So Awkward!!!!

[urthmama]

deleted bc I feel like this was taken the wrong way 

[acurtis75]

I've taught dd to say "if I were in school I would be in 4th grade" as a response to anyone who asks about grade. I explained that it is usually just another way of asking her age. Once a person talks to her for 5 minutes they usually realize she is very advanced because she has talked like an adult since she was about 3 but this way they figure it out on their own instead of her telling them she does middle school or high school work.

[kiana]

I like just responding with "I'm 8" (or however old) 

[urthmama]

deleted

[crazyforlatin]

My DD is similar, so proud of being homeschooled, maybe a bit too much at times. I'm a low-key kind of person, so I prefer she just tell people our homeschool name and the grade she ought to be. Leave specifics out, as I try to tell her. I'm wondering whether younger kids, those not tweens yet, tend to be an open book, not worried about fitting into the norm. I noticed one tween in our group when placed with PS kids that she refuses to say she is homeschooled.

[Mike in SA]

Funny.  :)  We had a similar experience when we took DS12 to a writer's convention last year (LoneStarCon / The Hugos).  The panel was often surprised to see a bright-eyed (then) 11-year old on the front row of a discussion on adult topics.  Mary Robinette Kowal (who is an awesome panelist, btw) never quite felt sure that he could handle the adult language that was being bandied about, so she kept apologizing to me.

 

I just had to smile reassuringly, and hope she knew that some kids are more adult than many adults.  We kept going to her panels, so I hope she didn't mind too much!

[Tracy]

I have always felt like there is no way around a gifted child feeling different.  No one told me I was gifted until middle school, but I knew I was different in K.  As a result, I was an arrogant little brat as a kid (and my dh had a similar experience).  

 

So we have a lot of conversations about how our family is different but that what is more important than intelligence is kindness and work ethic, etc.  We talk about other people we know and why we like them and how we like different people for different things.  

[Mike in SA]

I have always felt like there is no way around a gifted child feeling different.  No one told me I was gifted until middle school, but I knew I was different in K.  As a result, I was an arrogant little brat as a kid (and my dh had a similar experience).  

 

So we have a lot of conversations about how our family is different but that what is more important than intelligence is kindness and work ethic, etc.  We talk about other people we know and why we like them and how we like different people for different things.  

 

Definitely not.  You can delay it, but not avoid it.  So, we don't bother -- we try to embrace it.

[Laura Corin]

I think it's worth talking it through.  I always talked in comparative terms to Calvin, and in terms of interests to outsiders.  

 

To Calvin: 'Yes, you are running ahead in English.  Everyone has their own talents - look how good George is at the bagpipes.'  Notice, this is not the same as 'All children are gifted' - just a recognition of general differences and an appreciation of each person's qualities.

 

To others: 'Yes, Calvin's really interested in English; I loved hearing George piping the scouts into the hall last week.'

 

In terms of grade level - I also used the formula, 'If he was in school he'd be in year three.'

 

L

[MEmama]

I think it's worth talking it through. I always talked in comparative terms to Calvin, and in terms of interests to outsiders.

 

To Calvin: 'Yes, you are running ahead in English. Everyone has their own talents - look how good George is at the bagpipes.' Notice, this is not the same as 'All children are gifted' - just a recognition of general differences and an appreciation of each person's qualities.

 

To others: 'Yes, Calvin's really interested in English; I loved hearing George piping the scouts into the hall last week.'

 

In terms of grade level - I also used the formula, 'If he was in school he'd be in year three.'

 

L

This is how we handle it, too. After hearing it for years, it's becoming a more natural way for him to think, now.

 

Finally DS has a good friend with whom the admiration of each others skills is mutual. Friend can build, make or create anything, and DS is his theoretical counterpart. They openly admire and appreciate the others talents and gifts and are awesome at working together on projects as a result. While recently building a bookcase, Friend didn't think twice in helping DS use a screwdriver properly (fine motor stuff) and DS figured out the math needed. This is the first friendship he's had where skills and abilities have been balanced, and I am hopeful that will be more the case as he gets older.

[MinivanMom]

I agree with Laura, and that is the approach I'm trying to take with my children.

 

In addition, my kids have lots of friends in public school who are working ahead of grade level. I think that's important to be aware of as a homeschooled child. Reading classic lit and doing Pre-Algebra at age 10 doesn't make you a 7th grader. I know lots of public school 6th graders who are taking pre-Algebra. I know a 5th grader who was being bussed to the middle school for a period each day to take Algebra; he was still a 5th grader. I think that's an important thing to communicate to our kids, so that they don't look at the number on their books and develop an arrogant attitude. I don't want it to be a shock when they get to college and discover there are lots of children just as smart (or smarter) than they are. Humility is a good trait to develop.

