Am I wrong to consider statements like "Oh, yeah-- my ________ could probably have skipped a grade or two, too, in elementary school" as kind of toxic?

(And not a little disingenuous, by the way... while it might be true in one subject for some kids, it's rarely true that those kids could be grade-skipped twice and thrive longterm.)

I think that things like that, said about obviously average, or even 'bright' kids... in front of my DD... are pretty much intended to diminish her self-image.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the unspoken part of the statement isn't "So YOU aren't so special" but instead it is "but WE understood that it would be harmful to accelerate OUR precious children...."

Maybe we as her parents are the targets? I honestly don't think this is about us feeling defensive or threatened. We dislike adults who 'call out' her age/grade in positive ways, too. It always feels inappropriate to us, regardless of whether it's "ohh, you must be some kind of GENIUS!!" or if it's the kind of thing I've been referring to here of, "She doesn't seem so smart to me."


Added to this context is the fact that DD, whose academic peers are Ivy-bound 16-17yo's, often compares herself to those peers and thinks that she's "nothing special" by virtue of being 'omnibus' gifted rather than having an area of profound ability with everything else being more moderately exceptional and acting as a foil to highlight the singularity. Multipotentiality strikes again, basically.

That is, she isn't a "mathy" or "scienc-ey" or "geeky" or "wordy" kid. She's more-or-less average/normative against any of THOSE kids. It's a weird area of distorted perception for her, honestly. She doesn't seem to grasp that her Mathy friends don't have her ability in English and debate, and that her Writer-friends aren't also in the math track that she is. Oh, and that they're all a couple of years older than she is to start with, and most of them are really working at it.

So we worry considerably about any whiff of toxic 'you should doubt yourself a little more' verbiage from other adults.



Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.