old I would hold his hand we would count our steps and he would laugh and try to count along with me. At the age of two he was able to count up to 20 no problem. He loved looking at numbers and would shout out a number when he saw one displayed on a sign at Walmart or on the highway etc. He just wanted to learn more and more about numbers so I just began teaching him about numbers, counting, and simple math problems. Going at his pace and following his lead and It was amazing watching him remember math problems and he was counting up to 300 by the time he was 3 years old! You can only imagine the amazement Chris and I felt watching him. I was not even aware of all the different developmental stages so I did not know it was such a big deal to have a 3 year old count to 300 until others would tell me that most 3 year old can't even count to 10. I felt like he was just on a roll asking for more information and we would be teaching as much as we could to watch him soak up everything so quickly. His amazing memory to recall information he just learned or learned months ago and to be so quick and flawless was just amazing to see at a young age.
I thought I better start video taping him to keep and share with others so they could see what this amazing little guy is doing. I took several videos of Liam counting to 300, by twos, by fives, adding and subtracting, doing math problems etc. I shared them with family & friends and even posted some on facebook.
Most people were amazed but then we had some that just didn't get it. Some people can be so cruel. I'd get responses like. " Just let him be a kid and stop pushing him." or "He looks like he has autism you may want to have him checked something must be wrong." I was amazed that someone would say those things. I did get some great positive feedback but the ones with the cruel words got me thinking that maybe something is wrong maybe he does have autism or a learning disability. Since I have a learning disability it's always in the back of my mind and my worse fear that I handed down my learning disability to my child. I began to think if he does have some kind of learning problem I want to know now before he even starts school so we can help him. I was diagnosed with my learning disability when I was in 6th grade and it was hard enough then to cope.
So we decided to get Liam tested over the summer. To our pleasant surprise the psychologist told us congratulations your son is a very intelligent young man you must be so proud. And we were. Liam scored very high on his IQ test. I do not want to share his actual number I think that is very private as I'm sure you would not want someone to know your IQ number but it was way over the gifted mark. We were delighted to get the news but also we know there will be a tough road ahead. It's a known fact that most schools are designed for the average. Those who are considered above average or below usually face many challenges in public schoosl. We are looking into homeschooling Liam also so we have lots to decide. I'm just such a proud Mom. I'll admit even a little jealous of his Math abilities. You can imagine the joy I feel as someone who had a horrible time in school with a learning disability (especially in math) watch my son who is succeeding in math doing 2nd grade level math at 4 yrs old. I always worry a little about Liam socially he is very quiet and more introverted which the doctors are not worried about as this is normal for kids like him. He is actually watching and learning when he is quiet and studying the room and people. I've been reading about intelligent kids and learning all I can on how to support him and help him. So proud of him most of all. I'm blessed to be the Mom of such a special little man!
