When I was 14 I had the IQ of a 25 yr. old. I had my young son tested. He does not qualify for DYS at this time. I might try again when he's a teenager. Maybe he didn't take it seriously. My dad and aunt were tested when they were teens and they would have qualified. I don't know yet if this is that "regression to the mean" I've read about, or if we tested him too young. Me, my dad, and my aunt, with our outrageous scores, did nothing noteworthy as a career. My grandfather and great uncle had noteworthy careers. My dad wonders why I read about giftedness at all, since gifted people are normal folks, besides being smart, and says, yes, you have more to deal with than most people, but you have more ability to deal with it too. It would have been nice if my son qualified for DYS because I would have felt less like I was guessing at my parenting choices. The local public school is rural and less than half of the kids are on grade level. I was going to let him go, but I learned that he didn't do any of his work in class for four or five months and I said that's a horrible lesson for a five year old. There's an out of district Harmony math and Science Academy I would have asked for out of district placement, but the tester said, don't go there. They don't take the cream of the crop anymore. They give the kids tons of homework to keep up their scores. I've read about that scenerio here being described as negative, so I took the advice. But without that advice I would have thought being around kids who actually do their work would be the better situation. Without any advice I could get I decided to homeschool. The school said his not doing his work was a maturity issue and he would outgrow it. I said, "well, if he's killing time until he matures he can do that at home and not learn bad habits of not doing any work.". He does 2-3 hrs. of mandatory work at home on a school day. I just see disadvantages of all three situations and still agonize over the decision. I know this is more than the question asked for, but this is what knowing four IQ scores has meant to me.
