Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy parenting an outlier - moment of panic

polarbear: "but my first thought when I read your OP was - you must not be a scientist"

LOL! For sure, I am not a scientist! If there were such a thing as an anti-scientist, I would be it. Although I do understand the scientific method and what makes a good research study (really I do!), by no means is science my strength. Although my parents were both engineers, my siblings are engineers and actually 2 grandparents were engineers. That whole gene skipped me or was never expressed.

"it sounds like your thoughts were headed in the direction many folks' thoughts default to for kids who are good at science: accelerate in math, and look to Lego League"

The math acceleration is driven completely by DS. If he could have things his way, he would accelerate everything as fast as he can. He is one of those "rage to learn" kids that many of us have. If knowledge and analysis could be served to him intravenously, he would sign up for it. To give an example, at public school he was learning a foreign language one day a week. DS asked if he could go 5 days a week and just join the upper classes and "pick it up" while he was there. This is not even a strength of his! He just wants to master this particular foreign language because he wants to do it. It's interesting to him.

DS really is like his dad. I've mentioned before on here that DH was accelerated 4 years when he was in school and had his Ph.D. in a STEM field by 22. At around the same time, DH actually almost qualified for an Olympic team (one of those not-really-followed sports). Then he took up another language - just for the heck of it - and became fluent in no time. Ten years after shooting to the top of his field and teaching at one of those fancy universities, DH went back for another doctorate - just because he was "really interested" in this other topic. (The next doctoral degree is in a non STEM field.) DH and DS have the same "rage to learn". They are both people who gobble up life and learning and see no point in learning something unless you can really master it. (If any of you have spouses like this, it is both exciting and exhausting beyond belief sometimes.)

Anyway, the first Lego league was actually a suggestion that I got here. I didn't really know anything about it until I got here. My philosophy with regard to educating my children is definitely to let them lead the way. So, right now DS has an extreme passion to create and build. I'm just trying to find and facilitate things for him to meet his needs. (And I am also open to more suggestions as to how to do this!)

Thanks polarbear for your input! It is much appreciated.

And I will add, with regard to my DH, it is rather annoying to be married to someone who can master seemingly any topic in no time. When I met DH, I was working hard at my 2nd master's degree (I was also changing careers.) There I was chugging along, working hard and doing well. DH shows up working on his second doctorate, not breaking a sweat too much, training for a marathon, working on becoming a Go master, taking cooking classes in his spare time and writing a short story in a foreign language for fun. He is good at everything. He's one of those people.

But I do love him. :-)

I'm getting off topic.

Oh--I had another idea. I totally understand what you mean about your DS and DH, by the way. DD is very much like your DH, it sounds... and our entire household operates a lot like that, in fact. We all do a million things, most of them frighteningly well with impossibly short learning curves.

Anyway-- my idea is to hunt down some "science fair experiments for pennies" books. I have a few of these that I picked up on clearance tables over the years. Now, the reason that I love them is that they tend to be aimed squarely at the demographic/needs of MG kids in grades 2-7, thereabouts. The dexterity expectations and safety level are about right, mostly it's household items (nothing special or arcane, mostly), and a LOT of it actually works the way it is supposed to.

But what is even BETTER is that there are usually blurbs explaining the "why" of it briefly, but then where the real action is for PG elementary kids is in figuring out how to set it up to TEST the "explanation" as a hypothesis... and how to tweak the set-up on those that do not work as advertised/instructed.

We've gotten a LOT of mileage out of those books.

DH bought DS an arduino starter kit for his 8th birthday a couple weeks ago. We've had a revolving door of visitors since then so he hasn't been able to start and I don't know much about it since it was DH's idea but perhaps it might be of interest. DS is beyond excited to get started with it. He is very math/science focused as well and has an insatiable thirst. He lives and dreams about designing robots....

http://www.arduino.cc/

I also recently came across a local Maker Junior group that we're going to try to check out soon. They have a few groups in various cities so maybe there is something close to you -
http://makerjunior.com/


Now off to search for some science fair experiments for pennies books - sounds awesome!

Ah! I wonder if this is the case with this particular teacher that started my post here. I wonder if the teacher doesn't realize exactly where DS is at with regard to his math level.

[quote=arlen1}

(If you are interested, I can mention a few 'gentle introduction' computer science books too.) [/quote]

Yes, I would love the suggestions!

We are using EPGY. He is fine with it. He complains that it is too slow and repetitive (which is why we went ahead and had him test out of 6th grade math - pre algebra is more tolerable to him).

Not sure what to do about algebra yet. He really would like a class - either online or in person. I looked at AOPS and the times of the classes are all awful for him. He does attend the regular and "fun" classes at EPGY and loves them. I wasn't thinking that we would stick with EPGY for algebra, but maybe we will.

Or maybe we will just take a break for 6 months and think about it later!

This is very helpful to me. Thank you! Since I figured out last year that there is no clearly defined worn path for kids like my DS, I am ALWAYS open to others' experiences and trying them out for my kids, if I think it might work.

I will try this out too. Though we have done some experiments, we haven't done what you have suggested regarding testing the "explanation". Fortunately I have a superb used bookstore near me. Thanks so much HK!

Such great responses and support here. Thanks so much to everyone who has responded and please keep the responses coming. I so wish I could invite many of you over and we could chat in real life. Though I live in a great place, in some ways it can be lonely with regard to dealing with issues around raising children who are like ours.

If I happen to see my son's teacher again, I will follow up with him to get some clarification about his statements. I won't go out of my way though.

We have been soooo lucky with this camp. Though the bar is relatively low to be admitted, 3 out of the 4 teachers that my son has had at this camp have been great. They recognize his passions and his gifts and work with him accordingly. They not only accept him for who he is but they encourage him to grow. This is probably the most important part of the experience for him. It's really the first place where he has had grown ups (aside from his parents and preschool teachers) who are appropriately positive with him and do what they can to meet his needs. I think we may get one more year out of this camp.