Luckily, I did not claim that the shift was the only way to determine developmental appropriateness, that there is only one shift, or that kids who developed the milestones early are "advanced" or late were "delayed". Rather, I'm talking about the shift in thinking being concrete and measureable. That's totally different to suggesting that it's sudden, unique, etc. Menarche is not sudden, either, nor is the transition from baby teeth to big teeth. There's a spectrum. Regarding your earlier question about documentation on a shift in processing around school age, I will have to get back to you on that, because there are numerous studies about what kids achieve, but I will need to sort through those which make the fundamental error of attributing skills to biological development rather than training / enculturation / etc. (E.g. I can find you a bazillion studies that "prove" that boys are more aggressive... all of them done in a society in which most parents believe boys are somewhat more aggressive and delicate psychologically, which is an enormous confounder. I hate those studies, and I don't want to give you the developmental equivalent.)

I didn't assume a negative and power imabalanced dynamic--I talked about the behavior itself and why it's wrong. And no, it's probably not telling. First of all that wasn't my assumption, and second of all, I believe most people are far more complicated than a single post, which is why I commented on her behavior and not her as a person. Just like everyone who smacks their child on the butt is not actually a fire-breathing baby-eating Hitler dragon offline, it might just be that certain opinions come out wrong in text.

I have seen such posts... people who say, "I keep telling my older brother that it makes me feel bad when he makes fun of my chub but he thinks it's hilarious. He doesn't understand why we don't spend much time together, even though I told him every time that it really hurts me!" There is no doubt in my mind that the older brother is thinking, "My little brother can't take a joke. What a wuss. That's what you DO in families!"

But he's probably reaaaalllllly nice to her at certain vulnerable moments.

I'm taking the poster's word for it that her sister hates it. If she means, "It bothers her slightly and she gets hysterical about it for laughs," then that's different. Every family horses around, every family wrestles, plays practical jokes. That is normal. Continuing to do something that causes another person pain or discomfort after they've asked you to stop is not cool at all in my book. Also, my reaction I don't think is "overreacting" because it's not like I'd do a lot about it, besides resent the fact that my sister was rude to me and didn't listen to me when I asked her to stop. I've never cut off a family member, nor would I, unless of course my kids were in serious danger. I wouldn't yell. But I don't think saying, "Hey, I asked you to stop, and you're still trying to bug me for laughs, what the heck is going on here?" is an overreaction.

Yeah, it's not a huge deal, but it is something that most kids must be trained to do. It's not that it's hard, it's just that it's not intuitive except for the extremely high IQ individuals. Simple multiplication is introduced in our curriculum, but only conceptually: the children are not asked to memorize anything, but to link multi-element addition problems with multiplication formulae, e.g. 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 3 x 4. There is a ways from there to double-digit addition because the child must be able to see the multiplication problem, do the multiplication relatively quickly, carry (probably), and use diagonal multiplication which again, while it's not hard to teach them, is hard to intuit the first time you've seen it. My objection is that if you've been trained to do it, you can, but you can be equally fit for acceleration and not get it just because you haven't been trained, and that training depends on parental availability, knowledge of preparation requirements, and other things that are not equally distributed throughout society.

Interesting... I told my daughter to pronounce these words phonetically, very quickly, 50 times. They "morphed" into the non-phonetic pronunciation before the 50th time almost every time! "His things" A native English speaker will almost definitely not pronounce this phonetically after 25 reasonably fast repetitions... gssss is just hard! This helped communicate to her how language changed over time. I also explained how in Russia they changed the spellings with pronunciation but now children can't read books printed 200 years ago without a special class. Also helps her see the logic of keeping it. For a child that is frustrated by the "illogic" of English, this can help a bit.

