- A young genius who started reading at age two is now the youngest Mensa member.
- Teddy Hobbs is already proficient in six languages.
- Teddy’s parents are working to keep him “humble” in order to protect him from developing a “superiority complex”.
A young genius who started reading at age two is now the youngest Mensa member in Britain. Teddy Hobbs is already proficient in six languages, including Welsh, Mandarin, French, Spanish, and German, and can read the Harry Potter series.
The IVF-born child, who was three years and nine months old when he was admitted to the exclusive organisation last year, had an IQ score of 139.
Parents Teddy’s parents, Beth and Will Hobbs, from Portishead, Somerset, were unaware of his intelligence and simply had him tested by ‘fluke’ in order to get him ready for school in the fall.
Beth said, “We did an IQ test, where we basically told him he was going to sit and do some puzzles with a lady for an hour, and he thought it was the most wonderful thing”.
‘After he completed it we were told he was eligible by Mensa’s child advisor, so we thought he may as well join’.
‘We were a bit like “pardon?”. We knew he could do things his peers couldn’t, but I don’t think we realised quite how good he was.
She continued, “We’re not sure how he ended up this way, my husband and I are not linguists. We always joke the embryologist must have slipped a needle or something to make him this way”.
Beth acknowledged that Teddy’s brilliance presents some difficulties because he doesn’t seem to be interested in games or television.
She said: ‘My friends say, “Oh should we have some c-a-k-e?” and their kids will not know what they’re saying, but Teddy will immediately spell it out and want some’.
‘You can’t get anything past him, he listens to everything. He will remember the conversations you had with him at Christmas last year’.
‘When we had our daughter we bought him a tablet so we could focus on her, but he was never hugely interested in playing games or anything’.
‘He instead just likes to use apps to try and learn to count to 100 in Mandarin and other languages’.
Reciting his times’ tables while seated is his idea of enjoyment.
Despite his brilliance, Teddy’s parents are working to keep him “humble” in order to protect him from developing a “superiority complex”.
The toddler, who is now four years old, doesn’t seem to realise how talented he is in comparison to other kids his age.
Beth added: ‘His friends can read a couple of letters of the alphabet, meanwhile he can read Harry Potter’.
[embedpost slug=”harry-melling-being-recognized-for-other-roles-other-then-harry-potter//”]
