The obvious problem outside the context of this situation is that DD still isn't challenged to that ideal '80%' level even among this peer group-- thus the interpretation that she's "about average" and that apparently everyone else doesn't work all that hard at academics, either, combined with rampant task-avoidant perfectionism and procrastination as a motivational tool-- but this is about as far as we're comfortable pushing things on the social front.
I do think that you have it harder in that regard. My dd has some real processing speed issues (she's pretty average in terms of how fast she does things, deep not fast, save for reading, at which she is extremely fast). For that reason, and b/c she's been able to subject accelerate in some areas, take AP and pre-AP classes, etc., the fit is reasonable for her at this point. She also has to work if only due to the massive quantity (she had 4+ hrs of homework last year most nights, which is apparently the expected quantity for freshman with heavily loaded schedules as she had last year). We couldn't accelerate more b/c she would likely be crushed under the sheer quantity of work. There are areas, especially English, where the challenge level was still poor last year, but that's one where she's really never had a good fit save for maybe two years in her entire schooling. Yours may be more evenly gifted, though. Mine has some areas where she's somewhat regularly gifted and some where she's super gifted.
Has she taken an IQ test, the SAT or ACT for a talent search, or a math contest such as the AMC 8? Her scores provide an objective indication of her intelligence and math talent, and if you think she is being too negative you could remind her of them.
Yes on all of the above except for the AMC. She's qualified as gifted even as compared to kids in her grade and above in math on both the SAT and ACT (talent search awards, per charts like
this ). It doesn't stop her from seeing it as a weak area b/c it is a weak area for her in comparison to her other strengths and b/c she knows kids who are, albeit older than her, who are more advanced than she is right now.
None the less, I'm hoping that this isn't a major issue and don't want to totally derail HowlerKarma's thread to make it about my kiddo! I mostly wanted to commiserate although she's dealing with a more accelerated kiddo than am I b/c we have some similar issues.
