Doogie Howser?

No. I doubt they would be emotionally ready to burden such responsibility even with their intellectual faculties of such high order. It would also be robbing them of socio-cultural peer groups and disconnect them from normal development. I assume it would be psychologically somewhat dysfunctional or jarring.

Rather let them be bored in school or whatnot. They can then utilise their spare time for pursuits that interest them or leasure, rather than chasing a career.

play is the work of children and how they learn


we let our child be a child
she still likes to play and is creative and artistic

know a child who is on "advanced track" by parents
the child hasn't played in years and seems like a mini adult

both same age and time will tell which parenting is best
maybe each is best for the particular child?

but I like to see kids be kids and not rushed to be an adult

No.

1. Intellectual strength does not equal emotional maturity. The kid won't be ready for adulthood that quickly.
2. Peter's Principle: the kid may be at the top of his class, now, but if you make him skip enough grades he'll eventually reach a point where he's just, "average." That equates to a lower achievement rating and not what you want.
3. Intelligence is an ability to learn, but it's still always limited by exposure to new information. You can only expect the kid to be exposed to information at a reasonable rate, beyond which greater intelligence does not help. Once you hit that ceiling where information can't be poured into the kid any faster, the only solution is more time. That's where skipping grades hinders even the brightest of kids.
4. Age discrimination: so your kid graduates from medical school with high honors at the age of nine. Do you really expect any hospital to hire a little kid? He could be the best in his field, but he will be discriminated against, by his patients/customers, if nothing else, and each new acquaintance represents a new hurdle to overcome. By the time the kid is old enough to look the part, his education will be a long time behind him, and possibly obsolete.
5. So he takes a few more years to enter the workforce. Big deal. You're only talking about a few years extra income by rushing the kid. It's not worth the trouble.
6. By not remaining with his peer group, the kid's chances of finding a spouse are greatly reduced. With it, the kid's chances of being happy in life are reduced.
7. Intelligence does not guarantee ambition.
8. Rushing the development process is well-known to cause developmental issues, even in unusually smart kids.

DZoolander said:

Would you promote that for them? Would you facilitate it? Would you let them?

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When I was in college (1973-77) there were a few prodigies there that should have been in jr high or high school. They had a very difficult time adjusting to college life; one 16 yo college senior actually died in the steam tunnels playing D&D.

I don’t think it is worth it.

I wouldn't, for all the reasons stated - kids should be kids. It's hard enough being a kid as it is.

I'm curious what your stance on the issue was.

That's a sad story. I feel for this kid.

DZoolander said:

I've always had a tendency to re-litigate issues/conversations from the past in my mind. Dunno if it's a good thing or a bad thing...lol But, it is what it is.

When I was a teenager - my parents and I used to have this one topic that we disagreed upon that for the past few months (for a variety of reasons) has come up a lot in my thoughts during downtime. Outside of my folks back then - I've never really gotten anyone else's thoughts on the issue. So, I'm curious.

Say you had a child that was Doogie-Howser-esque (in case you're not familiar with the character - it's from a show a long time ago about a prodigy child who becomes an MD at a very early age) - who had the ability to progress very rapidly through school and end up in his/her career at a very early age. Say they had the ability to just skip past middle school and high school - going straight to university after elementary school to pursue their undergraduate and post graduate work...and be an MD/JD/Physicist/whatever by the time they were 17-18 years old...would you do it?

Would you promote that for them? Would you facilitate it? Would you let them?

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If I had a prodigy as a child then I'd promote my prodigy's success as much as I could, but I'd also make sure that my little prodigy had some friends of the same age with whom to interact and develop.

In fact, in a sort of way, this is kind of what my wife and I have done since my child was recommended for advancement a year above his own age level when he was fairly young. What we did was keep him in the same grade, but we took big advantage of the various "advanced" opportunities that were offered by the public school system he was in. So, by the time he was a junior in high school he was taking actual college classes

It's difficult. My youngest child was/is off the charts with his capabilities. He's also on the spectrum (AS). When he was about 6, we tried to get him tested to enter the gifted and talented program, but he was too stressed to do the test, so we dropped it. At various points during elementary/junior he was very bored and frustrated at school. He was always a clear mile ahead of the other kids with reading, writing, math etc. We put him into a private school where classes were small and there were other opportunities for excellence. He did really well, top of class etc., until 5th grade when issues with other kids caused him so much trouble that he just about dropped out. He stopped excelling, stopped trying, basically lost all his interest. He moved onto high school, had to repeat his freshman year after his AS (along with associated anxiety) had caused him so much stress that he hardly attended. Even the accommodations weren't helping, so we put him into an online high school for a year, and then he aced his GED without even studying and was done. We now moved back to Europe and he came with us (he's 18) and he's taking classes online with a US university. This is nothing like the way I thought life would pan out for this incredibly smart kid. I mean, when I say smart, he picks up languages like you wouldn't believe - French and Spanish like a native speaker. But he won't do anything with that capability (which drives me crazy but I keep my mouth shut). This is just one child, but it's not unusual that these advanced capabilities are often combined with a 'disability' such as autism, and it's often that, rather than the youth of the individual, that causes them problems through school.

So, having been through this, I wish I had done things far differently. I wish I had stepped back and not pushed my kid into competitive things at his school, or made too much (to him) of his abilities. I think that this added to his stress, and made him feel too different, and it's hard for kids to feel so much different to their peers. While it's good to encourage kids to study and aspire (I told all of mine that they would go to university, and they all have), I believe that they should nonetheless be allowed to be kids, and that parents need to step back and let them develop in their own time, at their own pace, and not push early university on them, or a career or whatever.

BTW, I've never seen Doogie Howser. Not even a single episode.

Depends on my child's ability to cope or what I felt the Spirit saying to me......

That said, as a general answer I wouldn't likely allow them to do that. Mostly because most examples of children with careers don't seem to grow up well adjusted. (Thats not to say it will always happen..... but childhood + adult responsibility + adult level money = train wreck life it seems more often than not.)

I would encourage them to pursue it in due time, I would encourage them to learn and study the field which interested them.... but I wouldn't likely allow them to put the cart before the horse. Just cause they are blessed with the knowledge to be a doctor early on, doesn't mean that they are to put it to use immediately. Jesus was always the son of God..... but even He had an appointed time to do what the Father sent Him to do.

Some times we can destroy a good thing by using it too early