The biggest benefit of being a smart and intelligent student

The benefit of being a smart kid in school is that it afforts the student time  to do other things. Other things could be playing games, solving puzzles, tinkerring with stuff around the house, making noise with instruments, or joinning others in team sports, or of course studying more.

We took our son to a day math camp when he was a 6th grader. While kids were in class taking a math test,parents were corralled in an auditorium to listen to a lecture presented by the very person who prepared the test.  Parents are a mixed bag of various background. The lecturer analyzed the logic behind each question, what the question was trying to test about.

At the conclusion of the camp, it selected the best scores for each grade. I rememberred that I was very hopeful that he would be one of them. His name was never cacalled. Two girls from his grade were among the selected. He said that they deserve the high marks because they studied hard every day. Their parents shuttled them from one school to another for adcanced math.

I did not think that we ever tried to speed up his schooling or attempted to arrange special scheduling.  

The only regret is  that we should have requested him to read more and read wide.

Let kids be kids.  Award them with what they enjoy and cherish, not with more studying.