Hi Everyone,
Really need some advice on this. I have an 8th grade son who (years ago) was accelerated by six months (he was born in February) into an adademic preschool that had an age three cutoff. The preschool went through grade K and he left K having read most of the Harry Potter books (and just about everything he could get his hands on). After K, he went directly to grade 2 since in our town, half of the first graders are still learning letter sounds. Since then, he has never gotten out of first gear, except when he wants to and cares, which isn’t all the time. Since he was so happy and well adjusted, things seemed great, until now. He has off the charts EQ, has tons of friends (including girls) and is extremely extroverted in a nice way. For the first time, he is getting lousy grades (Bs in heterogenously grouped classes) because of sloppiness. His teachers are mediocre at best and think that Bs are OK (other parents are fine with that too) but this was never a problem with his older siblings since they learned on their own and got the As. He just isn’t disciplined for subjects that aren’t important to him; but grades matter on a high school transcript. We are really worried about HS because our public high school is sink or swim. All of his 8th grade teachers have recommended him for honors classes next year but given our experiences with our older children (who were very disciplined in their academics and also accelerated by a year) we feel he is just going to get dropped off the edge of the pool and sink to the bottom. So we are considering private school or private school after grade 9 (with a repeat of grade 9 to wipe the slate, since his age will hide the extra 9th grade year when he applies to college). Private schools seem to coddle the kids more and while I hate that about them, this may be the only way he can get into a good college. The nearby Catholic school is affordable and very high quality so it fits the bill (though we aren’t Catholic).
The third option is to let him take non-honors courses. In our high school, these are a waste, but he is the type of kid that learns most of what he knows on his own and he could probably get As in non honors courses. He is the kind of kid who probably would have been great 100 years ago. He is an inventor, hugely entrepreneurial (has started several resale businesses totally on his own volition that we discovered when we found his inventory) and has tons of friends. He just marches to his own beat. He’s creative and we don’t want to beat that out of him.
We don’t know what to do and are worried he’ll never get into a good college. He has seen his siblings get into good colleges and he does want the same for himself.
We have no doubts he’ll be able to hit the numbers on the SAT and SAT subject tests, but keeping the gas on his grades in a traditional public factory school is probably not going to happen given his personality.
I’d be grateful for any thoughts and perspectives from people here. I have no doubts he is going to be successful financially and personally someday, but we really want him to go to college with other intellectually curious peers and state U in our state isn’t going to give that to him. He’s also a really nice kid, always lending a hand to everyone (volunteers for chores, helps his classmates at school all the time) and is really loved by his (unfortunately mediocre) teachers.
