This is a topic that I can say a decent amount about. I was recognized as "gifted" in the 1st or 2nd grade and had the option to be placed in a Magnet school, but my parents were afraid that it would effect me negatively and opted to keep me in traditional school. Elementary school was a breeze for me and I never had a lot of friends; generally speaking I was a little more mature than everyone else around me. Our gifted program was literally only two students and I was not chosen as one of them, which meant I stayed in the traditional program and put ZERO effort into any of my work. In middle and high school, I was placed in gifted classes, but still put zero effort into my classes. I got good grades, but I was bored out of my mind. I participated in my first gifted program, a summer camp, between my 7th and 8th grade years. It changed my life: I had no idea that there were so many people LIKE ME. The 3 weeks a year I spent there (VAMPY) were the best part of my year. During my sophomore year, after being told repeatedly for no reason that I couldn't skip high school courses, I applied for and was accepted into an early-entrance-to-coll ege program; I skipped my junior and senior years of high school and went straight into college (that program was the Missouri Academy of Science, Mathematics, and Computing).
One of the worst things about not being in a gifted program while I was younger was that my Academic expectations were very low. I never really learned anything and I had no idea how to study until a few years ago (I'm 21 years old). I didn't learn to put effort into my classes because I simply never had to. I work for MASMC now and it's a common complaint I hear: students who get in to college and just don't KNOW how to put effort in to their classes. It sounds like an easy thing; most people get it--but many gifted students do not.
While I always did well in school, my story isn't the only one. Many gifted students give up hope in school and do the exact opposite: they stop going to class and fail out or get their GED two years in because it bores them out of their mind and they can't stand going to school. They find that their classmates are idiots (in their minds), that the classes are slow and repetitive, and that their teachers are poorly informed. This mindset is even more common in males than females and I know a number of gifted male students who did VERY poorly in high school despite having exceptional exam scores, just because they couldn't bring themselves to care.
So I guess in the end, my advice is to not worry about it: if you truly believe you have a gifted child, trust me... He can handle it. And he'll thank you later. While I'm most experienced with gifted programs for high-schoolers, if you ever want any help or advice finding programs, feel free to shoot me a message!
