Child, 3, joins Mensa after teaching himself to read and count in seven languages
Teddy Hobbs taught himself to read when he was just two years old
A toddler, aged three, has become "Britain's youngest Mensa member" after teaching himself to read at two and being able to count in seven different languages.
Theodore (Teddy) Hobbs, from Portishead, Somerset, gained entry to the exclusive organisation for the intellectual "elite" when he was three years and nine months, after smashing an IQ test with the group - scoring an impressive 139 out of 160.
The international group for high-IQ individuals, founded in 1947, only accepts members who are above the 98th percentile of IQs worldwide.
Teddy can already count to 100 in six non-native languages, including Mandarin, Welsh, French, Spanish and German, and having taught himself to read aged just two years and four months, Teddy is now capable of reading Harry Potter books.
Parents Beth, 31, and Will Hobbs, 41, had no idea quite how smart their son was, and only got him assessed by "fluke" to prepare him before he starts school in September.
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"We never aimed to get him in," Beth explains. "We did an IQ test, where we basically told him that 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 that his peers couldn't, but I don't think we realised quite how good he was.
"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 aged two."
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His parents, who underwent IVF in order to conceive their son and Teddy's younger sister, even joke there might have been a mix up at the fertility clinic.
"We're not sure how he ended up this way, my husband and I are not linguists - so we always joke that the embryologist must have slipped a needle or something to make him this way," Beth adds.
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But the couple say their son's intelligence does come with certain challenges.
"My friends can 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," Beth continues.
"You can't get anything past him, he listens to everything. He will remember conversations you had with him at Christmas last year."
He also shows little interest in games or TV that other children his age typically enjoy, preferring instead to relax with a word search.
"When we had our daughter we bought him a tablet so that we could focus on her, but he was never hugely interested in playing games or anything," Beth continues. "His idea of fun is reciting his times tables."
Now aged four, Teddy’s parents are trying make sure he remains "humble", despite his intelligence, to stop him developing any kind of "superiority complex".
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However, for now he is completely unaware of his abilities compared to other children his age.
"We're slowly getting to the point in nursery now where they're starting to do a more formal curriculum," mum Beth continues.
"His friends can sort of read a couple of letters of the alphabet - meanwhile he can read Harry Potter.
"I remember bringing him into nursery one day and saying that I thought he had taught himself to read - and they didn't really believe me at first.
"Then they had a preschool teacher go and speak to him that day, and they just called me back saying 'no you're right'."
"Obviously we don't let him read Harry Potter - we pick more emotionally appropriate books, but he's essentially at the stage where he can read anything we put in front of him."
While he hasn't completely decided what he's going to be when he grows up a career in medicine could await Teddy.
"He has some ideas that he wants to be a doctor one day because him and his friend likes to play doctors at nursery, but if you ask him what he wants to be he will just say he wants to focus on being a Teddy," his mum explains.
Additional reporting SWNS.
