So. My DD is turning 14 this month. She has NEVER been 'pressured' to be older than she is. We've done a lot to flex her environment so that her asynchronous development can just... be.
On the other hand, she IS grouped by grade for many many things, including those that are only tangentially about cognitive ability, which means that in sports, extracurriculars, etc. she often winds up feeling that she is "mediocre" at best in those domains. That's actually not true, as in many instances, she has competence which far outstrips AGE-mates and if she were placed synchronously, she'd look like a top 1%-er there, too. Well, okay-- maybe not athletically. LOL.
She has struggled with perfectionism (socially prescribed variety-- so procrastination, task-avoidance, and linked directly to self-image in ways that are about punishment, never 'reward').
We are concerned because she seems to be gravitating increasingly toward YOUNGER and YOUNGER peers-- and apparently dumbing down to fit in with them.
In mixed age groups, socially, she'll gravitate to the middle schoolers. She has stopped reading books at her level (college) and begun reading (and in many cases, RE-reading) material that she was reading in 3rd or 4th grade. Her vocabulary has really slipped.
She claims that this is interest-based, and not 'dumbing down.'
The problem is that she is quite a target for the middle-school Lord of the Flies social scene... she's WAY too much a MarySue for them to resist subtly eroding her self-esteem in every imaginable way, while passive-aggressively maintaining what SEEMS (superficially) like being a 'good friend.' She has what I'd call two actual friends, and most kids this age are looking to take shots at her instead because she makes them feel a bit insecure. Recall, we live in a town where 30% of the kids are told they are "super-smart" and parents generally place a LOT of value on that attribute. DD is living proof that they might need to question that assumption, YK? Instead, they tend to question HER-- "Oh, you must not be taking a real AP class... it must be watered down... I could do that, too... that's not so special... I'll bet your parents do ____ FOR you, though... yeah, but you're not good at ____... but I'm more/less ___ than you..."
She also claims (in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary) that her academic peers (3-5y older) "reject her" socially, and that the younger kids don't, and that THAT is why she is seeking them out.
I don't really know what is going on with this. Is it social anxiety? Maybe, but what on earth is fueling it??
Is it related to perfectionism and her insecurity re: risk-taking? Again, I'm not sure, but that doesn't seem to be all of it.
I'm distressed by this attitude from her, though-- because she'll be a senior in high school next year, and she seems to have decided that she 'cannot' fit in with academic peers. I'm not sure WHY she has come to that particular conclusion, because it's not based on any reality that I can see.
The person that we see is vastly less flakey, flighty, and... well, BLONDE-behaving... than the one that she seems to be presenting to groups of adolescents. She doesn't do this other than with real-life/in-person situations. As soon as a group knows her chronological age, she reverts to this immature behavior.
OF COURSE when she acts like a 11-12yo boy, that's who is going to befriend her. Not many 17yo's want close social ties to tweens. The thing is, even people she HAS been friends with have abandoned her in the face of this kind of behavior (not that I blame them).
Any advice, here? I'm puzzled to know how to help her.
