Was anyone else here desperate to blend in as a kid? I was. I didn't think the same way almost everyone else did, and it was so obvious, and was such a huge barrier for me.
As an example, I was taunted for using "big words," yet I had idea what kids were talking about. I didn't realize when I was six that my vocabulary was so different. As I got older, I thought about different stuff than my peers and got accused of "thinking too much."
This isn't a whingey post about how tough I had it, but rather a way of making a related point, which is that when parents brag, their kids can suffer. My parents never bragged about me, but if they had, my frustrations would have been magnified and the situation would have been even worse.
So, it might seem wonderful to a parent to tell the world how bright her child is, but the child might see things very differently. Kids don't typically need someone advertising the fact that they're really incredibly different from almost everyone around them.
