Every parent rejoices at their child’s first accomplishments, but what happens when your child is so bright that he was accepted into the high IQ society Mensa at the age of three? Teddy Hobbes, a toddler, can read fluently and count in seven languages at a time when most children are just learning to run, identify colors, and speak in complete sentences.
The child prodigy from Portishead, Somerset, stunned everyone when he was admitted as Britain’s youngest member to the high IQ society group. But what can you expect from a two-year-and-four-month-old boy who taught himself to read. Beth stated that the bright boy learned to read by watching children’s television and mimicking letter sounds. “He started tracing the letters, so when we returned him to nursery after COVID lockdown, we told them he’d taught himself to read.”
Teddy can count to 100 in Mandarin, Welsh, French, Spanish, and German, among other languages. “He was playing on his tablet, making these sounds that I didn’t recognize,” Beth continued, “and I asked him what it was, and he said, ‘Mummy, I’m counting in Mandarin.’ Teddy joined Mensa after taking an IQ test and scoring 139 out of 160 on the Stanford Binet test, putting him in the 99.5%ile for his age.
Mensa, founded in 1947, is an international high IQ society that only accepts members with IQs above the 98th percentile worldwide. Mensa has over 50,000 members of all ages in approximately 90 countries worldwide. Most people will be surprised by Teddy’s admission to Mensa, but two-year-old Mensa members include Kashe Quest of Los Angeles, California, and Isla McNabb of Kentucky.
Teddy’s parents, Beth Hobbs, 31, and Will Hobbs, 41, never expected Teddy to be a member of a high IQ society and had no intention of applying for membership in Mensa. “We were told that three was the youngest age of anyone they had accepted into Mensa in the UK, though there was someone in the US who was two,” Beth explained. To be honest, his admission was a complete fluke.”
“We never aimed to get him in, and even when we had him assessed, it was to help him when he starts school in September – we never planned on getting him into Mensa,” she adds. Teddy’s parents had no idea he was intelligent enough to join the high IQ society group. “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,” Beth explained.
We were told by Mensa’s child adviser that he was eligible after completing it, so we figured he might as well join.” “We knew he could do things his peers couldn’t, but I don’t think we realized quite how good he was,” Beth and Will said of the outcome. We took him to nursery after that, but he had to return home because he was upset about having to stop doing puzzles. To relax, he’ll even do word searches.” And, of course, Teddy had no idea what a big deal it was to be a member of the high IQ society.
“He wasn’t even that interested in what Mensa is,” Beth explained, “but he’s just about beginning to understand that he is more capable than other children – so I think he’ll realize more when school starts.” Teddy, now four, is capable of reading Harry Potter books when his parents allow him to. “Obviously, we don’t let him read Harry Potter – we pick more emotionally appropriate books,” Beth explained, “but he’s essentially at the stage where he can read anything we put in front of him.”
And, as brilliant as he is, his parents are baffled as to how he became so. “We don’t know how he ended up this way, my husband and I aren’t linguists – so we always joke that the embryologist must have slipped a needle or something to make him this way,” Beth says. View the video below: