Blog

My Kindergartener Thinks He Is Smarter Than Me

by | Jul 22, 2016

6 signs your kindergartener thinks he is smarter than you

Funny.  And Scary.  And true.

For the longest time I thought it was my imagination. I had the thought in the back of my mind but I refused to voice it. Over time it has become clear that my early suspicion was correct.

Most of the time my son’s biting one-liners are funny. Like earlier this week when he called me old. And then laughed like a maniac.

My kindergartener thinks he is smarter Than Me

 

I’ll lay out the evidence for you so you can see what I mean. This is how you know your kindergartener thinks** he is smarter than you.

He asks questions he knows I cannot answer

This spring my son’s class hosted about 20 eggs in an incubator. It was all very cute, with the kids turning them and talking about the eggs every day. My son actually started drawing pictures of developing chicken eggs.

And then one day he looked at me and asked, “Mommy, do the chickens we eat go to heaven like other dead things?”

Never mind the fact that he hadn’t connected the dots that chicken comes from eggs, I was more freaked out that he was asking me about heaven. I stammered something about death being part of the lifecycle.

He looked at me, rolled his eyes and muttered, “you don’t understand the lifecycle of a hen.” Then he walked away.

He points out my flaws

Trust me, I know my strengths and weaknesses. I write about them all the time. But my 5 year old pointing them out really irks me. Here is a list of some of the things I have heard recently:

“Mom, you are always a bad parker.” – After I went over a curb.

“Mom, you are a really bad bowler.” – He scored higher than me. I was his first time playing.

“Why are you always forgetting things?”

And my favorite: “Mom, that sounds like whining to me. I can’t stand whining.”

He uses my own words against me

When I told him to stop dilly-dallying around the other day he told me I “was being inappropriate.” I had said this to him several days before when he refused to leave Target without a cherry slushy.

Believe it or not, I stood my ground and he didn’t get the slushy.

You may have read my post about teaching flexible thinking a while back. We used to read the Super Flex books all the time.  I love Super Flex. So much so I recommend it to other parents all the time.

well…I have been called a “Rock Brain” on more than one occasion when I was perceived as being inflexible.

I suppose I am pretty inflexible when it comes to NOT DROWNING in the ocean. You know, forcing him to wait for an adult to play in the surf.

He corrects my manners

The other day I was told that, “interrupting is bad manners.” Mind you, this was during dinner while he was shirtless and telling a story about the Wild Kratts.

But I cannot interrupt his story to ask a question. Because that is bad manners.

You know what else is bad manners? Singing. I was told my singing is bad manners.

His Knowledge of the animal kingdom (and geography) is larger than my own

We were looking at one of his Ranger Rick magazines the other day and I noticed an odd looking animal hanging precariously from a tree. When I called the animal a sloth he corrected me.

Apparently it was a tamandua trying to defend itself from a predator. Do you know what an tamandua is?

My Kindergartener thinks he is smarter than me

Seriously – gimme a break I didn’t even get to read the caption.

For my birthday my son told me that he wanted to have a Foosa Palooza. I will admit that first I had to figure out what a Fossa was.

My kindergartener thinks he is smarter than me

This is an antique etching of a fossa. Yes, I purchased it on Etsy.

After I figured out that a Fossa looks a little like a mean, ugly housecat I felt I should find out what they like to eat. My son looked at me and said, “they live in Madagascar so they eat lemurs.” As if this is common knowledge.

And he also informed that that plane tickets to Madagascar would be expensive so he was ok with not going to get a real ring tailed lemur. We got this one instead from Amazon.

my kindergartener thinks he is smarter than me

My very own ring-tailed lemur.

He outsmarted US

About a year ago my husband decided to cut off our cable. We now stream almost everything we want to watch with Netflix, Hulu, and HBO using the Apple TV box. We use an antenna for local stations.

When we set up the streaming Hulu we set a 4 digit passcode, assuming that our child knew how to use the Apple TV. We thought we were covered. I mean there is no way our kid could figure out the passcode, right?

Yeah. He figured it out. I am still not sure how long he has known the passcode, but I actually witnessed him use it the other day. He didn’t even try to hide that he knew it, just punched it right in.

What is the passcode, you ask? The date we closed on our house. If you can figure out how my 5 year old knows this let me know.

So this is my current living situation. It is me, my husband, my nearly six year-old and two furbabies. My son has figured me out. Over here waiving the white flag of surrender.

Instead of fighting it I am focusing on kindness, flexibility and humor.

I tell my son every day that I am impressed with his knowledge, but I also emphasize that it is not polite to constantly correct people.   Nor is it polite to point out what you think they are doing poorly.

He seems to understand that in order to get along in life you have to remain flexible and sometimes look at things from a different angle. He tells me he is “working hard on his big feelings.”

And really, as much as his attitude gets on my nerves he is an endless source of entertainment. He is so incredibly funny and innocent.

 

So, have you ever felt like your child had outsmarted you?

 

How did you handle it?

 

Was it funny or annoying?