I don't view my child's IQ as a reflection on my motherhood... ultimately if she can get a job and respects others I'm okay with that. :D The double-digit, I assume, was 15 x 4 or something, one double digit. I didn't pry. One double-digit was enough to raise my eyebrows. She was sad because her child is very very smart, but didn't get in. All I can say is, in our school district, about 90% of kids take the SAT and the average SAT score is in the 75th% nationally. That's our average. For 90% of the kids. So you can kind of imagine the households these children are coming from. The children don't have to be in the top 1% nationally--they have to be in the top 2% in this district. Which is, of course, a narrower band than the top 1% nationally. Hence, the disconnect between national averages and whether or not you get into the gifted program here. I'm certain my daughter could get into the gifted program in the small town where her cousins attend school. This place is cutthroat, though. :) Yep, that's the COGAT prep, and it's considered an invalidation of the test. If the COGAT results and in-person interviews and other tests indicate prepping they can and will deny the child entrance to the program. No, but she can do some single-digit multiplication. She knows the principles, but she does it slowly, i.e. "Nine times two is eighteen... so eighteen plus eighteen... is twenty plus sixteen... is thirty six... so nine times four is thirty six." She knows her twos and some threes and fives by memory. Actually you could say she knows how to multiply with Lego bricks, LOL. 2x1, 2x3, 2x4, all the way through, and some threes that we had. The neighbor's child took the test at the end of the year. So, it is feasible for me to teach her double-digit multiplication by the test date, yes. She's willing to put in the work and she's capable. But then, I'll bet that a good 50% of the kids in the school district, if you give them to me for a year, would be up to speed in math facts and double-digit addition and subtraction by the end of first grade, if I had them one at a time. I just don't think it's a sign of "giftedness".

"To annoy my sister I will get my finger wet with my saliva and stick it in her ear. She hates it and I love the reaction she gives. So every time I go visit her I do it to her at least once. If she would just stop reacting my fun would be over and I would quit." Proof, if it were ever needed, that children need to be taught how to respect others as persons and not objects of entertainment before they grow up into adults like this. It's not a big deal in the greater scheme of things, but why would you treat your sister like your own personal entertainment center? How is that okay? Why damage a relationship with a little reminder that you don't care about her as a human every single time, just because you can? Edit: I should say, this is assuming that by "hate" she means, her sister gets really icked out by this and has a physical reaction, not that her sister is like, "I'd much rather have a hug but I know this is your way of showing love". I know teasing is normal and we love raspberries in our home BUT stop means stop and if someone begs you to stop every time, then you just stop doing that. There is a fine line between teasing and hurting for some people but it's easy to see when it's market with a big "NO!" or "STOP!" I'm sure that if we were speaking in real life this we'd all come down much closer and I apologize for taking the term "hate" so literally.

I've probably licked another person. Well, maybe not, but I don't know one way or another. I have also hit another person, though my mom said I wasn't a biter. I have also told my mom she was a b*&%^ . Each time, I faced a relatively appropriate (nonviolent, but firm, immediate and socially severe) consequence, and the behaviors stopped. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you but it seems to me that if I didn't discipline my child for any behavior I'd ever committed, I might as well just give up and send them out on their own right now. I've gotten math problems wrong; shall I never correct my child's math mistakes (or even ask her to correct them herself)? I've burned cookies: shall I not remind her to set the oven timer? I once hit a boy, and got suspended for it. Shall I not have my own daughter suspended from school for hitting? I once head-butted my sister. Shall I not separate my children for cool-down times and apologies if they do that? Discipline is about teaching. It's not about cruelty, it's not about anger, it's not about fear. It's about teaching a child what is right and wrong in certain contexts, which is usually best done in a loving, firm way. There is a right way and a wrong way to treat others. Respecting bodily integrity is important to me. My discipline respects that. But yes I do ask three-year-olds to be accountable. It doesn't mean I was never three. I was! And I'm really happy that my mom took that time to teach me not to lick, because it was probably way easier to learn it at home than at school...

There is no doubt in my mind that my daughter is not profoundly gifted. Or at least, she's not profoundly gifted in academics. I assume by profoundly gifted you mean IQ of 160+ and self-taught reading at about the age of two, that type of thing? But I also know that she's performing ahead by at least a grade level, and that she's performing at or ahead of the same level as other children who were tested. The gifted program is not only for profoundly gifted children but for children who could be working consistently one or two grade levels ahead. So what I'm saying is that I agree, I'm not a good judge of my own kids' abilities, but that is precisely why I don't know whether I should put her in for testing. I don't want to put her in if it's just increasing the risk of a false positive, because that's unfair. But I also don't want to keep her out when I know plenty of people will put their kids in for a lot lower achievement, and when the reward for passing is so huge. Thanks so much to everyone who has replied and shared your own personal stories. It has really helped me get some perspective. I will not bring it up to her teacher and if her teacher doesn't specifically mention her achievement during the conference, we won't test this year. If her teacher does mention it or mention that she's way ahead or something, then we will test.

By the way, I completely agree with this, and our school district does have one such program. It's a lottery school and it's totally amazing. But it's middle school and up.

Thank you very much for sharing your story and thoughts, MinivanMom. I will really think about them. It is the COGAT and two subject tests. I don't know what they are. Re: results: I can't predict my child's results. What I can predict is that she is not a definite "in" but that she has a chance at it.

