More than anything else, our DD8 cannot stand to be wrong. This applies to being wrong about facts or information, as well as being caught doing something wrong, like taking her sister's toy.
When caught doing something wrong, she will with utmost conviction deny being wrong, and use all manner of verbal subterfuge to wiggle out of it. She is so convincing that we often second-guess what our own eyes have seen. When the subtle approach fails her, she will blatantly deny and lie with a defensive fire in her eyes. In fact, in daily life with her friends and family she seems to begin most replies with, "No,[let me correct you; you misunderstood me; what I really meant was; that's not at all what happened...]" She has been doing this since age 5 but it has increased this past year.
What is going on here? We aren't Tiger Parents and our punishments are not severe. In fact we're pretty casual and lazy in that regard. We don't hype her up as the gifted know-it-all, and we regularly tell her that we're wrong all the time, and that it's OK.
What worries me is that no matter what approach we use to rebuke her blatant lying and denial, she won't back down. It's as if she truly believes she is not wrong, when really what appears to be going on that she cannot handle being wrong. If we keep pushing, she melts down, screams and howls.
We've tried talking to her about it. We tell her we are wrong all the time, and that's it's normal and OK. But this does not seem to make a dent.
I wonder if maybe early on, when she got wind she was gifted, she took it on as her identity. Her tester was quite impressed and spoke to her of grade skipping, but maybe now that she's in a gifted class where she's not the highest achieving student, this identity is threatened. In fact, it almost seems like it burdens her, because she doesn't care for academics; her only real passion is to be spontaneously discovered as a pop star. But then when we try to tell her she needs to practice singing more to get there, she becomes a wall.
Is this typical for gifted children? Has anyone else dealt with this successfully, and if so, how?
We just want her to be happy and be who she is. As parents we believed we had the most power and influence to help her accomplish this, but the reality often leaves us feeling powerless, forcing us to shrug our shoulders and ask for help. And thanks to places like this, we can find some guidance, since we cannot afford the child shrink at present.
