Nagging

Something had been nagging me from inside my head lately but I haven't been able to put my finger on it until tonight. It's about Aidan. We all know Aidan is advanced. She speaks in complete sentences, knows her alphabet, is starting her sounds of letters, is counting, etc etc. However, I do push it. In my eagerness and pride I push. I'm not horrible about it... but I surround her with educational, educational, educational stuff. I also am always asking her to tell me what this is or that... or I like to sit her down and try to engage her in "learning" games. The nagging feeling is telling me to stop.... to slow down and let her explore things and play with imaginative things and let her do a lot of art projects. The other stuff can wait a year or so. I realize that the only reason to have her learn it all this early is so that I can show her off... well.... it's true. And is it good for her? That is what runs through my mind. We encourage her to show off and in front of her we talk about how smart she is and we show her how pleasing it is to us for her to be smart. But... I think that might backfire. She might turn out to never do anything she's not good at because she's used to the praise and feels like a failure. Or, possibly, she'll even out with other kids her age and then have issues because she's "not smart" anymore. Anyway, I think all the emphasis on her intelligence can have a lot of negative side effects and I and all the others need to adopt a relaxed attitude about her "being gifted." That way, she'll be praised for being Aidan.. not for being smart. I'm going to try. This doesn't mean I wont still introduce educational things... just not start lessons... etc ever day. This week I went as far as buying a notebook to keep her finished "worksheets" in. Worksheet? She's Two! What am I thinking?