Another candidate?

I will be posting pictures this weekend of our past few adventures and events....it has been a busy month, with school starting...Ben's birthday and daycare starting up again!

Paige is doing really well in her new school. The gifted program (aka Venture Program) is the perfect fit for her. Every week for the next seven weeks they are studying Leonardo Da Vinci's 'Seven Principles To Thinking Like A Genius'. She has totally skipped 4th grade math and been put into 5th grade math. Her spelling tests are actually tests that are given on College Entrance exams! So she is being challenged...and like all challenges it has a period of adjustment. She is used to sitting down to do her homework in five minutes flat with no brain power...now she is spending a half hour or more each night and having to flex that brain muscle of hers...but she is loving it...and LOVES, with a capital L, her teacher, Mrs. Jones.

Ben is doing VERY well in second grade....and in fact, last week was tested in reading. His level? 5th grade! His math skills are OFF the charts for a second grader (ok..so in first grade he was asking his teacher if they could use negative numbers in math, so you can imagine what he is like this year! hehe). He is a bright little boy who is as curious as his older sister...

Sam is doing well also in his last year of high school- Yup...he GRADUATES this year! Yikes! He too is very smart (AP Japanese and VERY VERY fluent).

Katie too is one smart cookie...always was...she could read before she was in Kindergarden and was always asking when it would get harder! hehe....

Now my brother is a genius (literally!)....Mark is a sonar tech on a nuclear submarine....so how much of these four kids 'brains' is genetic? How much of it is nurture and environment? All four kids could read to some degree (or read well in the case of the two girls) before they hit kindergarden. We have always talked to our kids in 'grown up terms'. Never 'dumbing down' what ideas we were trying to get across. If the kids didn't know what a word meant, we would not only give them the definition, but we'd give them several other words they could use in place of. When they wanted to learn something, we'd teach them. For example, when Ben was interested in angles this summer, Mark bought him a compass and protractor and taught him all about angles (thank God he did, because as most of you know math is NOT my forte...ok..not even ON the list of things I can do! hahaha).

So I wonder...as Ben becomes obviously more and more the next candidate for the gifted program...how much of this is fluke? Can we as proud parents take any credit? Four kids...two different fathers...a whole range of genetic possibilities...and yet all four show amazing talents in different areas....Yes...Shelby is smart...but she has to work for her grades....and last year started finding subjects that she couldn't just ace...she had to struggle for that C. And NO, I am NOT intimating that it is ME that is the common thread here...Yes, I am smart. Yes, I have a keen legal mind..and Yes, I can verbally spar with the best of them...but math? Forget about it. Drawing? HA. Good one..stick men come out looking like well...not like stick men. I am talking about four kids who can pretty much master anything they attempt...Paige and Ben especially so...and with EASE. That is what gets me...the EASE with which those two can do things....

So.....just some rambling out loud about my kids brains...I want them to be kids. I want them to enjoy a carefree, stressfree childhood as much as possible. I do not want to push them too far. But at the same time, I don't want to let them stagnate either. So it is a fine line we walk in getting them the education they deserve, while not being too pushy. I don't want to do that. I have always let the kids lead the way in showing us just how much they need..and how much to let go....

Ahhhh...parenthood....it's never an easy road is it??

Hugs to all,
Jaye