When Elliott Tanner was born 11 years ago, he was already holding his head up. Right away, his eyes would track his parents' gaze. At 4 weeks old, he started rolling over.
"We just thought this is how kids are," said his mother, Michelle Tanner of St. Louis Park. "We just kept going, 'Oh, isn't this cute!' "
By age 2 he was reading sight words, by 3 reading board books, by 5 reading high-school textbooks. His parents soon realized Elliott was different from other kids his age.
His kindergarten classmates wanted to talk about superheroes; Elliott wanted to talk about quantum physics. His parents decided to home-school him.
Now 11, Elliott is a junior math major at the University of Minnesota. He won't be the youngest college graduate ever when he graduates in three semesters — that honor still belongs to Michael Kearney, who was 10 years and 4 months old in 1994 when he graduated from the University of South Alabama with a degree in electrical engineering — but Elliott will be close.
All along the way, Michelle and Patrik Tanner have scrutinized their parenting decisions for their only child: Is this unique path right for their son? But when he cried every morning before kindergarten because he felt isolated from other kids, how could they choose any other path?
His mother got a Hamline University professor to tutor him at age 6. He started at Normandale Community College three weeks after his 9th birthday.
"We always go back to wanting him to be happy," Michelle said on a recent afternoon at the cafe in Northrop auditorium, as Elliott peeled apart his string cheese and smiled. "People automatically think I'm a Tiger Mom. It's the exact opposite. We're not pushing — we're being pulled. We'd dig our feet in, and he'd be like, 'Come on!' "