Mom, 11-year-old daughter team up as DSU classmates
She’s the youngest student at Dixie State University, and she already has plans to be an evil overlord and rule the world one day.
“She’s accepting applications for minions,” said Asia Lemmon, a sophomore psychology major from New York City and mother of Catalina “Catty” Lemmon.
Catty, a freshman general education major from St. George, is an 11-year-old prodigy who is enrolled full-time at DSU and taking classes in trigonometry, English and art. She said the reason she started attending DSU was an accident.
“The school I was supposed to attend didn’t open on schedule,” Catty said. “Luckily, I had already taken my SATs when I was 10, and they were good enough to get me into (DSU).”
Asia Lemmon said there wasn’t another school fit for Catty, who had already gotten an A in a college pre-calculus class over the summer and scored a perfect grade on DSU’s math placement test.
“So I took her to school with me,” Asia Lemmon said.
Catty and her mother are more than just classmates at DSU; they’re best friends, Asia Lemmon said.
“I love being able to eat lunch and study with Catty, and we text back and forth all day with funny stories to make each other laugh,” Asia Lemmon said. “It’s definitely a very special experience.”
Asia Lemmon was widowed when Catty was one and when she was pregnant with Catty’s younger brother, she said. Since then, she said she has stayed home 24/7 to homeschool Catty and Catty’s brother. Catty was rejected from entering kindergarten for being too young at age four, so Asia Lemmon said she had to wage an “endless war” to keep Catty academically challenged. She said she homeschooled Catty for 10 years.
“By the end of that 10 years, I was about to go stark raving mad if I didn’t start doing something more mentally challenging for myself,” Asia Lemmon said. “I’m grateful I was able to homeschool my kids the way I did, but now I have to go back to school so I can keep up with them.”
While Catty and her brother are brilliant, Asia Lemmon said they are “twice-exceptional,” which means they are gifted in some areas and delayed in others. Catty struggles with anxiety and her brother is autistic and has ADHD, Asia Lemmon said.
“It’s not an easy task meeting the needs of kids who are outside the norm in so many different ways,” Asia Lemmon said.
Asia Lemmon said her goal is to help other “twice-exceptional” children after she graduates with her psychology degree.
“There are very few professionals trained specifically in helping [‘twice-exceptional’] children,” Asia Lemmon said.
Catty said the biggest challenge for her so far in college is not her anxiety but writing a English paper on feminism, because feminism “is a hard topic for me to relate to as an eleven-year-old.” She said people don’t treat her any differently than older students, and many of her classmates don’t realize how young she actually is.
Catty said she plans to go as far as she can in math at DSU and will see what happens when she graduates.
“I don’t have plans for what happens after college, because even after I graduate, I’ll still be too young to drive or get a job,” Catty said.
The bit about her kids being twice-exceptional was really heartwarming. I was definitely not prodigy-level like her daughter, but my parents could never wrap their heads around the fact that I could be smart and yet struggle with certain schoolwork (and other aspects of life). Would have been nice to have someone in my life who was understanding and supportive like that when I was grappling with all that stuff.
Raise your hand if you were described as “bright and promising” in early school years and “wasted potential” by your early twenties. Bonus if you were also told your favorite interests were a waste of time.
Through herculean effort by those around me (my main stat in life is luck) I found the wherewithal to fight the urge to burn out and applied myself to my studies (went from failing grades as a high school freshman to all As in grad school), got into BJJ, and tried very hard to box check a bunch of things that make you look successful.
I can confidently say that if you have a favorite interest you should hold onto it and cherish it like every person you enjoy having in your life. Say goodbye if it's time, but while it's there enriching your experience it's more important than any success could be. Not everything is meant for everybody and I'm coming to the conclusion that simply following what enriches you and never comparing is the best you can do. May the lessons you need come to you and may your joy be genuine.
Thanks comrade. Glad you made it out OK. I wish someone that I looked up to had been there to say it 25 years ago. Though my partner and I are living childfree, I hope to spread that sort of influence to the youngins in our family.
i dropped out of grad school after 5 years. 9 out of 10 times, anything to do with "gifted children" is that they're autistic children that have school as a special interest
Love to avoid my homework because of anxiety and then get punished for it so the anxiety spirals and then show up to school without homework, get punished again, show up back home with bad grades and get punished yet again.
Apparently she enrolled in university alongside her 11 year-old daughter:
https://dixiesunnews.com/news/articles/2016/11/11/mom-11-year-old-daughter-team-dsu-classmates/
Article text
Mom, 11-year-old daughter team up as DSU classmates
She’s the youngest student at Dixie State University, and she already has plans to be an evil overlord and rule the world one day.
