
Ask HN: Talented kid: what to do? - mudil
I am looking for ideas on what to do with my cousin&#x27;s 8 year old (clearly gifted) kid. Ideas for pathways, scholarships, online courses, etc.<p>When Simon comes back from school, he entertains himself with math problems, and also creates for himself math problems and solves them. He&#x27;s been moved to 6th grade algebra in school. He is a good reader. His other idea of fun is to play classical music on piano and compose new pieces. He is not socially awkward either: he just gets bored with most kids of his age, but enjoys smart kids and plays with them well. They live in Chicago.<p>His IQ been tested at 148 (very superior). Here&#x27;s photo of his IQ report:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;2nznub4x5d61ra4q12fyu67t-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2016&#x2F;08&#x2F;IQ-1.jpg<p>Any ideas appreciated! Thanks.
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mswen
Math - Khan Academy has it mapped out all the way to calculus - Simon can go
as fast and far as he wants if that approach interests him.

Music - I assume he is taking lessons - keep doing that and maybe get him
exposed to someone that teaches music theory and composition as well as piano.
Or, just encourage him to continue on his own in music. Not everything has to
be turned into 'school'.

Make sure he has access to lots of good books. Take him on trips to a well
stocked library and introduce him to various non-fiction sections. In pre-
internet days, when I was a kid, I got to the point where my mom would take me
to the public library once a week and I would come home with a stack of 5 to
10 books (majority fiction, but not all of them) and I would have read them
all by the next week. My reading addiction was helped by the fact that my
parents decided not to have television in the house until us kids moved away
as young adults (oh the abuse we suffered! Maybe not.)

Make sure he has his own computer and access to the internet. Introduce him to
Wikipedia.

If he has an interest in programming help him get over the starting gate by
setting up his environment and walking him through some first lessons then
take a more back seat and let him go.

Academically - try to get him situated in a school that has some experience
working with gifted children.

~~~
ahazred8ta
Mensa. The bigger the city, the better their youth resources are.
[http://chicago.us.mensa.org/kids/gifted_kids.php](http://chicago.us.mensa.org/kids/gifted_kids.php)

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closed
There have already been some good suggestions on programs / things to keep him
busy, so I thought I'd throw in some things to consider when encouraging a
smart kid.

While it's often tempting to praise a kid when they do something right by
telling them they're smart, it can detract from the critical notion that
success comes from meaningful practice. Some psychologists have made an
interesting case for focusing on praising the work that they have put in.
Smart kids may be at risk for overestimating the role intelligence plays in
learning, and thereby be more fragile when encountering failure.

This article gives an overview:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/06/the-
s-w...](http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/06/the-s-
word/397205/)

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SmellTheGlove
Lots of good suggestions here, but don't forget to offer up some challenges
not related to the whole intelligence thing, at least not directly. Offer up
some good fiction - maybe scifi is a good place to start. I was thinking
Asimov, but there are many good authors in there. Throw on some Star Trek,
SG-1, whatever. That's all good stuff for creativity, because it's nice to
think about what's possible. Smart kids get taught a lot of stuff, but
creativity is sometimes overlooked (although I don't suggest that in this
case, given the music aspect).

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Taylor_OD
If he is in Chicago its worth targeting IMSA for junior and senior year of
high school.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Mathematics_and_Scien...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Mathematics_and_Science_Academy)

~~~
mudil
Actually, he's been admitted there and he is going next year. They received
50% off scholarship, but for my cousin it's still kinda daunting. But he is
going!

~~~
belomoina
Actually, it's Science and Arts Academy

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partycoder
Astronomy. Get a telescope, join a meetup.

Programming. Make simple games in a language like Python.

Electronics. Start off a kit like snap circuits, then try to visit your local
makerspace.

The game of Go. There is software for learning it, clubs (offline), as well as
online teachers. The AGA keeps a list. Might also want to try Chess, but I
prefer Go.

------
zzzyyyxxx
"Governing a large country is like frying a small fish. You spoil it with too
much poking."

\-
[http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/taote-v3.h...](http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html)

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lazyant
Expose him to new things, (including non-academic stuff or things he may not
like initially such as sports) and get out of the way. Stress work and
practice vs talent (see "the curse of the gifted").

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pmiller2
All I have to say is that it will probably work best to encourage and support
rather than push him too hard. I see down thread he's going to high school
next year; I wouldn't automatically shove him off to college after graduation.
It can be really lonely at a big school when one is 6+ years younger than
everyone else. He might be a candidate for unschooling.

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colanderman
Reference books for whatever he's interested in. With that age, intellect, and
drive, he will eat them up. Also support his interests even if he moves on
easily.

Unlike others I don't think he will benefit from enrichment programs much.
Even in talented-youth programs (e.g. CTY, where I've taught) teachers will
find it difficult to challenge him, and it sounds like he is already self-
motivated.

\----

EDIT now that I have a keyboard, to expound on the teacher thing: I've been on
both the giving and receiving sides of talented-youth education. The problem
for students with such high IQs is not that teachers don't _know_ things they
don't (they certainly do), but that teachers often have no experience with
correcting the mental models & processes such intelligent children develop.

E.g. when I was young, I developed (incorrect) "folk" theories as to how
capacitors worked, or the meaning of dividing one by zero, etc. In both cases
I was wrong, and teachers _told_ me I was wrong, but they couldn't explain
_why_ I was wrong (and hence correct my underlying misconceptions). It wasn't
until college that I would encounter instructors who had such a profound grasp
of the subject that they could deconstruct my folk theories. (Not that my
theories were deep; just that my misunderstandings were deeply rooted.)

On the flip side, during the years I was a teacher/tutor, I met maybe 2-3
students whom I could tell right away I couldn't help. I could have told them
things they didn't know, sure, but not anything they couldn't have read from a
book. There were no flaws in their reasoning skills that I was capable of
understanding, let alone fixing.

To be a truly effective teacher for a highly inquisitive mind, you have to be
at _least_ as intelligent, _and_ more knowledgable than the student. For
someone so smart as your second cousin, it will be a very tough find.

\----

EDIT2: Academics aside, here is something cynical. If your family is not
upper-class, and you are primarily concerned with the kid's _success_ rather
than straight-up smarts, find a friend who is upper-class and have the kid
hang out with them. As someone with a middle-class upbringing, as I've entered
my 30s I've come to realize how tangible class is in terms of networking and
"getting ahead in life" (if that's what you're into). You can switch class
with a lot of work by being very good at what you do, but it's a lot easier if
you already "fit in" with the upper class because that stuff rubbed off on you
when you were young. (Again, I recognize this is somewhat cynical and others
probably have very different ideas.)

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chris_va
I would recommend looking at these programs:

[http://cty.jhu.edu/](http://cty.jhu.edu/)

~~~
colanderman
Yep I've taught at CTY. Might not be challenging for IQ 148 though. (I say
this as estimated 140+.) Also $$$. (Was invited to attend when I was younger
but parents couldn't afford it. Usually classes have 1 public school student
to 13 private.)

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babyrainbow
> what to do?

Treat him/her as a normal kid.

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tmaly
how about putting him in touch with the real life Scorpion
[http://www.scorpioncomputerservices.com/](http://www.scorpioncomputerservices.com/)
He sounds like the type of person they look for.

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PirateJack
He should work for Snapchat and design the next app that makes the world a
better place.

~~~
belomoina
He's determined to find a cure for cancer

