Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy advocacy vs sheltering & dealing w Dragon parents

I recently had a very bad experience with Wolf7 and am wondering what other parents of overly aware kids would have done in the situation.

He is in an Independent Study Program and we wanted to be involved in the science fair. Our program doesn't do one on it's own (well after this it does, but I'll get to that) so we were sent to a local elementary school to participate with their 3rd graders. Ten kids from the school fair would go on to the county science fair. K-3 gets no monetary awards at the county level and does not go on to state. The school fair does not give out any awards. So he set up his project at the school with the 29 or so other project from K-5, did the interview with the scientists and that would have been that, if Wolf was a "normal" kid.

He isn't though, not even close. He looked at the other projects just like I did. He KNEW he was going to county fair. His wasn't the best compared to the older kids, but he was definitely in the top 15% and 33% of the kids were going to county.

Then I got the email listing who was going on to county. Over half the kids on the list were the kids of the parents on the Science Fair Committee. In fact, to my knowledge, not one of their kids did not continue on.

I didn't tell Wolf. I couldn't. I mean how do you explain THAT to a kid who is emotionally 7 years old? How do you do it and not ruin their innocence, their trust in the system, their trust in adults to do the right thing? Yes, it's a lesson that needs to be learned, but not at 7 years old...

I ended up talking to his teacher and she contacted the county science fair about it, explaining that his project deserved to be at the fair and that she could understand why the school might have wanted to only send their students. The county fair said that it would be fine for our program to send him, so that's what we did. However we didn't tell him about that part. He thought he went on from the school fair.

He's thrilled, we set up at the science fair, and lo and behold the head of the school science fair committee walks up to us with a look that could kill an elephant. Here is a condensed version of the discussion which took place right in front of Wolf.

Woman: venomously "Interesting seeing you here."

Me: "Well Wolf's teacher thought his project merited going on so she contacted the county science fair committee about it. They said he should be here, so here we are."

Woman: growing visibly more upset by the moment "Oh really."

Me: feeling overwhelmed and flustered by her illogical animosity "Don't worry, we won't be going through your school anymore for the science fair anymore. It was a little disconcerting when all of the committee's kids got sent on to county."

Woman: Not even attempting to not look irate, not astonished that I would think that, but more along the lines of pissed that anyone had called them on it. "That is NOT how it happened. I'm going to go and tell the committee about your decision right now!" She storms off...

Wolf got an award, several of the kids from the school did not, so obviously his project deserved to be there. What really gets me though, is that we are talking about a 3rd grade science fair project here! Admittedly the school we went through is a high income area school, lots of scientists, this woman's kids both did projects that required expensive, esoteric, hard to come by scientific equipment, and so on, but at 3rd grade there is nothing to be gained, no further steps, the county fair is it. Wolf deserved to be there, he was thrilled by getting there and winning an award. How could she be so pissed about him being there? How could she dump all that nastiness with him right there?

Wolf asked what was going on, but I deflected the question and had to leave for the interviews. He asked me about it again later when we were viewing all the projects. I finally told him that even though I let him watch Star Wars and violent things, that there were some things that adults did that I don't feel are ok for kids to know about. That you can't unlearn certain lessons and that I wanted him to be a kid and be innocent of those things for as long as possible. Then I told him that if he remembered and asked me when he was 10 or 12 I'd tell him then. He was annoyed, but didn't argue.

So what would you have done, from start to finish if possible? I want to advocate for my son, but at the same time I really do feel that some lessons really need to wait for the emotional maturity to handle them if that can be managed. How do you deal with parents like that?

Oh my goodness, Wyldkat, that is just so awful! So sorry you and your DS had to be exposed to such viciousness. If you ask me, her comments suggest that they did in fact purposely exclude your son even though they knew he deserved to go to the fair.

As for how you dealt with it, I think you did fine! I agree, age 7 seems young for that lesson in injustice, especially since kids that age (especially the gifted ones!) have a hard time with unfairness. He will learn that lesson soon enough, imo!

I think you advocated for your son just fine by discussing the situation with the teacher. And I would avoid that school like the plague in the future. I love how she went off to "tattle" on you to the rest of the committee. I mean really, get a grip people!

I would have had exactly the same conversation - or like to think I would have! - that you did. There is absolutely no need for a 7yo to know the intricacies of what happened. I think it's appropriate for a 7yo to know that some adults are not as respectful or considerate as we expect people to be, and that's not a good thing, but there's no reason for a 7yo to know more than that, or to understand how he and his science project played into that. Really - an adult being jealous of a 7yo's science project doesn't even make sense when you try to apply logic to the situation.

