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I am not an expert but have taught a few kids in that IQ range and kept in touch with them. The oldest has recently graduated from college. They can all learn

I am not an expert but have taught a few kids in that IQ range and kept in touch with them. The oldest has recently graduated from college. They can all learn school subjects with such ease that most schools fail to challenge them. A potential pitfall is the lack of practice for patience and perseverance in order to achieve. They just achieved many accolades with only a bit of effort. The ones that kept being challenged by intellectually interesting environment tend to do better. Also, communications with average students could become quite boring for them. The interests and intellectual gaps tend to grow larger as they grow older. This may hinder their social development somewhat. So I believe and also read that it might be better to put them in gifted classes (usually for 130+ IQ kids, which can still be too easy for your child) and possibly even skip a couple of grades [1] to allow them to socialize with intellectual peers. Having interactions with average people is certainly useful but also socialization with their intellectual peers. [1] With comments below and some more thought, it might be better to take gifted classes and skip at most just one grade, and if the classes are still too easy, focus his mental energy on extracurricular challenging and meaningful projects Example of a worthwhile project I recently read about: A 14-year-old girl is building AI/software to help Alzheimer's patients recognize their loved ones: https://www.fastcompany.com/40519094/a-14-year-old-made-an-app-to-help-alzheimers-patients-recognize-their-loved-ones https://www.fastcompany.com/40519094/a-14-year-old-made-an-a...

dang 9y ago
FWIW, I skipped a couple grades but that didn't help me socialize with intellectual peers, it just hindered me from socializing with regular peers. The kind of socialization you're talking about didn't happen until college. Looking back now, what I'd do with such a kid is acknowledge what they're good at, then get them working on things they're not so good at. Nobody's good at everything, and the experience of getting frustrated and getting through it is valuable.
nicolas_t 9y ago
I would not recommend skipping too many grades. It's easy for a kid to feel alienated when he's 2-3 years younger than everyone else. It's much better for the kid to be in gifted class where he can bound with kids who are around the same age range while being intellectual peers. Another thing that helps is to send the kid a semester in a different country in a host family with a kid his age where he learns the language by going to classes with the kid there. It's a good challenge for the kid and helps him not to be so bored with the ease of everything.
megaman22 9y ago
One of the things that I'm most grateful to my parents about is that they refused to skip me ahead any grades in school. That was on the table, and they turned it down. It wouldn't have done me any favors socially, and would have been a disaster for my athletic career. And if there's a place for learning hard work and perseverance, particularly for the intellectually gifted, sport is the place for it. IQ might make the cerebral aspects of the game easier, but it's no substitute for getting in the gym and working, taking the thousands of shots, practicing the footwork and other techniques until they are baked into muscle memory, and learning to push yourself further when you think your tank is empty. Essentially my parents just worked out an arrangement with my teachers to let me do my work as quickly as I was able, and then not give me any shit about reading afterwards. The only issue was a particularly dense teacher that was perplexed why I showed no improvement on the standardized achievement tests... I'd maxed out the reading comprehension level on the test the previous year, so there was nowhere up to go...

dang 9y ago

FWIW, I skipped a couple grades but that didn't help me socialize with intellectual peers, it just hindered me from socializing with regular peers. The kind of socialization you're talking about didn't happen until college. Looking back now, what I'd do with such a kid is acknowledge what they're good at, then get them working on things they're not so good at. Nobody's good at everything, and the experience of getting frustrated and getting through it is valuable.

nicolas_t 9y ago

I would not recommend skipping too many grades. It's easy for a kid to feel alienated when he's 2-3 years younger than everyone else. It's much better for the kid to be in gifted class where he can bound with kids who are around the same age range while being intellectual peers. Another thing that helps is to send the kid a semester in a different country in a host family with a kid his age where he learns the language by going to classes with the kid there. It's a good challenge for the kid and helps him not to be so bored with the ease of everything.

megaman22 9y ago

One of the things that I'm most grateful to my parents about is that they refused to skip me ahead any grades in school. That was on the table, and they turned it down. It wouldn't have done me any favors socially, and would have been a disaster for my athletic career. And if there's a place for learning hard work and perseverance, particularly for the intellectually gifted, sport is the place for it. IQ might make the cerebral aspects of the game easier, but it's no substitute for getting in the gym and working, taking the thousands of shots, practicing the footwork and other techniques until they are baked into muscle memory, and learning to push yourself further when you think your tank is empty. Essentially my parents just worked out an arrangement with my teachers to let me do my work as quickly as I was able, and then not give me any shit about reading afterwards. The only issue was a particularly dense teacher that was perplexed why I showed no improvement on the standardized achievement tests... I'd maxed out the reading comprehension level on the test the previous year, so there was nowhere up to go...