I recently got in touch with a few people I knew when I was going through K-12. These contacts got me thinking about an idea that I haven't seen discussed here.

I've been thinking about the continuity that I had in going through my childhood with the same people. I was fortunate to grow up in a small town with only one school for K-12. We moved to another state when I was close to 17.

I often think about the loss of continuity that occurs when moving to a new school in a place that's distant from the old one. It weighed on me at 17 and again when we moved DS8 from a bilingual school that offered a grade skip to one that groups by ability.

We discovered an after-school program that teaches the second language. Happily, DS8's best friend from the first school goes there, as do a couple other of his old classmates who also left the first school. One of his old teachers is also there. So this provides continuity and my son doesn't feel cut off.

Then I got to thinking about radical grade accleration and kids who finish high school very early. I wonder, what do they lose when they don't have the experience of growing up with the same group of people? Do they lose out on going through non-academic experiences with a group of people they've known for a long time? People who move frequently face this problem, but most of them are at least with age/academic peers.

I've been asking myself, if kids start college when they're way too young to socialize with college kids, what do they lose socially? By "start college," I don't mean "take a class or two." I mean, go full time.

I know, I know: HG+ kids have minds that race ahead. Yet it's undeniable that a 13/14 year old just can't fully socialize with people who can drive, live with a member of the opposite sex, and get drunk/barf on Friday night. Sometimes as a kid, it's good to go through certain experiences with people who are within a couple years or so of your own age, know what I mean?

A place like the Davidson Academy (DA) solves this problem by providing students with an age-peer group in an environment where it's possible to take college and graduate level courses, yet also hang out with other people who can't wait to take Driver's Ed. Some DA students will spend many years there, and twenty or more years from now, they'll have reunions or whatever with their former "classmates" and laugh about the time that we slipped in the mud on that really rainy day, or that secret crush we had on so-and-so, or that time when...how wonderful!

But the DA can only take so many students, and only so many families can move to Reno.

I expect that the kids adapt, and the adage "you can't miss what you never had" applies here, at least in part. But I know what my DS8 might miss, and it bothers me. We're hoping to address the problem by sending him to a local middle/high school for gifted kids. But again, how many GT schools are out there? And regardless, I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of sending him to college --- even a community college --- full time when he's <16.

This issue, if indeed it is one, is a manifestation of how truly different HG+ kids are. Unlike, for example, HG+ sprinters, high IQers don't have an obvious visible trait that makes their abilities apparent. I mean, sure, they can read and do math and all, but the activity that drives this stuff is invisible, and the manifestations aren't always accessible or even apparent to others.

So I guess I'm spending some time pondering this idea. One approach I'm thinking of is "let him race ahead in one or two subjects he really likes, and move at a slower pace in the others."

I guess I also don't want to create a person who thinks he always has to be ahead, must get an A on every exam, must get a PhD and must be the youngest guy getting a PhD, etc. I'm looking for balance here. I grew into being a driven/overachiever-type, and feel that I'm much better able to cope with it now than I would have been at 16. Now, I'm driven and I understand exactly why, which I like and which helps me frame goals.

Okay, I will stop. It's late and this message is really long! Your thoughts are WELCOME!

Val