The big multi-quote answer post... Thank you for your honesty. I'm not so sure about further prep but I agree completely that I need to be prepared with a solution and not just problems, and that the solution will probably require a significant time investment on my part. Thanks. Yeah, I don't think that people who haven't thought the problem through are doing something unethical. Even preppers are just thinking, "How can it be unethical to do what everyone is doing? Fair is fair. Anyone can prep." But from my perspective, being in between cultural groups, and working in the social sector, I can see how this is a huge cultural bias and how it is created drop by drop, child by child, and how networks and cultural know-how play into what ends up being a deeply stacked test, which flows into a deeply stacked system and that's tragic. Regarding the second part of your question, people prepare specifically for the test--to the point that before you take the test (this is how my neighbor found out) they went on and on about how prepping hurts the student, hurts the program, and how you can be banned from the program if caught. I don't think people would be working so hard on certain skills, like multiplication, if there weren't such a big payoff. People don't do that. They'd be better of with mom taking a second job and sending the kid to private school. But this payoff is bigger, because the school is better. No, I didn't know it was coming up, hence my angst. I thought they didn't test until the end of second grade, and I also thought they only had standardized tests and from those children were selected for gifted testing (like at our old district). So basically I thought I was giving her a generic head start, something that would help her take everything the school could do, and really use it to her advantage, and then they'd see if she was exceptional. Not that I was setting her up to crowd out a child with natural talent but less prep. Now I know it will be her preparation against more preparation and less preparation, but that the public school education will have little to do with it. Totally different ballgame. In theory, yes, it is more fair if everyone takes the test. But that is not what happens until third grade, which is two years after some kids have been in the gifted program, and the state tests kick in. As a matter of fact, certain parents test and re-test (again, thanks, neighbors and sister-in-law!). Introducing parent choice to the testing creates a bias towards those who will take the test multiple times, because there is always the chance of a fluke. They don't take the average over the tests, so someone who takes the test five times has a five time greater chance to get in "accidentally". A very small number of parents do this, but that still biases the program. Since we know that many "prep" advantages are seriously reduced by about third grade, the most fair system would be an achievement test administered around that time. Then, parent prep advantage is reduced, and parent-led testing bias is reduced. They explicitly state you aren't supposed to "prep". However, because they use a non-IQ test, this is unrealistic. That would mean no enrichment at home at all. So. Many. Issues. With. These. Tests. After I found out about the test, I asked my neighbor about it, and she said her own daughter had been tested, and that she thought it was a really regrettable system, though she was very impressed by the kids who made it. She said that her daughter was an "almost made it" but got knocked down for not knowing double-digit multiplication. I was like, whoa. She has the test results and I guess you'll just have to trust me that it's highly unlikely she would be lying about this, given her character. This is the gifted program in a very affluent, very well-funded, very liberal, very well-endowed, chock-full-of-engineers (mechanical, software, and biotech) zip code. Math computation is only part of the test. There's also reading comprehension, vocabulary, and logic. And a child with asynchronous learning issues would have trouble. You have to be accelerated in both math and English to pass. Yep. I completely agree with your assessment. It's not snide, it's frank. She's not brand-new--she's been reading for about a year BUT she has recently become a fluent reader, so just started reading chapter books. Right now she reads Rainbow Magic books, which are supposedly kindergarten interest, fourth grade level reading, but they seem to me more like second grade. She has done addition and subtraction for two years, struggling, but is doing the drills after school now that it's clicked for her. To be honest, I don't give a full picture of my kid everywhere because in some contexts, what we went through is more relevant to the question than what we are going through now, you know. Also in some cases it sounds more like bragging than encouragement. In this thread it is relevant that she can do simple multiplication and got to reading chapter books in two months. In other threads, such as those when I discuss how she had no interest in doing something challenging for two entire years, it is not relevant to the question so why bring it up? FWIW even if she passes she doesn't have to go.

