i've found that many adults are totally charmed by a kid who is fascinated by what they do - they'll often let you do things you'd never dream possible. we had a radiologist swipe some old x-rays and give them to her - they redacted the names with a sharpie together and had a great talk about medical confidentiality.
My daughter begged for her x-rays when she fell down the stairs! She was kind of upset because they promised her CT scan photos, but they didn't print well, so she couldn't see "the inside of her eyeballs". The doctors were all so impressed with her, they explained every little detail to her. Until they checked her chart, they actually thought she was 5 (she would be 3 in a month).
I'm saddened to hear that people treat a child that way, I know back in my days as a little one, I had similar issues. My family believed in the "seen not heard" method of child rearing, and when I would get excited about an adult conversation and add anything to it, I was told to leave the room.
We've been very lucky with our little girl because she's very social, she has kind of adapted to "formal behavior" around non-familial adults and her insights and comments tend to be appreciated as "cute". We're also lucky, in that, we have a large group of friends who were all considered gifted as children too, who have incredibly impressive kids of their own, so we all can appreciate what our children are going through/need (usually).
All I can give as advice is to compliment your child and make her feel good in her own eyes. Try to see if there are local gifted groups where you can connect with parents that get it.
With the drama issues, try explaining things to her - show her why she won't fall off the bridge, show her the chains and the stability structures that keep it up, break out the engineering books if you have to, just give her a reason to not be frightened. I know my daughter loves the WHY and the HOW, and fears have been a great way to address a lot of those things.
We use fear as a reason for research - scared of spiders? Look up the kind of spider you see and show her it isn't poisonous. Afraid of the slide? Talk about gravity and slopes and friction, most of the kids I know are very excited to try new things once it's become an experiment or they gain a new understanding of it.
Our other approach is to make an adventure out of everything - we used to make up stories when she was small that we'd play along in. When she was 2, I came into her room and she was sitting on her bed pulling up stuffed animals off her floor saying "I'll save you, hold on!". When I asked what was happening, she informed me that she was on a raft in a river full of crocodiles trying to eat her friends and she had to hurry to save them.
Interestingly, this solved another problem - she was afraid of falling out of bed up to that point (the crocodiles were her own mental concoction to deal with the fear), the day she started saving her friends was the day she decided that falling out of bed was no longer scary. It's all about being creative and finding what works for your kid
It's even better if they think it's their idea!
I hope that's helpful!
