i only recently realized how i've spent 5 years minimizing everything - generally characterizing DD5 as "interesting & fun" - because it neatly sidesteps the issue.
up until this year, i did have one (childless) friend that was safe, but when we recently had to go the psychologist route to figure out why the kid was wanting to quit kindergarten, the conversation with my friend shut down faster than you can say "gifted." it was pretty shocking to hear my best friend of 35 years tell me that my kid "might have been slightly ahead of the curve for years, but now you're finally seeing that they all even out in the end." ha - i guess it wasn't a safe conversation after all!
so now it's just my mum and my husband's parents who hear the real stories: and as they frequently say... they understand, because they raised
us. everyone else gets the old chestnut, "she's quite an interesting person." which is quite good, because it leaves the door open for the other parent to chime in, "they all are, aren't they?" which is quite true - even if they don't all even out in the end.
When shopping for schools, my DH and I had a script of words we could use so we didn't seem like THAT parent and could be taken seriously. It's a landmine.
school conversations really are the worst - i spent all of this year feeling like i'd fallen into the Twilight Zone. the silver lining is that when it was time to cut our losses, i was able to simply describe the litany of problems to each school... you know, by way of giving the principal the chance to say "no thanks" up front. i heard a few of those, but we settled on the one who said, "oh, she's clearly gifted - we love that here." i didn't have to say
a thing... - he just had a plan, ready to go.
