So… My Child is a Genius. Now What?

And is it worth developing?

Mensa would say your child is a genius — IF they score in the 98th percentile on a standard IQ test. That’s 2 people out of every 100, or 1 in every 50. If they make the cut, you can proudly declare “My child is a genius.”

But a genius in what?

A standard IQ test measures one thing: your analytical, reasoning, and deductive abilities. Useful abilities, no question. But that narrow band becomes the entire definition of genius.

Everyone agrees Mozart was a genius. Yet if he’d scored in the 97th percentile, Mensa wouldn’t have let him into the club.

Same for Maya Angelou. Eddie Van Halen. Banksy. Frank Lloyd Wright. Serena Williams. Nelson Mandela. Meryl Streep. None of them count if they don’t hit that 98th-percentile mark.

But we know better. And at what they did, they weren’t 1 in 50. They were 1 in a million — some of them were more like 1 in a billion.

The geniuses nobody profiles

Fine, you might say — let’s expand the categories. Musical genius. Artistic genius. Athletic genius. Acting genius.

But where do the categories start and stop?

The famous geniuses are just the visible ones. What about your Aunt Trudy, who was absolutely brilliant at bringing people together through her themed parties? The animal whisperer who resolves issues with horses, cats, and dogs through telepathic communication? The five-year-old who wrote a musical and organized all her stuffed animals to perform to the delight of the entire family? The cook who combines unlikely ingredients into meals that surprise and delight every palate at the table?

And here’s the danger of categorizing genius at all: every category still ends the same way — this person is a genius, and everyone else is not.

What if everyone is a genius?

Just as each of us carries a unique fingerprint, each of us carries a unique genius. Some geniuses are famous and easily categorizable. Most are stealth and hard to define.

I believe each of us came into the world with a unique set of gifts designed to help us achieve a unique purpose. My friend Tim Shields, in his soon-to-be-released book Dream Tethering, describes how that purpose announces itself: as a dream that arrives with a Soul Ache — a wanting so deep it won’t leave you alone.

Notice the three things all high-profile geniuses have in common. None of them is a test score.

1. They developed their genius. Eddie played guitar — endlessly. Frank Lloyd Wright sketched and thought about design, architecture, and nature for decades. Serena Williams hit a LOT of tennis balls.

2. They didn’t listen to the naysayers — the outside ones or the inside ones. We’ve all heard those voices: you’re too young, you’re too old, you’re not smart enough, you’re not privileged enough. The geniuses heard them too. They kept going.

3. They didn’t waste their time on things that didn’t feed their genius. That’s exactly why Buckminster Fuller was so frustrated with school and considered it a waste of his time — it demanded his hours for things that led nowhere near his gifts. It’s why he’s often quoted as saying, “All children are born geniuses, and we spend the first six years of their lives degeniusing them.”

What was your genius?

So: what was your unique genius? Was there a dream attached to it — one with a Soul Ache? What extraordinary things came through you that delighted you and everyone around you?

Did you develop those gifts when you were a kid? Or did someone talk you out of it?

Or — harder question — did you talk yourself out of it?

Here’s what I believe about those Soul Ache dreams: they are not cosmic practical jokes designed to raise your hopes just to later dash them. We are not given ‘soul ache’ dreams without the potential to fulfill them. Yes, there’s inner and outer work required — but that’s part of the game, and a big part of why you came into this world at this time, in this place, in this body, with this genius. It’s to become that person who can fulfill that beautiful dream. It’s because that’s the person you wanted to become in this lifetime, and you eagerly signed up for that challenge.

Now — what about your child?

What is your child’s unique genius? What is their dream that makes their soul ache? And what are you doing to support them in bringing it into the world?

What voices have they already heard dissuading them? Maybe a teacher. Maybe a family member.

Maybe you. (Ouch.)

If so, don’t feel badly — you meant the best, and so did the others. Let’s just course correct, and it’s going to be easier than you think.

A school that believes in the dream

At Coherence Education, we set out to be the antithesis of every teacher, authority figure, and well-meaning relative who ever talked a child out of their genius. We are the school that helps your child find their genius and believes in their dream — sometimes even more than they do yet. Then we build a custom curriculum around it, with the mentorship and coaching to develop everything, inside and out, that your child needs to make that dream come true.

This matters more now than it ever has. In the Age of AI, the cookie-cutter job — the one you could make a living at by going through the motions — is disappearing. That was always a luxury and a curse at once. What remains is this: we thrive by being at our human best. Not 1 in 50. Not 1 in 100. Not even 1 in a million.

1 of 1. Bringing our unique gifts into the world — and harnessing AI to make it happen faster.

That’s why we’re turning education Inside-Out: so every one of our students emerges into the world exactly that. 1 of 1.

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What is your child’s unique genius? Take our Genius Zone survey and we’ll generate 10 project ideas for developing it.

Want to learn more about Coherence Education? Join our next Open House.