It is not helpful to take the worst, most black-and-white reading of a text and then point out how there are exceptions to every rule. I realize that you think you are pointing out new facts to me that I haven't considered, but when talking about averages that does not automatically exclude the ends of the bell curve or exceptions to the rule. It is just a general trend. Re: IQ: There is an IQ portion (logic), but they have to be in the top 2% of all three portions (math, reading, logic). Yes, but the number is vanishingly small. The program is supposed to accommodate about 2% of the school district's population. I mean, maybe the kids could figure it out, but the test is timed, so it would take them far too long. If I were that age, I would have been able to figure out two-digit multiplication, but since it would have been the first time I'd seen the problem, I would have taken a good five minutes. Five minutes to unlock the code of double-digit multiplication at the age of six or seven is awesome. But it wouldn't pass you on this test. You'd have to know it ahead of time in order to get in the top 1-2%. The test counts on zero prep. But people know it requires prep, and the payoff for this prep is HUGE. World class education for five years for free. In this case, prep is almost cheating. Do you cheat or not, knowing that everyone else is cheating? I've done the prep believing that there would be a standardized test to determine whether she was achieving. I did it so she would feel comfortable at school and be challenged. But now that I know that I'm the sole nominator, it becomes a test-prep situation, and every worksheet I give her is me knowingly prepping her for an exam that you aren't supposed to prep for. Yes. That is my problem. The screening test is unethical under these circumstances. Haha, that is a problem I have in general. Not owning a diamond mine run with slave labor, but overthinking things. :~)

SKL, I find that you often seem to read my posts in a very black-and-white way, but I'd ask that you consider reading these posts using the principle of charity. It should be clear that I'm describing a complex social phenomenon and that it's not black and white. It's not all-or-nothing, 100% of As always do x and 100% of Bs always do y and never the twain shall meet. The posts are long enough as it is, so writing a paragraph on every exception to a general social phenomenon would be tedious. But they see it too late to take advantage. They only see how much work parents in another culture put into it afterwards. I know one white family that does the enrichment we do. The others all do play-based stuff until the age of six. Fair enough, but then they are amazed at what the other parents are doing. And they do feel they've been cheated out of opportunities to get into enrichment that early because they didn't know it started in the first grade (Asian parents, who hang out with other Asian parents, DO know, because those parents have kids in the program) and they also didn't realize there was so much subject-specific content on the test. So they see the pattern, but only after it's too late to get your "on-the-borderline" kid in, because by that time, the differences are being erased. But the on-the-borderline kids who were prepped, have gotten the enrichment your kid hasn't. And they stay in. Yes, I know some black families who work hard at academics, but it doesn't change the fact that in a school of 700 kids, with 300 in the gifted program (consolidated from a large district, so they serve local kids as well as gifted kids from across the city), there is not a single black child from the district in the program. I mean what can I say to that? They just aren't in the program. I have seen the pictures of the kids in the yearbook. They aren't there. This is not me judging black families. It's me saying, "Holy cow, there is not ONE black or Hispanic child in this program. Whoa." Yes, so did I. But then again, when I tested: It was after three years of free public school (K-2). Nobody else was prepping the children. This is the whole point of my post. Look at the big picture. I'm saying that kids like you would not test in, in this district, because early testing and widespread prepping crowd out the children who are not prepped, and this exacerbates preparatory advantage that led to the discrimination in the first place. You wouldn't make it. Were you doing multiple-digit multiplication at the beginning of first grade? If someone asked you to re-tell the plot of a book, could you do it? Were you deeply familiar with analogies and logic tests so that you could take a worksheet and do 10 in a minute? Because our gifted classes are populated with children who can do that, not because of innate ability or drive, but because of preparation. Preparation that is only significant in the first year or two, and which not all children have.

Catwoman, definitely--I was more replying to some of the suggestions, not the OP who could have been me about 6.5 years ago. :)

The cutoff is high but that's what happens when you live in a school district full of engineers. It's a percentile issue. Yet another thing to think about.