Thanks for replying. I've had people telling I should explain it all to him, people saying I shouldn't, people saying I did the right thing, people saying I should have just let the whole thing slide and so on. Most of them didn't understand that Wolf KNEW that he deserved to go on. There's a difference between "I am as awesome as sliced bread" and "I know the quality of my work in comparison to the other projects." He was commenting on them based on the judging criteria! I've just been torn as to whether it was the right thing to do.

I think that YOU are Wolf's mpther and YOU know what is best for him to know or not know about the way the world really works. What happened to him was wrong and you were able to give him an experience he earned regardless of "those people". He can learn about that when YOU feel he is ready to handle it. YOU are his mother.

It's a really difficult situation. I think I might have acted as you did; but honestly, I think it might have been better to let it go when he wasn't put forward for county (i.e. discourage his teacher from taking it further). Judgments of this kind often seem unfair to people who lose out by them. Sometimes they really are unfair (not necessarily through malice); sometimes, people who lose out simply lack understanding of what they didn't do right; sometimes the judgment involves so much subjectivity that there really isn't answer; of course these aren't really alternatives, it's a spectrum.

As you've discovered, fighting a decision when you consider it unfair can have a downside even if you are right and even if you succeed (and what you experienced is far from the worst that could happen; here one assumes this was an isolated unpleasantness, but imagine a teacher from the school mentioned Wolf's name in a context of "imagine what this pushy mother did" to someone who remembers it later when you need a favour from them... I mean, here's hoping this is balanced by the possibility that someone remembers Wolf's great science fair entry, but ykwim: there are risks).

What I think might have been a more prudent path would have been to say to Wolf that you're surprised too that he didn't get put forward, and that you don't understand it either on the basis of the rubric, and encourage him to ask politely for feedback on what he could do better another time. And then, if still convinced that there was unfairness, absolutely avoid entering via that school in future!

I really would run a mile from telling Wolf that he didn't get put forward because the committee favoured their own children. It seems vanishingly unlikely that they consciously did so; far more likely, they had a collective view, different from yours and Wolf's, of what constituted a good entry, which had been established among them and which therefore their children met and Wolf didn't. Since Wolf did better at the county fair than some of their children, it looks as though their collective view didn't coincide with what the people judging there were looking for, but this doesn't imply that the committee at school level were being dishonest. Frankly I don't think assuming dishonesty in other people where there isn't absolutely cast-iron evidence is a thing to encourage. Cockup is really a lot more common than conspiracy, and in any case, assuming that other people are often incompetent is less damaging to the psyche than assuming that they are often malicious ;-)

Welcome to how "science" is done today. If you do not have a PHD then no matter how good your work is, you are at best a "naturalist." If you do not have a multimillion dollar budget and grants that bring in money to support the huge infrastructure, then you are ignored.

These people think the money and infrastructure and connections automatically mean success and it infuriates them when they get poked in the eye by some bumpkin they never heard of.

There is not much you could have done better when faced with the venality you described.

I'd support your kids and come back the next year with another entry.

I'd also look up the AMC8/10/12 tests and aim to do well on those if your kids want a STEM career.


I agree with this. We are direct to Mr W about most things like this. He is extremely perceptive and notices anyway. We do not want him to develop the wrong idea about things. Back when most people grew up on a farm, life and death and power struggles were played out among the farm animals and in nature and kids learned early. We tend to try to protect kids these days.

Honestly, I would have let it go when he did not get picked. I don't doubt you about the quality of the projects, but I would have been uncomfortable trying to go around the decision of the committee, even if it was a poor one. And if my child protested--and she would--I would have explained that sometimes judgements as to merit aren't what we expect, and that's the way life goes. I also would have talked to her about how SHE felt about her project, and what the point of doing the project was (for her to learn).

Crap like this does happen. It happens often, in fact. While I definitely would not talk to my child about my feelings that the committee was biased towards their own kids--I would find that inappropriate in a lot of different ways--I would indeed acknowledge that grown-ups are hardly infallible and that I thought her project should have been chosen.

IMHO (just what you needed, another opinion

I wouldn't necessarily tell him he didn't make it though the school competition. But I think I would discuss that woman's behavior. Something like "do you remember that woman who spoke with us at the science fair competition? Underneath all that anger, she was just scared. Maybe she's scared that her school isn't strong enough, maybe she's scared that her child was going to get "shown up" by your project, maybe she's scared of something else. We'll never know. But WE didn't do anything wrong."

Because I truly do believe that beneath that anger was fear.

eta: And it sounds like your Wolf is the kind of kid that parents are going to compare their children to and find them behind. He will need to learn sooner rather than later that weirdness from other parents is likely from their own insecurity.

I would learn toward giving him a filtered version of the truth. You could relate it to the legal process, i.e. you disagreed with the lower court's decision (the other school's committee). You appealed to your teacher who overturned the committee's decision and allowed his project to proceed to the county level. At this point, he knows something is up and probably is coming up with much worse scenarios in his own head -- mine certainly would.