Sounds like your son is gifted in math. How does he do in other fields? At this age a well rounded education is in order. He needs to develop good language arts skills and the ability to manipulate/analyze information in all areas. Plus he needs a good knowledge base. It is great to let him enjoy math but he needs to do less pleasant learning as well.
Years ago I was involved in out local gifted and talented parents committee for the school district. They had some annual GT conferences. In some of them I gleaned knowledge, supplemented later, about introversion/extroversion. It turns out that about 75% of the population is extroverted while 75% of the highly gifted are introverts.
Some students are globally gifted and not just in one or two areas. Those often skip entire grades- they do not fit in with age mates and yet are younger than classmates. No perfect solutions. For your son you need to keep him engaged (not bored) with math but also work on his other needed knowledge and skills.
btw- my gifted son discovered in college how many others are better in math- it is a brutally competitive field with world wide competition for US grad schools. Your son is likely much better intrinsically in math than my son but other skills will help him later on. Educate the whole child.
@wis75 Thanks for your post. I agree with you and he is fairly well rounded. I have read many posts where folks argue to focus on one thing and do it incredibly well. I understand that it could be the best thing to do for an Ivy admission but while he really loves math, I do my best to ensure he is not only good at math. Living in NC it seems that UNC is a great bargain so I imagine he will go there for his undergraduate, so not really too concerned about an Ivy.
His vocabulary and ability to write are things he is going to spend a bit more time on this year - not a weakness but could definitely be improved. His mom speaks Russian and it was his first language really so we have kept up the Russian lessons and his is very good.
As I mentioned earlier, he is a very good tennis player and soccer player and did jiu jitsu for two years until he had to drop something due to time constraints.
While he is very good at math, he has seen the upper levels of mathy kids at some of the competitions he has entered and I think that has been a very good experience for him. You are correct, it is brutally competitive…
I have a “mathy” extroverted daughter (rising freshman) who learns better in just about everything in a group. Part of it is the social aspects, but she also thrives on the competition with her peers. Have you gotten any input from the future STEM boarding school? They seem like the best resource in helping him find a path that will not only benefit him now, but also align with their academic choices down the road.
Ack typo and keyboard snafus! – mathy, not maths. And regret that he was on the math team! I have 2 mathy kids. One did not develop the interest/talent/skill for poker, but the other sure did!