“She’s accepting applications for minions,” said Asia Lemmon, a sophomore psychology major from New York City and mother of Catalina “Catty” Lemmon.
Catty, a freshman general education major from St. George, is an 11-year-old prodigy who is enrolled full-time at DSU and taking classes in trigonometry, English and art. She said the reason she started attending DSU was an accident.
“The school I was supposed to attend didn’t open on schedule,” Catty said. “Luckily, I had already taken my SATs when I was 10, and they were good enough to get me into (DSU).”
Asia Lemmon said there wasn’t another school fit for Catty, who had already gotten an A in a college pre-calculus class over the summer and scored a perfect grade on DSU’s math placement test.
“So I took her to school with me,” Asia Lemmon said.
Catty and her mother are more than just classmates at DSU; they’re best friends, Asia Lemmon said.
“I love being able to eat lunch and study with Catty, and we text back and forth all day with funny stories to make each other laugh,” Asia Lemmon said. “It’s definitely a very special experience.”
Asia Lemmon was widowed when Catty was one and when she was pregnant with Catty’s younger brother, she said. Since then, she said she has stayed home 24/7 to homeschool Catty and Catty’s brother. Catty was rejected from entering kindergarten for being too young at age four, so Asia Lemmon said she had to wage an “endless war” to keep Catty academically challenged. She said she homeschooled Catty for 10 years.
“By the end of that 10 years, I was about to go stark raving mad if I didn’t start doing something more mentally challenging for myself,” Asia Lemmon said. “I’m grateful I was able to homeschool my kids the way I did, but now I have to go back to school so I can keep up with them.”
While Catty and her brother are brilliant, Asia Lemmon said they are “twice-exceptional,” which means they are gifted in some areas and delayed in others. Catty struggles with anxiety and her brother is autistic and has ADHD, Asia Lemmon said.
“It’s not an easy task meeting the needs of kids who are outside the norm in so many different ways,” Asia Lemmon said.
Asia Lemmon said her goal is to help other “twice-exceptional” children after she graduates with her psychology degree.
“There are very few professionals trained specifically in helping [‘twice-exceptional’] children,” Asia Lemmon said.
Catty said the biggest challenge for her so far in college is not her anxiety but writing a English paper on feminism, because feminism “is a hard topic for me to relate to as an eleven-year-old.” She said people don’t treat her any differently than older students, and many of her classmates don’t realize how young she actually is.
Catty said she plans to go as far as she can in math at DSU and will see what happens when she graduates.
“I don’t have plans for what happens after college, because even after I graduate, I’ll still be too young to drive or get a job,” Catty said.
The bit about her kids being twice-exceptional was really heartwarming. I was definitely not prodigy-level like her daughter, but my parents could never wrap their heads around the fact that I could be smart and yet struggle with certain schoolwork (and other aspects of life). Would have been nice to have someone in my life who was understanding and supportive like that when I was grappling with all that stuff.
hahaha glad nothing like that ever happened to me
Raise your hand if you were described as “bright and promising” in early school years and “wasted potential” by your early twenties. Bonus if you were also told your favorite interests were a waste of time.
I'm still the world's oldest gifted child.
Through herculean effort by those around me (my main stat in life is luck) I found the wherewithal to fight the urge to burn out and applied myself to my studies (went from failing grades as a high school freshman to all As in grad school), got into BJJ, and tried very hard to box check a bunch of things that make you look successful.
I can confidently say that if you have a favorite interest you should hold onto it and cherish it like every person you enjoy having in your life. Say goodbye if it's time, but while it's there enriching your experience it's more important than any success could be. Not everything is meant for everybody and I'm coming to the conclusion that simply following what enriches you and never comparing is the best you can do. May the lessons you need come to you and may your joy be genuine.
Thanks comrade. Glad you made it out OK. I wish someone that I looked up to had been there to say it 25 years ago. Though my partner and I are living childfree, I hope to spread that sort of influence to the youngins in our family.
Too late for me, all my enthusiasm for anything has been bled out
you can walk it back! it's not a cliff's edge, you can start to enjoy things again
i dropped out of grad school after 5 years. 9 out of 10 times, anything to do with "gifted children" is that they're autistic children that have school as a special interest
Love to avoid my homework because of anxiety and then get punished for it so the anxiety spirals and then show up to school without homework, get punished again, show up back home with bad grades and get punished yet again.