Well OK, I don't envy the people who were pushed excessively. But I think I would liked to have been pushed a little.

"What did I just say?" out of reflex.

That's hysterical, Robin.

I had dogs first, so I got good with the Voice of Authority routine with them and it works on kids too.

I try to say, "Oh, right, that's so you can do X." to illustrate the depth and wonder of my understanding (or lack thereof). But I dunno how you work that out to extend to, "Oh, yes, now I understand how to open Pagemaker, thank you O brilliant one without whom I should surely have perished here in my cubicle, alone."

I am Emily, in the two years early and the would have flown into a homicidal rage if I'd had to stay in high school one more minute. Particularly if I'd had to stay knowing I had all my credits a year ago.

For me, I started a year early, then skipped my junior year. I'd miscalculated, because when my family was moving and evaluating schools, I paid attention to the middle school which was marvelous, but not to the high school (which I thought was my sister's realm). Instead, I sat in the principal's office and wrote a play about drug addiction in which the putative drug was some sort of red liquid you could inject. I don't know. I clearly did not have extensive experience in this area.

Sadly, I also therefore did not notice that the high school was not anywhere close to as challenging, dynamic and interesting as the middle school was. So I went, had a great couple of years in middle school, had a phenomenal English teacher in high school and everything else was a total loss. I might as well have been swinging from the rafters.

Leaving was totally the best thing I ever could have done, and I did much better in college where I was challenged and allowed to participate in discourse.

You know, until I met the hot guy and bailed.

All that is to say, it is very sad. Prodigy I was not, but I certainly can understand the alienation and rejection inherent in the situation. I was suicidal for a lot of that time, and I feel lucky to have made it out alive.

The schools I went to would have loved prodigies. You could get teased for shunning human contact for academic pursuits, but even then, only lightly. No one got shunned for taking a gazillion classes, or taking O levels on their own time, or anything.

And dear lord, the teachers would have feted the hell out of you.

tommy -- I think the "excessively" is something you can't tell without it happening -- my parents pushed me what I consider to have been an excessive amount, but, then, they weren't perfect and neither was I. I'd have been bitching about something.

There was that one fun year when I made friends with the local bad boy, the one kicked out of the "city" school for knifing someone, just before my parents managed to warn me about him. Too late! Already buddies!

That was a good year. He was a good friend. Wonder what happened to him.

Well the teachers loved me, but there's a point beyond which it's not fun or helpful. One teacher wanted to have long discussions with me about Joyce, in response to papers I totally blew off by doing stream of consciousness. One let me out of her class entirely after I did a speech with emphasis, which was a shame, because I liked her and probably would have gotten a lot out of her teaching, if not out of her class. But I was fundamentally lazy, and given the choice to futz around in the guidance counselor's office, writing, and sitting in a regular class, guess what I was going to choose.

It wasn't that bad. There were popular smart kids. I even managed to make it to the popular table, where I discovered that the conversation was inane, and to a popular party, where I discovered that the parties were inane, and then I sank rather deliberately to the dregs of society where I had friends who were stimulating and didn't mind my own inane tendencies.

(This is the part where someone comes in and tells me that I'm being dismissive and condescending, and that my jealousy over lacking status is souring my perspective on life. But it's only partially true, and really, I ended up very happy.)

Annie Dillard had a great line about her adolesence being "nothing but boredom and rage." I wonder how much of that is the hormones.

What little teaching experience I have is with Emmett, which is complicated by being his parent. (It's fun/weird/shocking being a coach this year and having people do what you tell them to do.) I've spent hundreds of hours teaching Emmett baseball skills and he will never absorb anything directly. Or that's seemingly the case. But he always gets snooty and puts me off and has to absorb it through a combination of explanation and doing and repetition. And I never think it's getting through (the verbal anyway) except he always feeds it back to me at some later point, generally as his own discovery or observation.

I'm sure it's complex, and has a lot to do with wanting to please your parents, but if the ability is there, they might not be as driven by external forces as one might think, simply because what they're doing is so easy.

I developed my language skills--both speaking and reading--quite early (which almost had me flunking out of kindergarten--it's hard when they want you to read Ben the Ant and you've been reading YA novels for a year already), and I think my motivation had very little to do with my parents, and far more to do with my own desire to either make my demands known or find out what happened next in the story before the next storytime. I'm academically very, very lazy unless I'm obsessive about the subject matter, and wasn't driven hard by either of my parents, who I think just assumed I'd be fine without pressure.

I've been told that my early development in terms of language ability, especially when combined with my small stature (I may be a well rounded gal now, but I was the smallest in my class up until puberty) constantly freaked out adults. I just remember thinking that there were a lot of really stupid adults out there.

(I could have gone early entry to the U, but I rejected it when it was brought up as an option, my logic being that if I was already having problems with my peer group, suddenly being stuck as the 13 year old in a bunch of 18 year olds wasn't going to help. Wise move, as high school was actually kind of great for both focus and social skills.)

Oh, yeah, I did just fine pressuring myself without any additional parental pressure. I had their unfailing support, but there was never a sense that I'd disappoint them, or that I wasn't doing well enough for them. They were great. I was the one who was just a tad on the boiler.

I remember it being easier to talk to adults, in general, because they gave you less flack about your vocabulary. But the ones you did freak out tended to freak out in a mighty and spectacular way.

With a few exceptions, I had trouble socializing and making friends of any depth until my sophomore year in HS, at which point my peers aged into the lower range of folks I could tolerate interacting with. Not being fond of kids is somewhat isolating as an adult, but it makes for an Emily Dickensian childhood. I'm pretty sure that if my natural inclination hadn't been to be content with quiet solitude, I would have been an insufferable teacher's pet instead of merely an annoying one.