DeeDee-it's not Butter that would be hurting anyone's feelings. It's more like when she isn't doing exactly what the others are, the other adults are coming up to me, asking what HER PROBLEM is..."Who does she think she is?" And it's not like she is breaking rules or anything.
This is a good opportunity for the use of one of my favorite tactics... turning the absurd question back on the questioner: "I dunno... what's YOUR problem?" "Who do you think YOU are?"
Or, there's always the a-stupid-question-deserves-a-stupid-answer tactic: "Today, she thinks she's Hermione from Harry Potter. Yesterday she was Professor Trelawney, which was a lot of fun. Why do you ask?"
Finally, there's the overly-honest tactic: "Her problem is that her Girl Scout troop is full of the children of obnoxious bitches."
The appropriate tactic really depends on how angry you want your audience to be.
And I disagree that she should wait and find out what the others are interested in before speaking up. You probably don't mean it this way, but I'm hearing that I should try to get her to "fit in" and act more like the other kids? I spent my own young life doing that and it was awful...not to mention, it's obvious to me that they sense she is different.
It sounds like there's too much exploration of the territory where she's different, and not enough exploration of the territory where she's the same. People from all walks of life have things in common, and finding those things is the most important part of successful socialization.
For the record, the best man in my wedding remains a very close friend of mine since I met him in 10th grade. I graduated near the top of my class; he graduated as a functional illiterate. From a cognitive perspective, we're QUITE different. But there are a great many things I value in him apart from his political ideas or his take on the latest NASA discoveries.
