My soon-to-be 5 year old is smart. She knows she is smart. But, she loves to hear me tell her how smart she is.
She comments on how she was a smart baby. She requires that I agree with her.
She comments on how she is smart now because she can do _________ (fill in the blank with anything she knows how to do.) Once again, I am required to agree with her or she will say it over and over again until I do.
She asks me things like, "Am I smarter than Sister?" to which I usually end up replying, you are both smart, but Sister is older and knows a lot more than you do. And then she reminds me how smart she was as a baby.
She will announce to me some reason of logic she has come up with. You can't tell her it is anything otherwise, even if her logic is completely off. She will simply say, "I know, but___ (and restates her own logic.) Arguing with her on this point is futile. I just smile and nod.
I didn't want my daughters to grow up with the idea that they should only be beautiful (even though they both are.) I once read an interesting article written by a Dr. Mom in one of those highly over-priced parenting magazines that: If we only tell our daughters how beautiful they are, they will think that beauty is the most important thing and they will not work to learn, go to school, or do anything of value with their life. So, throughout their lives, I've told my daughters not only how beautiful they are, but how smart they are as well. I've encouraged them to learn anything they want and become whatever they want because they are smart enough to do so.
I think I've created an overly-smart-smarty-pants of a four year old monster.
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