Baby Einsteins

Today I was in Crate and Barrel with D/C and we hadn't been in the store a minute before they had their shoes and socks off. A woman watching smiled and pointed to her 5ish kid and said "he used to do that too." He looks at her and says "I did?" Then he says "Well I'm not that smart" and I hear the mother saying very sweetly "Yes you are, you're very smart."

But then I hear "In fact, you're brilliant." And she was very serious.

So my question-- when did kids start getting tagged as brilliant--before grade school? I mean seriously. I did pretty well in school as a kid, and I don't recall my parents calling me smart. In fact I distinctly remember sitting my dad down for a 'serious talk' at age 5 and explaining to him that while I know he was trying to teach me how to read, it just wasn't gonna happen. I was never going to learn how to read, try as he might (I STILL remember the look on his face--holding back the laughter). They didn't call me stupid, they just didn't make a huge deal out of it either way.

Am I just a big fan of underselling? Aren't you kinda jinxing the kid since there is nowhere to go but down? And if your kid is smart don't they (and other people) figure it out eventually? And if we're to believe any of that new stuff coming out, aren't we better off NOT telling our kids they are smart and instead congratulating them for working hard?

A good friend of ours says that everyone thinks their kid is a genius until kindergarten. She should know, she's a kindergarten teacher.