1. When someone posts scores, they often give extra information designed to give the impression that the test scores are low. This seems to happen even with DYS-level scores, as if they're something to apologize for; it appears to happen over the entire spectrum of scores.
I've noticed this. I think it's very natural; we see our own [children's] capabilities as being what we [they] can do in ideal circumstances (which is fair enough) but extended on-demand reality never comes up to that imaginary standard. (Cf the
Fundamental Attribution Error, and more prosaically, people estimating how long it's going to take them do to something by thinking about how much they could do in so many
Ideal Engineering Days - it's a psychological basic.)
2. There is somewhat of a tendency to engage in one-upmanship. This happens with testing info sometimes, but has also happened in discussions of milestones and school advancement.
This I don't recognise as having happened here so much; I hope this isn't a sign that I do it myself a lot! It may be a question of how one assigns motives; I don't think that if one person posts that their child got to a milestone at age X and another posts that theirs got there at age Y < X, I'd see that as entering into competition, so much as joining in. Perhaps people are less likely to contribute a Y > X, though?
3. There is sometimes a tendency to false modesty: for example, acting like a smart child's skills actually scare the parents by virtue of being so advanced.
Yes, this is a comfortable position to take, socially. It can also, I swear, be the absolute truth. I am very scared for my DS and by the responsibility of making choices for him.
4. There is a bit of cliquishness, or so it seems to me. Talking about "these sorts of kids", you know 'em once you've had 'em, that sort of thing. I think that this is may be a form of response to the fact that people come here with information or questions on children who are pretty obviously not DYS level or above in current ability.
This is an interesting one. Clique is just a negative word for community, after all. I certainly experience a tension between wanting to be welcoming and wanting to preserve the distinctive feature of this place, viz. that here I can feel my child is relatively normal.
5. There is a borderline obsession over categorization, e.g. the Ruf levels or the labels of HG, EG, PG, with or without pluses. Once one's kid reaches the gold standard of DYS admission, one's kid is able to be labeled PG here. I think this may be a sort of safe haven for a parent's ego.
I agree that there's a lot of focus on labels and numbers that doesn't sit well with me, but I'm not sure ego is the reason. I think most people generally feel happier with phenomena once they've been labelled and numbered. I strongly mistrust the labels and numbers (I don't feel that any of the ones generally used here have particularly well-defined or useful semantics) but I nevertheless feel the attraction. Names are power, and numbers even more so :-)
I don't want to offend anyone, and I should mention that I myself may have done some of these things too. I consider these sorts of behaviors to be natural and unavoidable in a group, due in part to the way intelligence scores are viewed. You reduce a person to a number, where a higher number is better, and it's going to create stress. And many of these behaviors have a rational basis. There certainly are bad testers, perfectionism, etc. I view the comments by parents going along/commiserating as confirming those parents' views of their own children, but also as driven by honest emotion for fellow sufferers.
Yup.
