Hmmm-- I have to wonder if, in light of your DD's ability to gravitate to older youth, the decision to keep her academically with age-mates is entirely positive.
It seems that this is
causing a handful of related problems--
your DD is the "curve-breaker" for her peers (this cannot possibly make a person a lot of friends unless they are willing to help others cheat)
she is learning that 100% is not only
reasonably attainable, but also that it is EXPECTED-- for her, anyway
she is learning that there is nobody else as capable as she is within her peer group.
In some ways, my DD doesn't have those problems because she thinks of her ACADEMIC peer group as the hard-working, honor society, AP/IB kids
who are three years older than her. In other words, she is still in the top 10%, but it's a matter of luck who is "on top" in any particular area or assignment, and they all know it.
This also frees her (and her peers) to view agemate relationships as SOCIAL rather than academic in nature-- and therefore non-competitive in that academic arena. It also frees academic peers from seeing my DD as a
social threat (which is a girl thing, I fear).
I'm wondering why your family has decided so emphatically against acceleration, momsalwaysamom. I'm sure that you have good reasons for the decision-- I'm just wondering if you've examined the probable
down side of
always being number 1. (Because I think that it goes without saying that this won't always be the case, particularly if your child attends a prestigious/elite college-- there is ALWAYS someone smarter than you, even if it takes a while to run across such a person...)
We've had a few friends whose children (and I'm going to be
appearing to be stereotyping here, I'm sure... but this is about cultural expectations, not race) were expected to achieve at the 99th percentile-- ALWAYS. My DD has a few friends who have that expectation placed on them by first-generation immigrant parents. They see being a "standout" as NEVER being a negative thing, and that even if the child has to work frantically hard to earn those accolades, that is completely worth it. Parents work hard to provide opportunities, and they expect that their children will work EVERY BIT as hard to take advantage of them, and to give 110% at everything that they do. In one instance, one of the children in the family is HG, and the other is bright/MG; but both children are
expected to achieve the way my DD does (without extraordinary effort). My DD feels terribly sad for the MG child in that family, because it's clear even to my 13yo that this is an unrealistically high, crushing expectation that is sucking the joy out of life for that friend, who is overstressed and overscheduled to a tremendous degree. My DD has helped this peer with math tutoring, fwiw, and the student is very bright... just not PG-bright. If a grade is
less than 100% in that household, there are consequences. Because "results matter." They are looking to produce high school valedictorians in that household. Period. No WAY would they consider acceleration for the HG child, even though (privately) that seems to me to be a far more appropriate and healthy thing. Because that might jeopardize "number one."
Anyway. Not suggesting that your reasons for keeping your DD in an age-placement are necessarily about
insurance of having a high school valedictorian... but if they ARE...
please consider that long-term, it can be better for a child to have an academic peer group that CAN compete with her.
I can also respect that other families see this quite differently than we do. For families which see elite college admissions as the goal, maintaining that level of achievement might well be something that they decide is mandatory. (It's not that important to us; our feeling is that the
cost to our DD is simply too high to consider doing it.)
Making 100% the goal can
feed anxiety every bit as much as making success uncertain/out of reach can. I know-- we've been walking this tightrope with my DD13. It seems (from most research on the subject) that making 100% just out of reach is better strategically than conditioning them to feel that this is always what "success" will look like for themselves. After all, if the class is not terribly hard, then is 100%
really "success?" Or is it merely "what a relief-- I didn't fail and miss anything"? My DD has struggled with the latter because school is
still not quite as challenging as she actually NEEDS it to be in most classes. AP Physics has been a blessing there-- 100% isn't really possible for her other than if she gets kind of lucky, and therefore, her effort is actually proportional to her results. This is a rarity, and I can't say that she's always enjoyed it (in part because she is somehow convinced that WE expect 100% from her given all the years when that has been not only a possibility, but frankly, not even all that much of a stretch)... but we can see that it is turning her away from a fixed mindset and toward a growth one-- which is a GRAND thing.
It doesn't
sound as though this is a particular problem area for your DD; she does, if I'm reading you correctly, have to work pretty hard for her 100% grades. I'm just not convinced that having 100% be
attainable is always a good thing either way. Does she believe that she MUST earn 100%? Please don't misread me there-- no WAY am I suggesting that you have communicated that expectation to her. My DD believes this as well, and she certainly hasn't learned it from US. Or does she think that she has to be #1? Maybe that is causing some of her anxiety as the challenge level increases from middle to high school?
Perfectionism and anxiety are tricky, tricky things to wrestle with. I don't want to give the impression that we don't encourage excellence in our DD. We do.
But we've learned to be VERY careful how we do that encouraging.
Obviously, parenting teens isn't for the faint of heart, is it?? I really hope that something I've mentioned is helpful. Teenaged girls are
very complicated creatures.
