I believe you, why? Because I sat in the back of a friend's car next to her 3 year old that started conversing with me as fluently as a grown up.
It was extremely jarring to have a small child in a booster seat converse with me as if she was 16. Her mother laughed at me: "Oh yeah. She's very advanced for her age."
I've heard stories of 3 year olds who speak 5 languages. Even writing this it makes me recall children who can write / play symphonies.
The "3 year olds aren't smart" thinking is quite limiting.
One of the things I wish people had realized about me back then was that just because I had the verbal fluency and reasoning ability of a much older child, it didn't mean I had the maturity and life experience of one. I still had such an incredibly limited knowledge pool to draw from, having only been on the planet for 3 years and only able to move myself around in it (and even then, not through basic things like doors due to handles I couldn't reach) for an even shorter time.
It's so tempting to treat kids who are precocious on one front as though they're older than they are, and expect them to do things like recognize dangers, or navigate social situations, or even know how to manage their own limits, but they're still also really little kids who need the adults in their lives to love them and care for them!
It was extremely jarring to have a small child in a booster seat converse with me as if she was 16. Her mother laughed at me: "Oh yeah. She's very advanced for her age."
I've heard stories of 3 year olds who speak 5 languages. Even writing this it makes me recall children who can write / play symphonies.
The "3 year olds aren't smart" thinking is quite limiting.