Achieving a 35 out of 36 on the ACT exam is a tremendous achievement for any child. However, when it is your son, there comes a special type of pride. Yes, my son got a 35 on the ACT exam and we are extremely proud of him and excited for his future.

I will not share his name in this article, but the young man has been off the charts intelligent his entire life. He learned how to play chess at the age of 2, won chess tournaments at four, and was placing in adult chess tournaments by 5. He has been featured in Chicago Magazine, CBS News, the Discovery Channel, even Ellen sent a crew to our apartment at the time to interview him.

Today, he is a 15 year old junior at the local public school, but will graduate next year at 16 and even start college at 16 years old. Yes, he skipped a few grades and obviously could have skipped a few more.

He didn’t take any prep classes for the ACT. We got him one of those 900 page ACT prep books from the library. He sat down at his desk and went through it himself tightening up his weak areas, which were english and writing. However, from the ACT results, you can see he absolutely SMASHED that section. We are most proud of his score because he focused on this area and brought it up.

His entire life he has been outstanding at math and science. In fact, in the 9th grade he took the SAT exam and got a 730 out of 800 on that part, which attracted the attention of many tier one schools based on that score. Wait until they find out he just got a 35.

It has always been our belief that little black boys that love and dominate math and science can do absolutely anything in this world, thus it was our focus with him…and his younger brother who will also graduate at 16 as well, but is only in the 7th grade right now.

The oldest is interested in studying electrical engineering in college and is currently working on a solar energy project in his make-shift laboratory in our basement. He is teaching himself circuits and physics to ensure he can push his projects a little further.

His dedication to building his education himself is what makes him truly amazing. We will wake up on a random Saturday morning to find him 2 hours deep into the study of physics because he wants to take the AP Exam and place out of it in college. He currently doesn’t have a physics course. He just feels he can pass the AP exam.

Here is a video of him at maybe 3 or 4 years old playing chess with me:

This semester, he will take 3 AP exams for college to close out his junior year. He has another 5 or 6 on deck for next year as a senior, so when he gets to college at worse he will be a second semester freshman and perhaps a starting sophomore.

WHAT DID WE DO THAT YOU CAN DO THE SAME?

Maybe one day we will write a book on the breakdown of what we do in our home because we have very strong feelings about what parents should be doing, but got to finish strong with this son and baby boy as well first. Nevertheless, UI wrote an article a while back that we were consulted on and I still feel like it is the poignant breakdown on our approach to this day.

Read this: 15 Suggestions For Raising Intelligent Black Children

I feel all children are born geniuses. It is our job as parents to pull it out of them by making sure they grow up in a loving, supportive, nonjudgmental environment that fosters their natural love of learning and understanding. That is basically what we did in a nutshell and it is proving to be very effective.

SOUND OFF: Please wish my youngster congratulations and well wishes for his bright future. I will definitely be sure to share your comments, encouragement and congratulations with him.