I will never forget our first Young Scholar Summit when Zachery was just 6 years old and when he had been in the Davidson Young Scholars (YS) program for just over a year. We had never met another child like Zachery and in our town there are no children Zachery can relate to. Finding friends has proven remarkably hard, and not for lack of trying. But when a child is inclined to ask his new acquaintance, "So, do you like astrophysics?", he is not likely to find someone who can, or will, answer.
So just a few hours after arriving at our first YS Summit it struck me that I had never seen my child so *accepted* by other kids. He immediately got lost in the game room, full of kids, creating a sculpture taller than all of them. And, we found some parental ears that did not think we were crazy. There was no tearful child walking home from a rejection. Life was good.
A bittersweet moment came the next night at bedtime. As I knelt over the tender, trusting face that my heart ached for, my son said quietly, "Mommy, do you think I can tell them my ideas?"
"Of course you can, sweetheart," I responded, "these children won't laugh."
Programs mentioned in this story: Young Scholars
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