I really think that the whole thing is just blown out of proportion because *ALL* of our friends here are teachers or educational specialists. Random strangers on the street just assume he's an average-but-small five year-old. It doesn't help that his current obsessions include rhyming words (CURSE YOU NAME GAME SONG!) and beginning word sounds and is not quiet about his obsession. A tiny kid running the halls of the district's Central Office chanting "book look fook dook mook rook" or "b-buh-bathroom! p-puh-poop! t-tuh-toilet!" attracts attention, especially in a cloistered brain-trust of educational professionals. Everyone has an opinion. And everyone's kind of excited, in a way, because when your work is such an uphill battle just to achieve basic proficiency, a kid who's so, um, flamboyantly displaying early literacy and math skills.
Part of the reason I'm hoping he gets to go to preschool next year (a whole bunch of things need to fall into place to make it happen financially and logistically, but it's looking a bit more optimistic) is so he can broaden his experiences a little. He's been cooped up in our little house all winter because my husband and I worked opposite shifts, we only have one car, and it was too cold to take the new baby out to play. He's been in sort of a repeating loop of precocity with Daddy during the day and Mama in the evenings. Books, counting, adding, letters, conversations; I feel like his life has sort of focused in on a few things he initially found interesting, but then he just sort of defaulted to the same stuff, INTENSELY, out of boredom.
Not that I want him to be naught or un-challenged in preschool, but I do want him to, you know, have a little issue or two, and find new things to be good and not-so-good at. Hopefully not just be "that little three year-old who's reading," but "that three year-old who can read and is really interested in poisonous frogs and doesn't like to draw for some strange reason and doesn't do well with transitions and needs to stop educating classmates on the proper names for their private parts and likes nothing more than to sit on someone's lap and read a good book and thinks soccer is the coolest thing since buttered toast."
There isn't much here to plan or prepare for. Two schools, both open-enrollment, both public. Homeschooling is NOT our first choice because there is little in the way of things to do with kids during the day in this town... there's a tiny kids' room at the library and... um... the grocery stores. I'm torn on trying for early enrollment. He is not, at least as of right now, emotionally ahead of his peers. And, yeah, we have no clue where he'll fall on the various scales of giftedness/precocity/whatever.
It is hard because there's so much worrying and maybe-ing and speculating right now, but as pointed out, we really don't know much. We know he's a little different, and we know that genetics point to a high likelihood that he'll be an intelligent young man. But right now, all we can do is wait. I just need to learn to wait with a more chill attitude. I'd love to look aloof and confident and whatever when people start spouting ideas and opinions, but it'd largely be an act and I'm not a good actress. But there's also not much I can do about it, so I'd rather just relax and let him frolic out his preschool years.
I'm obviously finding it difficult to relax, hence my rambling posts.
