Dear SFParent,
I've been through this 4 times, with each of my sons. My husband is very adamant about not revealing IQs (although I was very tempted once with one son to show the diagnostic report to "prove" to him that he was extremely gifted in math, in hopes of stopping him from disliking it...but refrained). They know they have high IQs because of the special program they are in at school. One neighbor boy came over as soon as we moved in and said, "Hi, I'm Michael, and I'm gifted. I have an IQ of 134." That was even before our kids were school-age, and we knew we didn't want our kids to ever know that much. I have also been repulsed by other kids in their class bragging that they don't have to follow the rules because they're in the PEGS class. I repeatedly tell my kids I better never hear them bragging or thinking they're better than others. They are differently abled, almost like handicapped children--and I use that comparison with them. It's not how smart you are, it's what you do with it. All of those cliches. I do tell them my expectations...that I know they're smart and therefore they cannot accept poor grades, laziness, etc. We have an ongoing dialog about how I can help them develop their interests/learn, we me offering up summer institute, distance learning classes, above-level testing opportunities, magazine subscriptions, speakers, etc. I talk to my oldest son (12 and in 8th grade) about how he envisions high school should be for him, whether he'd like to skip another grade, extra-curricular activities, mentorships, etc. I talked to my youngest son (4, in 1st grade) about skipping kindergarten, not because he's better than other kids, but that he has learned that material already.
I think keeping an open dialog with your child is healthy and makes him/her a stakeholder in educational choices. One of my sons flatly refused homeschooling, which I offered when he was 7 and doing algebra. Instead, we came up with other ideas to address his math abilities (ALEKS math program, Accelerated math, and other supplements) which I negotiated to have his school adopt and now his whole class benefits.
