For parents who dream their child will become a prodigy and stun the world with their brilliance, Chloe Hui has a message for you: Be careful what you wish for.
Her son, pianist Marc Yu, now 16, gave his first orchestral concert at 6 years old. He has since played venues like London's Royal Albert Hall, Beijing's Central Conservatory and New York City's Carnegie Hall in a duet with superstar Lang Lang.
Along the way, Hui discovered that being the parent of a gifted child is not easy - nor cheap.
"I didn't know what was ahead of me," she admits.
That included living in an L.A. garage for four years, a living arrangement that was subsequently upgraded to a "shack," she says. Virtually all the family's money went to lessons with elite teachers, which cost $150-$250 an hour, multiple times per week.
There was no way Hui could work, as she managed her son's budding career and homeschooled him. Eventually they moved to San Francisco, just to be near a school that could accommodate his elite talent.
Rearing a so-called average child born in 2013 through the age of 18 is estimated to cost $245,000, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
For Hui, that's chump change. Between the ages of 6 and 10, she estimates that she spent a half million dollars on lessons, travel and other services to develop Marc's piano talents.
"It puts a huge strain on the families, and it's very stressful," says Ellen Winner, a psychology professor at Boston College who wrote the book "Gifted Children: Myths and Realities." "Having a child prodigy is not necessarily a good thing."
Before dig deep into your pocket, you need to ask yourself: Is your child just very talented at a particular skill, whether it is chess, violin or figure skating? Or are they truly a one-in-a-million specimen?