Freesia (how do I give a shout-out on this forum?), thank you for your thoughtful answer. To clarify: Opting out of testing in the first grade would guarantee no possibility of enrichment in second grade, yes. However it would not be opting out of the entire program, as they re-test children with standardized tests every year. Obviously those children in enriched classrooms do better on those tests. You are right that even "regular" classrooms in this school are awesome. She's not "easily" in. She'd be easily in somewhere else. Not here. It's a very high-income, high-STEM-job population. My neighbor's daughter who was 1.5 grades ahead in math and 2 grades ahead in reading did not get in. I have heard it quoted that the school district cutoff (because of a high number of high performing children) for gifted education hovers around 155 and that does not surprise me. By "democratic" I suppose I should have said "meritocratic", i.e. based on standardized, normalized tests after grade 2. Not on personal nomination. It should go by percentile. They expect to see two children out of every 100 in the gifted program. Democratic (meaning, no advantage can be given on the basis of economic or other background) would not increase that, because mathematically, 98th% is 98th%. SKL, you make some good points about reform. I'm not assuming anything about a particular group. I just know that some people are not pushing for their kids, whatever their background. My own partner did not. He did no home enrichment, and no requested testing. Both of his kids are on the cusp but did not get in. I believe they both could have, but he believes in "letting a kid go their own way". But also, if you saw who was in the gifted program here, you'd be amazed. There is not a single black or Hispanic child in the entire elementary school's gifted program. There are about 3 white kids per class. Every other child is of east Asian or south Asian descent. I do not believe that Asians are genetically superior to white kids. It is a question of culture and expectations in the home that lead children to perform differently, particularly in the early years when kids spend less time in school and more time around mom. They get in the program early. Then they have access to 6 hours a day, five days a week, 30 weeks a year more enrichment than the kids who weren't prepped. So they stay in, and black kids stay out. Nobody wants to see this level of segregation, not at the school, not at home. But the difference is the effort the Asian families put in early on. And you see it everywhere: homework for Asian kids at sports practices, and the white kids are on iPads, and there are no black kids at all. :( I'd love to be race-blind here but I can't ignore what is right before my eyes. Even my partner, when I pointed this out to him was like, "Holy cow." Sooo... while I hear what you're saying, I also think that there are socio-economic factors here that we can't ignore.

There are cheap babygates and then there are those which are high and which keep a child in the room. We had one that you could not climb over: it was wooden bars and covered the bottom half of the door. And yes, they do try to climb over, but you put them back in. Or you can shut the door, but that is only for a safe room, with a potty and a bottle of water. I wouldn't recommend that for this child because the situation is so unstable so that may seem too much like abandonment, although with my own kids, since they know where they're staying and that I'm mom and not leaving, I have shut the door. You could add something in to incentivize staying in the room: "Licking bothers the baby. You didn't stop licking, so you can stay away. Stay here for three minutes then try again." If she tries to climb over the gate, say, "You have to stay for three whole minutes." Re-start the timer. My first was really strong willed and it took forever to train her in that but it was worth it in the long term. The babygate is more a clear reminder to the child that she's to stay in the room. You could try without the babygate, but she might forget. This works well with some children. Children raised in unstable households and/or with verbally abusive behavior, or who are strong-willed, may not respond to it. It's worth a shot (it's honest but not unkind) but I wouldn't be shocked if it didn't work.

Background: My kid works about two grade levels ahead in math (but it's still first grade so that's simple operations), and about .7 - 1 grade levels ahead in reading. I don't believe she's "highly gifted" but she is highly motivated and very intelligent. If I had to ballpark it, I'd give her an IQ of about 145 (mine and ex-husbands IQs, plus ten for the Flynn effect). Smart but not like, eerily intelligent. We were both in the 97-99th percentiles as children. My school district begins gifted education in the second grade. The testing for that is parent and teacher motivated, i.e. there is no standardized test by which to nominate a child for gifted testing. The testing is advertised to 100% of parents through online newsletters and flyers. Later in the child's education, the child will go through standardized tests and might be nominated in that way. The school district has one of the top gifted education programs in the nation. It is very hard to be kicked out of the gifted program. My belief about gifted education is that it should be "democratic", i.e. it should be extremely hard to increase your child's chances of entering the program through preparation, and it should also not begin until all children have had a good year or two of free public education to prepare, since we know kids even out by about third grade from the advantages of early training. I believe the way our school district has set it up, they increase the possibility of children getting in through a type I error (i.e. a child who takes the test every year in elementary school is more likely to get an accidental high score, than a child who never takes it; they might have the same scores on standardized tests). This type I error will favor involved parents who advocate for their children, and the limited number of places means that repeated test taking could edge out the bright but less prepared students, particularly in the younger grades. My belief about parenting is that we shouldn't always ask our children to be martyrs for our beliefs. I believe in school uniforms but I don't send my daughter to public school in khakis, black shoes and a white polo shirt to make a point. I don't like sugar in her lunch but she still gets a little treat to eat when all the other kids are getting a little treat (even if it's a granola bar or a tiny piece of chocolate). But we should also set a good example, so I have made it clear to her that if she takes a punch in the nose and gets back up to face the bully and doesn't run away, I'll be more proud of her than if she hits the bully back. Brave and peaceful resistance and all that. Basically, we choose our battles. Question I'm agonizing over this. I really think the school district's set-up is unfair and will get a kid like mine in (possibly, on a good day) but not a kid who might be smarter, but with less prep. But at the same time, my opting out will not get that other child in. Instead, another child with prep, who is the same intelligence or slightly less intelligent than my child will get in. Maria Gonzales' parents are not going to send her in for testing and anyway she hasn't gotten English down that well yet. But she might be smarter. I went to school with such kids. I went to school with a boy whose father wouldn't let him take the test in third grade because they were undocumented and he didn't want to come to the attention of the testers (dad was a landscaper for a huge company in the 80s before things were as strict). :~( That boy was so smart, he actually was in the 99th percentile in his first six months of learning English. At the age of eight. No programs for him. I still remember his name and the injustice of it all (I am also Hispanic, but my family was on the other side of the border when the Mexican-American war ended so I really identified with that boy). But I'm gonna be honest, I want my kid in the top schools in the nation so badly. I won't lie. The gifted program here is superb. It's world-class and it's free. You can even get the international baccalaureate. UGH. Your thoughts? What should I do?

