I think it strongly depends upon the kid, honestly-- at least in the specifics, it does.
What I saw most pointedly when we homeschooled in much the way that Madoosa describes is that my DD (headstrong is an understatement) figured out that she could simply REFUSE to do anything that wasn't easy and pleasant and already at "expert" level. If she wasn't instantly "good at" whatever it was-- she refused to try it ever thereafter, using every passive resistance trick in the book.
That's okay when they are 3-7yo, but as another poster noted, being entirely autonomous and refusing to, say... learn any new math concepts, or practice written expression... well, that's not so cool.
Unfortunately, HG+ kids are highly inventive in using their astonishing academic STRENGTHS to mitigate and skirt those areas which are not such extreme strengths.
This is precisely what my DD did when we homeschooled. Not having anyone but me telling her "you need to learn how to do this thing" was simply not motivation enough to even TRY. We were pretty inventive about finding ways to make learning interesting and fun, btw-- it wasn't that we weren't providing the right kinds of challenges or opportunities, so much as that she so strongly preferred to TALK and to READ that she simply turned her nose up at anything else. In fact, she was quite defiant about the fact that she simply wasn't going to do those things. At all.
Thanks for the reply. This sounds a lot like my son. I feel like we're constantly doing a dance and I'm trying to figure out, "Is he pitching a fit because it's too easy or too hard?"
