I noticed even more similarities between my stepson who tested highly gifted as a child and my son, who has not had an IQ test, a few days ago when my stepson came over to help his dad with a computer problem.
I found out that my stepson loves history and science in addition to computers and video games that he spent so much time on when he lived with us. He watches some of the same shows on the science and history channels that we do. I listened while my stepson and his dad talked about an event in history he had recently read about and my husband knew about from having done a lot of reading about lots of different things through the years. When I listened to my stepson talk, I realized that my son talks a lot like his half brother, but it is not yet socially acceptable for my son to talk like an adult. People tend to notice my son when he talks and he knows this. He knows he is supposed to dumb down his speech and talk about football like any other good 10 year old boy to fit in, but he just wants to be free to be himself. He knows that he can only be himself around his closest friends and his family. I agree that family is very important when you are different.
My son knows that life can change in an instant. He saw it happen at age 4 when his very loving grandmother went in for routine surgery and came out with major brain damage and memory loss and dementia and could not remember him. He had a friend whose dad died suddenly. Another close friend's dad was in a car accident and was paralyzed. We drove past the accident scene right after it happened and thought there was no way anyone could have survived. His dad rides a motorcycle and we try to put it out of our minds the best we can, trying to not think about what could happen and just enjoying life as much as we can.
