When Jon was in the fifth grade, he finally had a teacher who understood him.  Mrs. Zimmerman.  She found that if she put the entire days assignments on the board first thing in the morning, that Jon would be motivated to finish all of it quickly.  She would then excuse him to go to the first grade rooms and help the teachers with students that were slow in reading.   Up to then, Jon wouldn't do his work in his own class--because when he finished something, he had to sit there and wait until everyone else finished before the next assignment went up on the board.  There was no motivation to finish quickly.

But brains aren't everything.  In the 7th grade, he was placed in the gifted program, and failed everything.  The principal called me and said she thought his test results were faulty, and wanted him to take the test again.  He made an even higher score the second time. Go figure.

I told them to leave him alone.  To stop pressuring him.  Everyone backed off, quit telling him was smart, and and eventually, Ken and I figured out the problem.  The school had announced that Jon was gifted over the loud speaker.  He was humiliated and embarrassed.  Perhaps he set out to prove he wasn't smart at all by making poor grades.  I have no idea.  It was a strange year for a parent.

One day, in the 8th grade, he came home and said, "I have a teacher who thinks I would be good at football."  He had never watched a football game, nor had he ever shown any interest in sports.  Legos were his main interest.  Ken said, "If that's what you want to do, then try it."  Jon was a strong kid, and he was fast.  By the time he was a senior, he was an All State fullback on offense and nose guard on defense.  I guess he finally got to prove that he was just an average one of the guys.  Smart or not, everyone liked him--he was president of his senior class.  I guess he finally figured it all out.

Being a mother is a hard job.  You almost have to be a genius yourself to do it.  Nothing I learned on the others was applicable to Jon.  As a matter of fact, nothing I learned on any of them was helpful in raising the next one.  All four of them are as different as night and day.  You wouldn't know they all came from the same family.

But they did.