Well, that was sort of the point I was making: I don't want his extreme intelligence to be the sum total of who he is, or how he sees himself, because I find that to be (at best) very limiting and (at worst) very dangerous.
When I make the effort to create an environment for him in which he is perceived in a myriad of ways, not just "the 8yo high school student," then I give him opportunities to be more than that. He is more than that. For us, for now, that means homeschooling.
I don't really care what he ends up doing with his life, as long as he is reasonably happy and productive. If he wants to be a professional studio drummer, that would be fine (he may very well go in that direction), if that is what blisses him out. I'm all about feeding the bliss. Which would take me off on another tangent about homeschooling and child-directed learning, so I'll stop for the moment.
Short answer: no, I'm not worried about burnout. We lead a very down-to-earth, balanced life. Sometimes I need to tell him to "put away the books, we're going to the playground." But then again, I don't consider him in the same league as Bobby Fischer and other similar prodigies. [I don't know much about actual prodigies, though, to be honest.]
Tara
