GS10 has been doing Destination Imagination for the last several months. One mom that I knew because she is the PTG president offered to transport him from his school to the other elementary where the team met. She was transporting her younger son for a different team. I took her up on the offer.
She found him to be extremely delightful, and amazed at his non-stop stories. She also has a son in the 8th grade who was competing in MathCounts, getting 2nd or 3rd in the district(?), and testing at the state level yesterday.
We had time to chat yesterday, and it was like chatting here. All her children are gifted and she knows the struggles they have at school. She said our middle school has been improving a lot over the last several years with the addition of gifted classes for English & math.

The other friends for GS10 are the kids on his D.I. team. They came together as mostly strangers, became great friends & a great team that won their division at the district event yesterday!
They'll all be going to the same middle school next year, and since they all came from the gifted programs at their elementary schools they'll be in the same classes next year. At least 3 of the 5 will be in band, although GS10 got an automatic skip to the next grade since he's been taking private lessons.

Oh, and GS10 gave me the top 3 reasons he loves D.I.
1. It was challenging.
2. It was fun.
3. The kids liked him for him.

OH Grandma, I'm so happy you met a parent who can relate and that your grandson has some friends for next year!

Excellent news!

bk1

Yay!

It feels good to find your people!

You know, what makes this so great is these are kids who will be GS10's classmates for the next 2-7 years; one girl will likely return to her home country, Finland in a couple years. Like GS10, I can see where they might not have fit in with the rest of their classmates. But as a group, they are so full of energy, bright & funny. I doubt they'll be picked on in middle school since they won't be singled out as much. I can see this group being prominent among the academic achievers in high school.
GS10 & I are much alike, the biggest difference is I'm an extreme introvert, he's an extreme extrovert. It's been a challenge to fill those needs for him.

Yay! Good job GS10 with the challenge yesterday!

My DS7 has his tournament next Saturday--I hope they do well. I don't think he's really getting any friend success stories out of it, though. I have only seen his team once, as I'm not the one to pick him up from practice, but I don't think any of them are particularly GT--he's just on a team with older kids! And he has his perfectionism/frustration issues with the whole DI thing, so we're just hoping every week that he makes it through without freaking about something.