If the kids are bright, send them to a school or an environment where they can live that out. I don't know about the US but in Germany the quality of schools varies dramatically both between regions and within. I loved computer science, physics and math in high school but my school did very little to encourage this. Only my physics teacher encouraged me and helped me sign up for competitions and a special programme that allowed me to attend university math/physics classes while still in school (I'm not a prodigy by a far shot, just very eager to learn and nerdy).
When I came to uni and met other kids with the same desire to learn I was shocked how well they were prepared, they e.g. learned using Mathematica/Maple in school, had real computer science classes and a ton of extracurricular activities. We didn't have any of that, our only capable computer science teacher was an alcoholic and none of the other teachers knew anything about computers. In the end it didn't make a big difference though, I had to catch up a bit on some of the things but it wasn't like they were leagues ahead.
The only thing I would be careful with is setting kids on a trajectory where their self worth gets coupled to feeling special or talented. Inevitably once they get into communities where more and more bright kids hang out they will regress to the norm, and some kids don't handle that well. Don't let them think they always need to be the best to be "worth" something, instead teach them to enjoy what they do for the sake of it.
When I came to uni and met other kids with the same desire to learn I was shocked how well they were prepared, they e.g. learned using Mathematica/Maple in school, had real computer science classes and a ton of extracurricular activities. We didn't have any of that, our only capable computer science teacher was an alcoholic and none of the other teachers knew anything about computers. In the end it didn't make a big difference though, I had to catch up a bit on some of the things but it wasn't like they were leagues ahead.
The only thing I would be careful with is setting kids on a trajectory where their self worth gets coupled to feeling special or talented. Inevitably once they get into communities where more and more bright kids hang out they will regress to the norm, and some kids don't handle that well. Don't let them think they always need to be the best to be "worth" something, instead teach them to enjoy what they do for the sake of it.