I remember when my D was 5 yrs old, we visited my brother. While about 10 kids from 3 to 7 yrs. old playing in the backyard, my D quietly sat down at the dinning table, drawing something in her notebook.
My brother came over and asked what she was doing and why she was not out there “having fun” with other kids, she replied, “I’m designing a circuit for Dad’s birthday next week, and this is fun.”
On my birthday, she presented me with the gift: a circuit board with 3 7-segment LEDs, one constantly lid with my initial, the other two flashing my age.
Making an absolute claim based on one anecdote, even though the anecdotal example involved a father with many issues who would have caused a lot of familial trouble even in the absence of a prodigy kid, is quite a stretch. Her father was apparently a tiger dad, with physical abuse thrown in, along with criminal convictions.
And, again, this kid didn’t attend college in the usual sense - it is NOTHING like r example above, where the child’s problems are more likely to be due to abuse than to Oxford - he did what good students in their junior and senior year do in Florida, dual enrollment at the local community college where he got his HS diploma and his AA at the same time. That allows him to live with his family while taking academically appropriate classes.
There was a kid who graduated from h.s. at about 12 and started at CU. Even with his reduced schedule, he found out like many ‘normal’ college kids do that college was not high school. I’m not sure it was any one class he couldn’t handle but the way all the classes fit together, the group projects, the pace. He was exhausted (he lived 30 minutes or so from Boulder). He slowed down and adjusted some activities. He still had friends from grade school and social activities typical to an early teen. They did a follow up when he was about 22 and he was finishing his initial degrees and working on a masters or doctorate, and doing fine, but he was no longer 5 years ahead of his peers. He was still very very bright compared to both his same aged peers and his classmates, but he was closer in maturity, social levels, interests with both groups.
I don’t think there was anything else his mother could have done to make school smoother for him. He had to have his own path.
Highly gifted children are not “sent to college”. They do not live away from family but rather take college classes while still living with their family as I understand it. One reason they end up at “lesser” colleges rather than being at “elite” colleges. That’s a reason you won’t find boarding schools for profoundly gifted kids- that asynchronous development means they still benefit from many aspects of their age, being a child with loving parents.
Over the years threads with expressions of dismay over the highly gifted pop up every so often. And parents who try to explain. Pushing a child only occurs with wannabes. Those whose kids spend a lot of time with test prep courses to try to eke out extra points…
Many, many anecdotes from CC parents can be written here (again). Just like with all other kids we can all look with 20/20 hindsight and see opportunities not available back when we could have used them. So many factors/variables.
Here’s another thing. Some people are globally gifted but there is always someone with more innate ability in every field. Who is “smarter” the student with a 2400 SAT, 800 GRE but not in the top 10% on the math GRE like someone whose verbal skills are far less? So many questions to ponder…
PS- the answer to the above smartness question would have to be the person who scores high across the board because that is more rare. Think about what IQ means. Then think about the whole person. Having a good, satisfying life in one of the myriads of possible ways.
Many super smart people are not driven in certain areas as regular people are; they can be happy pursuing things they like in quiet ways. Being gifted in a society made up of non-gifted people can be a burden. Of course, I don’t know because I am one of the normal ones.
I feel like you have a kid that different, you have to do really different things to give them a childhood they connect to. Sure, it’s not catching frogs at the pond all summer with a gaggle of boys you’ve been best friends with from kindergarten but really, who even has that? If the kid is happy and engaged then he’s getting his own “perfect childhood.” Slowing him down wasn’t going to magically make peer relationships forthcoming and more typical childhood fancies fulfilling.
Everyone wants their kids to be “top of the class” but most still want them to BELONG in that class. I feel for the family who can’t have anticipated this. Glad the boy will continue his education and hope he finds what makes the world worth while for him.
Geez, when I was a kid, being “gifted” meant sitting at the back of the classroom with a box of SRA cards. Believe me, that did nothing for my intellectual or social development. Kids whose parents and school districts allow them to move at an appropriate pace in their education are lucky.
@twinsmama Oh my, that brings back memories of sitting in 2nd grade with that stupid box of SRA cards while my classmates made macaroni Christmas trees. How the teacher thought “challenging” me during art was appropriate, I’ll never know. At the time, I thought I must be stupid because I had to spend so much extra time with those cards. It wasn’t until much later when I found a report card that I realized she thought I was gifted.
As parents we were fortunate to have open-minded and flexible public schools for our children.
