I'm not sure if appropriate work will help settle some of these behaviors but I have a feeling not. She is an intense little girl.
Good to hear your thoughts regarding the running around with the boys thing.
Like howdy, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason she's running around with the boys is that she enjoys what they are doing more than she enjoys hanging out with the girls in her class. My ds had a best friend (female) in early elementary who simply wasn't into the types of things that the girls in the class enjoyed. My ds is EG, and I have no idea what the intellectual ability level of his friend was, but from what I saw their friendship was based largely on personality type - they were both quiet observers who liked dinosaurs and Harry Potter and making forts in the snow etc, not kids who played with dolls and enjoyed Hannah Montana or whatever girl cartoon was wildly popular back then.
I was under the impression that gifted kids usually crave intellectual connections and conversations. I think she tries with the girls but no one really responds to her. I sometimes see age peer girls staring and gaping at her with their mouths open when she is talking and they do not respond back. They don't like playing with her as much as the other girls.
It's true - highly gifted children do often crave intellectual connections and conversations, but I wouldn't discount that they also crave connections in other ways too - personality, friendship, fun etc. And I wouldn't assume that the other girls don't like playing with your daughter - I'm guessing it's more a situation of not having found a common ground, for whatever reason. My older dd is really really social (and with ease), so she's always had a ton of friends at school. It's been interesting to see, as the school years go by, how so many typical girl friendships and relationships change and morph (sometimes very quickly). It's possible that's part of where your dd isn't really fitting in with the girls.
It sounds like your ds has had a really good experience at the new school - so I'd at least seriously consider giving it a try, even if you feel your dd will ultimately need more challenge. If this is your first meeting with the principal, it's good to go in with a thoughtful plan in terms of what you feel your dd needs, but also go in with an open mind ready to listen to what the principal has to say. No one meeting is ever the end of the journey - I suspect you'll come away from the meeting not satisfied 100%, but with a lot more data and understanding of where the principal stands. Then, after the meeting, put together your response and updated requests, and send that in writing.
One thing I think you'll need to figure out - and I'm guessing you won't be able to get to it with just this one meeting (although maybe you already have a good understanding of it since your ds is at the school?)... is *why* the resistance to grade skipping at this school. It could be as simple as a school district policy that the principal doesn't want to have to disagree with or advocate for an exception to. It could be that there is a policy in place in the district that allows grade skips and the principal doesn't want his staff to be bothered with the time and paperwork required to do the skip. It could be that the school has tried grade skips in the past and they didn't work (for any number of reasons). It could be that the principal philosophically doesn't believe in grade skips. Or it could be that the school has a philosophy/mission/value set that is firmly entrenched in "going deeper" vs skipping up or a belief that all students should be working at the same place as their same-age peers etc. At the meeting, ask about the possibilities of a grade skip, and if the principal tells you the school doesn't grade skip, ask why.
I also think that there are a lot of different meanings being tossed around when people use the word "maturity" (which you can see just from the replies to this post). If the principal brings up maturity as a reason not to skip, ask for specifics re what he/she means by "maturity" and ask for specific examples from your dd's school experience that illustrate what is being referred to as immaturity.
Good luck with your meeting!
polarbear
