The shop assistant said, "She will need a 9 piece puzzle," to which I responded, "She is actually building 50 piece puzzles." Her jaw dropped, "Really? 50 piece puzzles? But that is only supposed to be for [she scratches around in the boxes to see what the age ratings are]…4 year olds. That is amazing, she's going to go to some special school!" One of us responded, "She is a great puzzle builder, but she still needs to learn how to jump." When we were paying for the puzzle the lady said we must send her tickets to Grace's concerts, or whatever she goes on to do. She was very kind in what she said.

We are proud parents – we are proud of who Grace is, and of the things she does. We are also acutely aware of her shortcomings, like running and jumping and speaking. We also try to be modest, and mostly attribute her successes to her personality.

I think that responding to compliments by raising a shortcoming is problematic. Grace has good comprehension and I am pretty sure she is aware of and understands what we are saying, so she gets a message which says, "You are amazing, but…." It is also an issue that we are focussing on shortcomings rather than celebrating strengths. I guess we do that to ourselves too.

We all have a creative genius inside of us and I want to be encouraging Grace to develop that as much as possible, and express it however she feels is best. There are things we need to work on with her – and we do – but there is no need to cut down compliments by raising her shortcomings. We are going to endeavour to embrace praises (without making any moderating comments), and to do that in a humble way.

We are grateful for the amazing daughter we have.