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This is really more a sidebar off of what you wrote but since I have a friend who recently went through a similar situation I thought I would comment. My friend lives in S. Africa and perhaps they don't have the privacy clauses we have in the states but the gifted school her son is attending not only revealed the child and tests he took and scores he made to other parents; they did so without ever telling my friend that information, so she was blindsided by another parent when she brought it up. My friend had no idea they even gave her son the tests, let alone what he made on them. I found it appalling but she wasn't really too upset by it all. Differences in culture is my guess.

Glad to read the teacher got disciplined. I know that we can't stop the rumor mills amongst the parents but it should be the parents of the child in question who gets to choose how much if anything is shared.

I think that you are right with this comment. While I don't think that any of dds' friends or other parents have any idea how they have scored on IQ tests (which ranges from MG to PG depending on the kid and the day ), I do think that there are parents who believe their kids to be equivalently or more able and who are then put-out by some of the things dds have done or "gotten" in terms of educational opportunities. This seems to come up most from the parents whose kids are bright-average or average but brighter than their parents and whose parents believe them to be very gifted as a result.

One thing I notice in our case is that the gossiping comes from the 2nd and 3rd grade parents. (dd is in 2nd) The 4th grade parents (her math class) have been very friendly and many have said that they think its great she is participating in their class. The 4th grade kids have been very kind too - not friends, but friendly. DD's school has this policy that you can only play at recess with kids in your grade. She advocated at the begining of the day that she should be allowed to play with both, but principal said no. So she's not really set up to have any social time with the older kids.

The 3rd graders and parents have been the worst because they don't know my daughter at all so she an easy target.

This seems to be the case here. Lately several parents have been telling me that their kids are ahead in math and that they think they should skip a grade. Generally the kids are average or brighter than average, but really probably not gifted. I guess they may feel like I would understand, but it feels more like they are saying "My kid's just as smart as yours is!" So, I generally just reply that it's a long process that involves a lot of testing, but that it has worked in our case. I kind of feel like if they do decide to pursue it they may realize that the process is a lot more involved than they imagine, and perhaps they would realize that my kids must be different enough that they would qualify for the accelerations. And then, maybe they would stop questioning us and our decisions and would stop talking behind our backs!

Amazingly, the people whose kids probably are gifted never complain at all about their children's work and they seem fine sending them to school where their children already know most of the material. I still don't know how it is that we're the first family in the district to request subject and grade acceleration! My kids are HG, but not PG, so we can't be the ONLY ones around here in the last 30 years (the last time they did an acceleration before my kids!)

Thank you, all of you, for making me feel better about this. We always have been very certain in our decisions to grade accelerate, and we have all the hard data to support it (which, of course, none of the other parents knows the extent of) but it is hard to hear that people are talking behind my back. It's like I'm back in all the social drama of high school! So, I'll have to just grow a thicker skin. Thank goodness for you all, who allow me to vent and make me feel like I'm not alone.

WOW! I could have just about written this post myself this week. I have been going through the SAME thing here. My dd skipped to 2nd this year. I've got a neighbor that keeps going on about how her daughter also needs more at school, etc. (her dd is very nice but I'm pretty certain she's not gifted.) It's obvious to me that she doesn't agree with what we've done for our daughter and she's trying hard to choose her words wisely. It's really been rubbing me the wrong way. I kept meaning to post here on it and got busy. So glad you did. Now I'll finish reading all the replies.

We've had this experience as well. It do think that it is coming from a parent who has finally accepted that my kids are atypically bright (there was a lot of unpleasant competition/one man upship going on for a while) and who is now attempting to commiserate. I have really been trying to be self-reflective on why this bugs me so much. I don't think that there is a major attempt at competition going on from the other parent at the moment.

I've known this parent's children since they were quite little. I am as certain as I can be without having them IQ tested and showing me the results that they are not gifted. One has managed to get a gifted label for one subject at school according to this parent, though, b/c I've heard about it everytime we've spoken for the past month. The district this child is in tends to be pretty freewheeling with dispensing GT labels given that they id somewhat more than 1/3 of the kids in some schools as gifted in some way, shape or form based upon behavior surveys, etc.

I do think that the parent feels like I would understand b/c our kids must be similarly able and so is discussing it with me. I don't know what about this rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps it is that we've had to fight so hard for any type of GT id for dd#2, who has IQ scores ranging from the upper 120s to upper 140s -- this kid is clearly gifted, but isn't in the freewheeling GT id district. Perhaps I am just a crummy person who is bugged by something that in no way impacts me. Perhaps I can't happily commiserate with someone when we aren't dealing with the same thing (like me expecting an African-American parent to happily commiserate with me about the challenge of discrimination that my white children are facing in our society as compared to her kids who must be experiencing the same).

I don't know, but it isn't always an easy conversation to have when it doesn't feel like you're talking about the same needs.

I don't know but just a thought....

Do you think that these things have a tendency to rub the wrong way with a lot of people, not only because of the hard yards gifted parents go through but also the fact that often the way things are said and approached by these parents you wouldn't consider saying or doing yourselves?

Maybe you're on to someting here in regards to talking with other people about their "bright" kids. I would never dream about bringing up how smart my kids are and how they make straight As and how they're just beyond their class's academic work (or whatever), and so it suprises me how many people with average to brighter than average kids do so and do so to me. Again, do they think I can commiserate or are they playing a game of one-upsmanship? Mostly I think it's the latter because these are the types of people who brag freely in general. IME, it's the parents that whisper to me about their kids needing more in school that are going through a similar situation to ours.

I think I've decided that when I get into conversations with these types of parents that I'm going to tell them that there is a process in our district for acceleration but that it requires their child to be tested extensively for both achievement and aptitude, that a lot of other issues factor in as well, and that if their child is accelerated, they should be prepared to have the other parents talk about them behind their back.

Hmmmmm.....maybe tact is a trait of the parents of gifted children! Shame it's not more widespread.