duh.

me fail english? that unpossible...

I wonder if this would count as Munchausen by Proxy. She's making her kid seem abnormally smart so she can get attention but in the process driving him to suicidal thoughts and interfering with attempts to help him. Probably not, but she's still pretty farked up.

I've had this mom... lucky for me I was actually a genius.

That woman needs killin'

I'm learnding!

The kid's problem is clearly from only sleeping 2-5 hours a night. That would drive me insane. That's why I sleep in class (or just skip them completely).

You know, doctors should usually be able to figure stuff like this out. Would you trust a kid who got 800 on his SATs if he was five (or whatever)... stick him in a room away from mommy and see how he does, but for god sakes don't take his mom's word on it... my mom says I'm cool, but it might not be the case

Boxcar this thread smells like hotdogs.

I thought helping a child embiggens the smallest (wo)man?

This secret being out won't take back the ass beatings we gave this kid already.

OBB is right, thats the first thing I thought when I read this, how come he never took a test by himself?

Just wondering:

How come you never hear about what happens to child geniuses after they turn 18?

Leave it to the New York Times to broadcast an 8-year old's medical records.

They're too busy Farking.

Sheseala: They are hidding in a cave ruling our planet...


and some others...

I thought so, they're the reason why I wear this aluminum hat.

I see dead people.

Kicked in a wall at school, eh? sounds like a good start at his new edjamakatun.

Single mother and she has time to home-tutor? Smells like welfare mom to me.

"I am so smart. I am so smart. S-M-R-T, I mean S-M-A-R-T!"
-the wisdom of Homer

How old is the kid? It always speaks in past tense when any reference to age is made!

<rant>

This is the most disturbing thing I've read in a while. Fark this mom; I don't care if she was "trying to open doors for him that would otherwise have been closed." Whatever happened to letting kids be kids, gifted or not? Why can't they just run and play stickball with the rest of the neighborhood instead of taking IQ tests and speaking at public forums?

Sheseala, my theory on why you never hear about them after they turn 18 is because they realize their entire childhood is gone and it drives them insane.

</rant>

Does his cat's breath smell like cat food?

I can't believe my mom would do this to me....

What does your mom usually do to you?

Can you say burnout? This is the same thing that often happens to child actors, performers, and even child athletes. While a few can succesfully make the move when they become adults, the vast majority either get burned out or just drop off the face of the earth because they are so sick of it.

Often this has something to do with the parents, as they are so concerned in making the child into something they don't realize what they are making them into. Selling out the future for the now. That only works until then becomes now. ("When will then be now?" "Soon.")

While the intentions seem good at first, it can quickly move from doing it for the child to using the child for your selfish means. Eventually, it will catch up to them. Anyone hear from Kit Culkin lately?

Does this mean Gary Coleman is really smart?

I have a friend who graduated high school at 13, and finished college by 16. He and his father write books on contract Bridge. ya know what? He works at a Waldenbooks if you want to know what became of him.

Growing up as an avid roleplayer (go ahead, laught it up, but most of you are/were too!) Myself and many of my friends were intellectual types and finished school early. Thing is, this only seems to be an issue during school age years. people of this nature take to school very well, and have incredible retention. Once out of school (or while in a poor school system) there is no drive to further their learning and absorption o knowledge.

If pushed, they become social misfits.....

I abhor what this mother has done. My son is incredibly gifted, but his butt will go to public school like everyone else. He will skip one grade at most. Sure, i push him at home, but only as long as he finds it fun. At age 5 he figures out problems on the computer, gets around my passwords, installs his games, and then even uninstalls them before i get home so i wont notice. if the little punk woudl take the CD out of the drive i may never notice, but i better not tell him about this oversight.

My daughter is not nearly as quick in these matters. yeah, it's hard for a parent, especially when one kid is vastly different than another, or maybe when you only have one and have no perspective of child development. But the bottom line is put the child(ren) first. period.

If she can't learn this she does not deserve to be a parent and her son should not return to her sole care.

I3ullseye: Ditto. Mom's leaving vicariously through the boy, and ironically looking really dumb in the process.

this is why all tests are inherently lame. My old psych professor has an IQ as high as that kids was proported to be. But thats only because he helped write the test. All those kids getting better and better SAT grades... its only because they study the test so much that it is rendered usless. I say ditch high-school and college as the norm and just teach vocational skills! Well.. maybe not.

Having been in about the same position as this kid @ a couple times in my life (but legally), I can understand why he feels how he feels... child geniuses get the hell beaten out of them before they become adults, thats why we are so screwed up as a group... no-one accepts what is true and right to accept... and hurts the child.