[rbk mama]

I agree with Laura, and that is the approach I'm trying to take with my children.

 

In addition, my kids have lots of friends in public school who are working ahead of grade level. I think that's important to be aware of as a homeschooled child. Reading classic lit and doing Pre-Algebra at age 10 doesn't make you a 7th grader. I know lots of public school 6th graders who are taking pre-Algebra. I know a 5th grader who was being bussed to the middle school for a period each day to take Algebra; he was still a 5th grader. I think that's an important thing to communicate to our kids, so that they don't look at the number on their books and develop an arrogant attitude. I don't want it to be a shock when they get to college and discover there are lots of children just as smart (or smarter) than they are. Humility is a good trait to develop.

 

WSS

 

We don't associate grade levels with anything but age here.  They are all working "ahead" of grade level, but none of their books have a grade level stamped on them, so they are not aware of exactly how far ahead they are - they just do the next thing. 

 

[urthmama]

deleted 

 

[EndOfOrdinary]

DS and I have discussed that he is gifted and whereabouts on the gifted scale he falls, but it is quickly followed up with "no one really cares."   Because, in reality, no one does.  Your doctor was just trying to find small talk.  None of my son's friends have ever really asked him about it outside of "what grade are you in?"  It is chit chat.  Moreover, it is the type of chit chat we robotically participate in without even really listening to the other person.  When someone says, 'How was your day?' or 'How are you?' you are not really supposed to respond with an answer like "It was sucky!" or "I feel terrible!"  It is a fake question.  He needed to know that, because it is not appropriate to be honest in these situations.  That isn't what the communication is about.  It is about establishing comfortability with one another.  It is a way for our society to create a known situation with an unknown person.

 

We needed to discuss his giftedness because many gifted people have some of the same tendencies.  No one talked to me about them so my perfectionism, anxiety, and general perceived arrogance followed me into adulthood.  It is much harder for me to recognize now.  In the same way that OP's daughter was not trying to come off as arrogant, it is important that she knows that she did come off that way.  It does not matter the intent when it comes to what the other person feels is implied.  If someone had spoken with me when I was 9-16 about it, I could have been learning valuable skills when it was still okay to be making those mistakes.  If you have to learn them at 22 or 26 they sting a whole lot more.

 

My son began having issues with anxiety, perfectionism, and social issues because he did not understand them as tendencies which often went along with being gifted.  Once he could get more information about them, read up on others and how to handle them, really look at the situation objectively, then he could begin to modify this own behavior.  In the same way you tell someone who is diabetic or autistic about how to modify their behavior to fit in and be healthy, you need to inform gifted kids when their behaviors begin to present problems.

[Dmmetler]

For my DD, getting a formal label  helped a lot for the same reasons EoO lists.

 

And another one. DD honestly felt that she was LESS capable than many around her, because when she'd say something, often conversation would just stop. She took that as a sign that she'd said something wrong, inappropriate, or just plain stupid. She didn't pick up the cue that she needed to change her conversation in talking to people her age and older the same way she would with a younger child.

 

Once she had the label, it was easier for her to understand that, yes, it's entirely possible that she's thinking in a direction that most people don't think, they don't understand what she's saying, and she needs to restate it, not because she said something stupid, but because she said something that just didn't meet the level of the audience.

 

We spend a lot of time on social skills and reading the situation.  I do think that this is WHY GT needs to be considered a special needs area. It's not the academics. It's being asynchronous with most of the world at large, and, ultimately, it's on you to change, not them. 

 

 

[urthmama]

deleted 

 

[Woodland Mist Academy]

I also value authenticity in friendships. I don't see what connection that has with telling someone that if my daughter were in a public school she would be in eighth grade. That's the truth - both in public and in private - I'm not being deceitful.

 

I guess I don't feel the need to get into the specifics of academic capabilities during social niceties.

[lovinmyboys]

If she were my daughter, I would encourage her to answer with "third grade." I was homeschooled and when I was little it irritated me when I would ask the grade someone was in and I would get a list of all their subjects and what grade level they were in each. It happened all the time!!! I used to complain to my mom about it. I'm not sure why it bugged me so much, but it really did.

[Mike in SA]

Urthmama, sorry you felt the need the delete everything.  Sometimes we do mistake the intentions of a post, because intentions are hard to read in just a few lines.  I do think there are a lot of sympathetic ears here, though!