My son recently tested for the gifted program at his school, and we received his score a couple of days ago. It was pretty impressive. He scored 138 on a test that had a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16. Essentially, he scored way above 2 standard deviations, which would easily put him over the genius mark.

First, let me say that I am extremely grateful to have a son that is healthy and intelligent, and I am proud of how well he does in school. However, when the information about the gifted program first started coming home with him, I was little leery. On the one hand I want him to have all of the opportunities possible to learn and grow mentally. I believe education is necessary to have a meaningful, enjoyable life. On the other hand, I am concerned that accelerating his school work might have an adverse effect.

Right now, he loves going to school, even though he’s a bit bored with some of the lessons. In fact, he gets upset when he has to leave school early because of a doctor’s appointment or to go out of town. He has time at night to do his homework, play, go to Tae Kwon Do, and maybe watch a little TV. I fear that his acceptance into the accelerated program could start eating away at a lot of that “kid” time. I hold a contrary opinion to many of my friends and family. I believe that success is not measured by money alone, and I don’t think that college is for everyone. I would rather see my son do what HE loves than see him do what I love.

Richard Louv says in his book Last Child in the Woods that the success of our lives is not measured only by what we gain, but also by what we sacrifice for those gains (paraphrase). I truly won’t mind if my son decides not to go to college. I have a feeling that he will, but who knows. Maybe he’ll decide he wants to be a hair stylist or a mechanic and won’t need 4 years of additional school.

Update: I’ve been writing this entry on and off for several weeks, and couldn’t decide whether or not to post it. I found out this past Saturday that he did, in fact, get accepted to the gifted program. I’m really proud of him, and I hope he enjoys it. It did raise issues I was not prepared for, like feeling strange about being proud of him. This may sound ridiculous, but I’ve gotten mixed responses from telling people that he got in. I almost feel like I’m bragging or should down play it; like I’m hurting people’s feelings whose children aren’t in a gifted program.

As usual, I’m sure I’m making too much of this and should just accept my good fortune and stop over analyzing. As a great friend and mentor of mine said once, “It’s none of your business what other people think about you.”