There needs to be balance. Gifted kids should be pushed and challenged, but not to the point where school is all they know and/or they get sick of it. Learning how to be talented AND a decent human being is far more valuable. Because one day the talent well might run dry, and then you can't just rely on your talent supporting you.

This world is very competitive, so much so that we are killing our kids in order to get them ahead. (How's that for irony.)

"Son, you're going to be the best or die trying."
"What if I burn out and become a psycho?"
"That'll work too."

The article didn't even establish whether the kid was actually gifted though... He never wrote the SAT, his mom did 11/13th of an IQ test for a 3-year old for him, and he memorized the answers for another IQ test. In fact, the only test that was done objectively showed that he had average intellect, but it got farked because he had a hissy-fit. Furthermore, all his assignments were done through email, so ANYONE *cough*mother*cough* could've written them... So the kid showed "poise and confidence" and "passion" when talking about intelligence... big deal! Ask my 8 year-old cousin to talk to you about dinosaurs and you'll see the same thing... I just feel bad for the kid because his life is turning out to be a crock of shiat.

Foodbunny, I think you hit it. Not Munchausen-by-proxy specifically, but something like it....faking her son's ubergeniusness to make herself special, sucking up his fame and accolades.

The sad thing is that the poor kid apparently IS very gifted, but that wasn't good enough for Psychomommy. She pushed him and forced him to lie until he had a nervous breakdown.

And when her son was getting help for his emotional problems, she actively tried to fark that up rather than have her lies be revealed.

I spent a year in a magnet school with kids like this one. Their parents pushed them so hard that they refused to talk to anyone else because friends might be a distraction. One couple had three kids that they played against one another. If one made a higher grade, they got a reward while the other two got punishments. It was terrible to watch.

Even though the tests pegged me pretty high, I didn't want any of that crap. I insisted on going to a public high school and a state university because I didn't want to be surrounded by burnt out child prodigies any longer. I'm a lot happier for it. So are my parents. I feel sorry for this poor kid.

The fact is *nobody* has an IQ in the 298 + range. That Vos Savant woman is supposed to have the highest ever, and
hers is 210. If you had a 298, I think you would go completely nuts having to put up with the normal stupidity
of everyday life, and wind up killing a few thousand people with the small incendiary device you build in the kitchen while your Mom was at work, because they all deserve to die, because they won't stop being so damn stupid, the assholes...

Well, anyway, that's just a guess...

Besides, you won't get laid if you are 12 and in college.

Munchausen by proxy? Someone's been watching X-Files...

I want to know how these little 10 and 12 year olds handle college anyway. There is supposed to be a 10-year-old at my campus. It's rough enough for some sheltered 18-year-olds to adjust to living on their own and dealing with campus life. But how does a kid do this? Do they just have their parents drive them to class? I can't imagine a kid that young living in a dorm.

And just to throw this out: has anyone noticed that about once a year we hear about some young boy who has scored a perfect ACT/SAT/whatever score and is going to college? It is always a boy and then nothing is ever heard from him again. Conspiracy maybe?

Henry Kissinger got perfect on his SATs...

"hey, aren't you quiz kid donnie smith?"

Isn't it funny how everyone on FARK is suddenly a genius?

this and similar crap happens all the time; "parents know their children best" and school psychologists and other education PhD and EdD types can be dumb as posts...
can't tell if a kid is mildly retarded, learning disabled, gifted, emotionally disturbed, just lazy, hyperactive, behavioral disordered but we keep acting like we can.
Usually you have to be way off the charts for there to be any certainty but it took a while for the "experts" to question this poor kid.

I think the fact that he tried to kill himself with Motrin was a dead giveaway...

The thing that keeps coming up is the idea of Munchausen by proxy, and in this case I would have to agree with that sentiment. It's probably considered a form of it, but instead of killing your kid by making him sick all the time so you can get all the attention, you're driving him to kill himself because you're pushing him to be something that you want him to be.

When I was in the hospital for bipolar disorder, the doctors didn't give me a formal IQ test, but from listening to me talk they guessed it was probably around 110, slightly above average. When I took an IQ test online, my IQ registered around the 130s. Now I don't trust those results, mostly because to me it was just an example of an IQ test, as there are really no perfect ones out there. Each test is different and will give you different results no matter how many times you take it.

I don't watch X-Files, I just happen to know a bit about Munchausen by Proxy. When I was visiting my cousin after surgery at the children's hospital I happened to overhear a couple of nurses talking about it in the cafeteria and decided to find out more about it.

worlds smartest kid + mother who admits certain things =
very familiar tv family except mother is more of a biatch