I have a 10 year old EG girl. Actually have the opposite situation right now as my daughter is developing self esteem for the first time.
Still, I think I have a few thoughts -
1. 10 year old girls can be moody and go through funks. At least consider this possibility.
2. Miraca Gross's book on exceptionally gifted children taught me a lot. One chapter went into self esteem and pointed out the obvious: there are different aspects of self esteem. Social, academic, etc.
By looking at it as a more complex issue, maybe you can get a better feel for what is causing this. Perfectionism can certain cause issues, but social interactions can cause different kinds of issues. Different spectrums.
(If you haven't read Miraca Gross's book - it is boring. However, I felt like it was worth a read because it covers EG kids in a really thorough way.)
3. My son periodically had horrible fits of lack of self esteem. Weird as it sounds, we discovered that removing eggs from his diet changed him completely. I don't know if it was an allergy, stomach upset, or what. I just know that if he comes home from school crying for any reason, it is a sure bet that he had something with eggs in it (cake, cookies, brownies) at a party.
4. Can't remember the name of the book, but a psych a few years ago recommended a book on self esteem for me to read regarding my daughter Barbie. The key point of the whole book was that self esteem comes from facing a challenge, working hard, and experiencing success.
It is easy to think that a gifted child has good self esteem because they have experience so much success and are confident in their abilities. However, if they have never faced and challenge and worked hard to accomplish success, they don't really have the whole picture. It takes all three pieces to get there.
It isn't easy to provide an EG kids with the chance to overcome a real challenge, but it is critical to ensuring that really do have good self esteem. For my son this year, it was learning a musical instrument. No award for academics ever really mattered to him because it all came so easy. Practicing daily to hit the low notes on his euphonium did something the science contest couldn't.
5. When I was young, everyone thought I had great self esteem. I didn't. Perfectionism. Do read up on this.
My mom always told me that she just wanted me to 'try my best'. I always knew that I could have tried harder, so I never gave myself credit. I felt horrible about myself.
Only as an adult, when I was finally challenged, when I had to work my butt off to achieve something - only then did I give myself credit.
That said - a PT conference definitely doesn't hurt. A little extra girl time (not necessarily talking about this) doesn't hurt. Both have the possibilities of helping.
However, understanding perfectionism, understanding true self esteem, understanding the complexity of self esteem, and looking for underlying trends (food, certain times of month, whatever) -- all of that helps too.
Good luck.
Mary
