My 12 year old twice exceptional son has never felt like he fit in anywhere except the mixed-age musical theater group he is in where he can have high school and college aged friends and nobody thinks anything is strange about it, unlike our age segregated public school. Even there, he couldn't find anyone with similar academic interests except for music and history. At least that is better than nothing.
There are no kids like him in the public school or in our homeschool group. We live in a small town where sports ability is valued over academic ability. He can't play sports because of the mild disability.
He has always been interested in neuroscience, especially in neuroplasticity, memory, learning and alternative methods of learning. I keep telling him he will fit in when he goes to college. There are others like him, just not here in our small town.
I have never been successful at finding another kid that was interested in the things he is interested in, but I tried again about a month ago. I took him to a church. The preacher listed a bunch of symptoms like migraines, anxiety, pain, all symptoms he has and the preacher said that these symptoms were due to having a lot of anger and the only thing that would cure these symptoms was forgiveness. My son joked afterwards that maybe we just needed to cancel the neurology appointment for the migraines and instead try to figure out who he was mad at. We didn't go back.
He hates it when people in our town who haven't met him assume that he is an ignorant kid, but when he proves otherwise they look at him like he is from another planet. Actually, they look at both of us like we are from another planet.
