Some things I've often noticed here:
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.
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.
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 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.
This may be because I already know that my DCs are not DYS level, but I haven't looked at the details people post in quite that way. We opted not to test our kids because our district doesn't (as far as we can tell) take cognitive test scores into account. This has left us caught between what I've read on-line and off, and the vague assurances of people in our district who talk a good game, but whose practices seem more aligned with the mythology of giftedness (hard working/high acheiving/dot the i's cross the t's kinds of kids) than with the complexities. I have...well, based on what I've read here, probably not a cheetah, but certainly a very fast gazelle who only runs when there is real risk (she doesn't like to fail) or something really enticing to run after. It has been extremely difficult for me, as a parent, to figure out how typical or atypical she is. The details that people have been willing to share here have been ENORMOUSLY helpful to me. The sorting of kids into HG/PG etc. is part of the picture I needed to get a more realistic picture. As has been mentioned in other threads, it is very uncomfortable to test the waters IRL without feeling like I have to mince words or downplay what we have seen, especially where it is inconsistent with she does at school. Getting a better picture has given me the courage to advocate for her and to--finally--get her moved from a "cage" to a "fenced grassland" in her strength subject. As it turns out, she is a much happier and much faster gazelle out in the grassland than she ever was in the cage of her very modestly differentiated classroom, and it has given her the motivation and courage to request more in math (a secondary strength), which is a strength that has always been muted by her global rather than linear approach to thinking and learning. Now if I can just get a handle on my "all or nothing" DS....
