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Should I Be Impressed Or Concerned?

by thunderbird
18 replies
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My toddler (2) pointed to pictures of vehicles from Cars 2 and I thought he was going to say, "truck, car, van." But, instead, he said, "Lightning McQueen, Tow Mater, Jeff Gorvette..." It's not like he endlessly watches the Cars 2 movie. He has never even seen the movie once, since we never played it for him. He occasionally watches Youtube videos that present toy car collections and he plays with a few Cars 2 toy cars that I bought him, but that's it. I want him to learn useful things, not useless knowledge like that.
  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    Normal stuff, TB. Ya never know what will stick in a kid's head or why. That doesn't mean that he won't learn useful things, too - just something caught hold of his imagination and stuck. Take a look back at some of the crazy crap you remember that is completely worthless.
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  • Profile picture of the author Baadier Sydow
    Every kid will learn the same thing, its just how we associate with things. I'm sure it will change as he gets older. I have never had children but I remember things from my own childhood.
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    • Profile picture of the author MissTerraK
      I wouldn't be worried at all, TB, but rather impressed with how smart he is in being able to name all of the character names of the cars without ever having watched the movie.

      Terra
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  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    You guys DO realize that these are ongoing characters from disney, right.....? If he has a friend with the toys, has watched the films cartoons, or shorts, etc... He WILL learn it. Disney advertises this on their mid level channel about as much as they advertise mickey. Perhaps even MORE than mickey.

    TB,

    At two I would say he is about average. He isn't necessarily SMART, but he doesn't appear to be behind.

    Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
      Originally Posted by seasoned View Post

      You guys DO realize that these are ongoing characters from disney, right.....? If he has a friend with the toys, has watched the films cartoons, or shorts, etc... He WILL learn it. Disney advertises this on their mid level channel about as much as they advertise mickey. Perhaps even MORE than mickey.<snip>
      Disney is very good at what they do. We don't have a TV. He's not so exposed to Disney stuff, but it captures him. I've witnessed a clear and obvious tendency many little boys to be fascinated by cars and trains. In my toddler's preschool class, I always saw male toddlers playing with a train set and never saw the little girls playing with it.

      My mother, being an old-school feminist, gave our son a doll. He showed zero interest in it, lol.

      Originally Posted by seasoned View Post


      TB,

      At two I would say he is about average. He isn't necessarily SMART, but he doesn't appear to be behind.

      Steve
      He's hitting the development milestones pretty much on "schedule" (unlike that dunce, Albert Einstein). Most importantly, he's a happy child and friendly towards other kids.
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      • Profile picture of the author seasoned
        Originally Posted by thunderbird View Post

        Disney is very good at what they do. We don't have a TV. He's not so exposed to Disney stuff, but it captures him. I've witnessed a clear and obvious tendency many little boys to be fascinated by cars and trains. In my toddler's preschool class, I always saw male toddlers playing with a train set and never saw the little girls playing with it.

        My mother, being an old-school feminist, gave our son a doll. He showed zero interest in it, lol.



        He's hitting the development milestones pretty much on "schedule" (unlike that dunce, Albert Einstein). Most importantly, he's a happy child and friendly towards other kids.
        Apparently, Einstein was not as dumb as people make him out to be. I heard of a punishment that a stupid teacher gave him one time. It was a math problem. She probably figured it would take him over 7 minutes to do it. The average student MIGHT have. He noticed a pattern, and did it in a few seconds. Of course, it isn't hard. 100+1=101 99+2=101 so the answer is 101*50=5050 If you tried 1+2+3+4+5+6+7... Who knows HOW long it could take?

        I have heard that the story about how long he took to speak might have been a myth. Still, you can't be sure. He DID do poorly in French the first time. He said he had no need to learn it. When the need came, he learned it.

        As for the dolls, etc? At least in MY day BOYS, almost as INFANTS were interested in physical, mechanical, technical stuff. GIRLS were interested in dolls, social things, etc...
        Even many women and men show those traits. Of course FEMINISTS want to think that the two sexs merely have different sex organs. All the while, they will say men are inferior because of testosterone causing aggression, etc... There ARE differences though. AGAIN, that is not saying either is inferior.

        BTW I have interviewed over 2000 people. In my current job, only about 5 were women, and 2 of them flunked. Of course more men flunk, as a percentage, but that is probably because the women feel a better need to try harder. In my LAST job, we hired over 9 people, and only 3 were women. ALL did poorly. MOST of the men did ok.
        That stuff was harder to study. BTW NEITHER job preferred men. There were fewer women PURELY because fewer were found or applied.

        As for dealing with kids? I would NEVER do that with another persons kids any more. Women actually seem better at it.

        And WHAT is the point with trying to get a boy to play with dolls anyway? WHAT would it accomplish?

        Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author MoneyMagnetMagnate
    Originally Posted by thunderbird View Post

    My toddler (2) pointed to pictures of vehicles from Cars 2 and I thought he was going to say, "truck, car, van." But, instead, he said, "Lightning McQueen, Tow Mater, Jeff Gorvette..." It's not like he endlessly watches the Cars 2 movie. He has never even seen the movie once, since we never played it for him. He occasionally watches Youtube videos that present toy car collections and he plays with a few Cars 2 toy cars that I bought him, but that's it. I want him to learn useful things, not useless knowledge like that.
    If you think about it, it is not a useless thing, but rather a very useful one - at 2 he is not only recognizing and remembering the object for it's intention, as "truck, car, van."...he is identifying the object by character, and by full individual name - his comprehension in this regard has gone up two-fold...this would be akin to a child who is more developed in language and relationship...if you were to ask him what Tow Mater is, he will likely say 'truck' - then give you a look as though you were some kind of simpleton, who doesn't recognize a truck when he sees one...:rolleyes:
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    • Profile picture of the author HeySal
      Originally Posted by MoneyMagnetMagnate View Post

      If you think about it, it is not a useless thing, but rather a very useful one - at 2 he is not only recognizing and remembering the object for it's intention, as "truck, car, van."...he is identifying the object by character, and by full individual name - his comprehension in this regard has gone up two-fold...this would be akin to a child who is more developed in language and relationship...if you were to ask him what Tow Mater is, he will likely say 'truck' - then give you a look as though you were some kind of simpleton, who doesn't recognize a truck when he sees one...:rolleyes:
      That reminded me of an incident from the day care center I worked in on an American army base in Germany.

      There was a two year old there with exceptionally gifted intelligence. He was coloring with felt tip pens. I figured two years old, so kept my comments simple and said "That's very pretty. Those are nice crayons."

      He looked at me like I was stupid and said very matter of factly "they aren't crayons, they're felt tipped pens." Nothing like having a toddler make you feel like a moron even if he was a genius. I wonder sometimes what that kid ended up doing for a living.
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      When the Roads and Paths end, learn to guide yourself through the wilderness
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  • Profile picture of the author John Durham
    Impressed. Always be impressed. You only get to be a kid once and in his world those things are like ICONIC.... man If I were you I'd say "Yeah WOW, I wish I was a fast as lightening mcqueen"... Play into it with him, and let him have all the excitement he wants and express it, dont supress anything that excites him at this age, rather watch and nurture his excitement about life. Heck those things in his world are bigger than life...better than being 43 and saying "Yeah whatever" and being impressed with very little....

    Let his heart always be filled with wonder is my prayer.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ernie Lo
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    • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
      Originally Posted by Ernie Lo View Post

      This just proves TV does program kids thinking! Be careful.

      If you want your child to end up like everyone else, keep doing what everyone does.

      I'd respectfully recommend you limit their TV use and teach them something more useful.

      That's what winners are made from.

      Some of us weren't raised to be a winner so we are still trying to figure it out
      He never watches TV. We don't even have a TV, lol.
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    • Profile picture of the author seasoned
      Originally Posted by Ernie Lo View Post

      This just proves TV does program kids thinking! Be careful.

      If you want your child to end up like everyone else, keep doing what everyone does.

      I'd respectfully recommend you limit their TV use and teach them something more useful.

      That's what winners are made from.

      Some of us weren't raised to be a winner so we are still trying to figure it out
      Give me a break! It may not go ANY farther than that.

      Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author go4glory
    He's remembering and saying names like 'Lightning McQueen, Tow Mater, Jeff Gorvette'.
    I Think that's much better. He's smart for his age.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeAmbrosio
    When my oldest was about 14 months old we would take him for walks in the neighborhood. He would point to parked cars and tell us what they were...

    "That's a honda. BMW. Corvette. Chevy..."

    We thought it was pretty cool since we never really spent much time telling him what they were. I think kids are simply sponges and have an enormous capacity to absorb - especially something that interests them

    Today my son is 24. You want to guess what he does for a living?
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    • Profile picture of the author seasoned
      Originally Posted by MikeAmbrosio View Post

      When my oldest was about 14 months old we would take him for walks in the neighborhood. He would point to parked cars and tell us what they were...

      "That's a honda. BMW. Corvette. Chevy..."

      We thought it was pretty cool since we never really spent much time telling him what they were. I think kids are simply sponges and have an enormous capacity to absorb - especially something that interests them

      Today my son is 24. You want to guess what he does for a living?
      "That's a [proper car name]" IS good for a 14 month old. Most are generally able to do such a thing closer to 24 months.

      Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
      Originally Posted by MikeAmbrosio View Post

      When my oldest was about 14 months old we would take him for walks in the neighborhood. He would point to parked cars and tell us what they were...

      "That's a honda. BMW. Corvette. Chevy..."

      <snip>
      That's amazing for 14 months.

      Today my son is 24. You want to guess what he does for a living?
      Expert at United States Patent and Trademark Office?
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  • Profile picture of the author John Durham
    @ Sal, reminds me, I got to visit my grandsons the other day and we were drawing pictures and my 4 year old grandson was showing me that he knew how to draw rectangles and traingles and he knew all the shapes by name... and I pointed to one and I said "Whats that" and he gave me the same stupid look and said 'Graam-paw, its a "Hex-ma-gon" (and looked at me like he couldnt believe I didnt know).

    Im like "Silly me...I should have known something that simple, gosh you are SMART...what am I gonna do with a grandson who is smarter than me...?" lol

    They need encouragement more than they need to be smacked with a ruler.
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  • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
    He just named all of the Thomas the Train characters pointing at their pictures, reading their names. I didn't learn to read until I was 6, lol. There's something to be said for online videos of alphabet songs with accompanying cartoons.

    I'm starting to write a children's story, reworking something I wrote before. If he's going to be remembering characters, it'd be cool if they were from a story that his daddy wrote (but that'll be illustrated by someone else).
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  • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
    Well, seeing my wee son's enthusiasm for the toy cars, I recalled when I've learned things most effectively and it was definitely when I was having fun doing something that interested me. So, I just let him enjoy the cars and low and behold he is learning lots of new stuff playing the the cars, having fun.
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