During the last decade, the two youngest individuals to be accepted into American Mensa in Arizona came from Queen Creek. Mensa is the world’s “largest, oldest and most famous high IQ society.”
In 2014, Alexis Martin, age 3 at the time, was accepted into Mensa and this past year, James Rescan, also age 3 at the time, was accepted into the high IQ society. They're both from Queen Creek.
With an IQ in the 99.9 percentile, Rescan taught himself math and how to read.
This upcoming school year, Rescan will be moving from Spondeo Montessori Preschool and Kindergarten to Higley’s THINK Highly Gifted Academy. Higley’s THINK will give Rescan, who turned 4 in May, the opportunity to work with other like-minded 4 year olds who have an IQ of 130 or scored in the 97 percentile on the CogAT.
As only children themselves, Rescan’s mom, Neely Peden, and dad, Michael Rescan, didn’t have a lot of experience with kids.
“We didn’t have anybody to compare James to when he was a baby and hitting these milestones,” said Peden. “We were at a Target and I had been talking to him and not expecting to hear anything back. He was only seven months old, but I had picked up a rubber duck and he looked at me clearly and said ‘duck.’ In all the parenting books they say they might be making sounds at seven months or trying to communicate with you, but nothing like that.”
It was then that she began realizing something was a little different. Peden knew James was gifted, but after being tested and seeing a psychologist. they discovered he falls within the 99.9 percentile.
“I sat with the doctor afterwards in shock, trying to process it all,” Peden said. “I was asking, ‘what do I do from here? How do I parent a kid like this?’ and I think about the doctor's advice a lot. He had told me that there’s no reason for him to know any of this. He’s just a little boy so do as many non-academic things with him as you can.
“What I don’t want to do is put any expectation on him. Yes, I am overly proud, but just because you have a high IQ doesn't mean you need to do anything in particular… I don’t want him to feel like there’s any expectation on him other than just being a good person.”
Outside of academics, James is just a regular kid.
“He’s still a 4-year-old that thinks fart jokes are funny and likes to run around with his toys and watch 'Ninja Turtles,'” Peden said. “It’s not until you start asking him things that you start getting unusual answers. If you wanted to talk to him about Transformers, he would seem like any other kid. It’s not until you start asking him about something like space exploration that you’d be like ‘holy cow… I wasn’t expecting you to go into that tangent.’”
Mensa has connected Peden with families who also have gifted, like-minded children in the Phoenix area through their local chapter.
“I just want to see him challenged, growing and doing something that he’s interested in. It’s neat because he is so young,” said Peden. “It’s not like he’s behind the curve or behind a grade level. He’s in a really cool spot where he can do literally anything he wants that he’s interested in and he’s still going to be learning something… I just want him to be interested and excited about going to school and learning.”
Peden encourages any parent to trust their instinct when it comes to their children. If you think there’s something special or unique about your child, you’re probably right.
“Long term, I just want him to be content and contributing in some way that makes him satisfied,” Peden said. “He either wants to be a ninja turtle or he wants to be a doctor. I don’t know which is going to pan out for him, but it’ll be a great journey either way.”
For more information about American Mensa, visit us.mensa.org.