Yeah, when my kids were three people kept telling me that as well. "It's normal." Well, yes. Testing boundaries is normal for a three-year-old. But that doesn't mean it's not a time for them to learn. I'm deeply opposed to arbitrary and violent punishments but I also think it's totally worth it to set your foot down and teach a child boundaries at that time. I personally am amazed how few people have an authoritative parenting style here. It seems like it's physical force (egads, really? You can't even do that to a criminal, it's against the law--just try to hot sauce someone in jail) or excusing / dismissing / ignoring the behavior. Whatever happened to a good old "no, that's not okay", removing the child from the situation, and talking about appropriate behavior? No, that's not all going to sink in at three, nor is it the easiest way to deal with it, but it's been pretty effective for most people I know. It's also very young to live with someone who is afraid of you and/or your behavior and can't set boundaries. There is nothing cruel or unusual about time-outs behind a baby gate with an open door. There is nothing cruel or unusual about a caregiver saying, "Your behavior worries me. I need to take a time out so I don't lose my temper. I'll be out of the bathroom in two minutes." It sets a boundary, it shows love, it saves your temper. Will it permanently modify the child's behavior if she's leaving in a couple of weeks? Doubtful, HOWEVER it sets the stage for a firm, loving, and authoritative relationship between the adult and the child which I believe is very important.

It is not possible for a single observation to debunk a theory about behavior at the level of the population, because theories about human behavior always accomodate this behavior falling along a normal curve, or something near it. Your being two or three standard deviations from the norm does not mean the norm is wrong. It means you are exceptional. Now, if you are a researcher in psychology, okay. But then you'd be citing study after study that suggests that children are capable of abstract reasoning. Instead I'm seeing here people's anecdotes about their own kids, without any consideration of the fact that those children may not be at the median. The populations we encounter on a day to day basis are highly biased which is why you have to do a random sample to get information about the general public.

I don't think you are using "cause and effect" in the same way I am. My kids can't use the iPad or TV remote any better than I can. Maybe they're stupid. I have no idea. I think a dog can be trained to use an iPad, given the right stimuli. That's not understanding "cause and effect". I don't think I have painted a black and white picture. Instead I've responded to repeated explanations that "not 100% of kids fit into that" with "there is a bell curve, of course it's not the same day/month for 100% of kids" only to hear about more supposed "exceptions." You can bring up literally 7,000,000 exceptional children who are a one in one thousand exception and I'll say, "Yep. That sounds about right." Because that is .1% of the population. What I'm talking about is a stage where something happens, and that it's centered around 6-7. And I maintain that's true. Whether one child doesn't click until nine and another special child matures at the age of four, is not the point. The point is that there are certain things, conceptually speaking, that some kids can't do, and the curriculum in public schools should be structured in such a way that it doesn't ask the majority of kids to do something they aren't ready for cognitively, and for which they cannot be prepared, due to it being a question of physical brain maturity. It should go without saying that average is average, the mode is the mode, and that there are both ends of the bell curve. But I've typed that out repeatedly, to no avail. No individual exception will convince me that the data for a large population is wrong because social science allows from deviations from the norm. That's within the spirit of the theory here. Only an idiot would say, "No child can reason beyond the most simple parroting until the age of six." That's not what I've said here at all, and I'd appreciate a bit more nuanced reading of what I'm saying. I'm not saying your kids don't exist, I'm saying they don't plot right down the center of the bell curve according to the studies in this area.

Today I learned that "heathen" is still a touchy subject for some non-Christians. As a non-Christian (and non-white person) myself, maybe it's because I don't live in a religious area, but we are totally over it. I guess it's a very particular brand of gallows humor. I will be more sensitive in the future, though.