I don't think that talking about math placement is going to convince your dd10 that she is valuable and special, and in some ways, I think that you have to try less to convince her because that will make her even more certain that something is wrong. My younger ds is more accelerated than older ds in math, while older dd was more accelerated than younger dd. We just treated it very matter-of-factly, "they didn't have a good fit in her other class, so she needed to move up," "circumstances worked out that he was able to be further accelerated," etc... Can you talk to any of the friends' parents? I'm shocked that they are "constantly asking." Younger ds was and is in class with many of older ds's friends and it is no big deal (there are multiple tracks in our school, and it's very large, so maybe that's why there is less novelty). We've dealt with grade skips, early entrance, early graduation, one finishing college in 3 and another in 5... we just tried to take each one matter-of-factly. It really has never caused problems. Every once in a blue moon, one will say that he/she feels like the "stupid" one, the "unaccomplished" one, the "lazy" one, etc... but it is almost ALWAYS more about their own feelings than about anything his/her sibling has accomplished. I think those pre-teen years are tough for girls and your dd10 might be feeling stressed or unsure of herself no matter what the situation. Focus on making her feel good about herself in general, but don't focus so much on the math comparison, imho. And finally, if she does worry about where she is in math (I had one who occasionally worried because although she was talented, she wasn't as far ahead as her sister/brothers), remind her that she has her WHOLE life to do more math. If she really wants to, she can take a summer course, double up in HS, take endless college math courses, etc...We reminded her that she was incredibly smart and had the ability to rock whatever course she took. However, she didn't necessarily
want to do that, she just occasionally needed reassurance that she
could do that if she wanted.
