Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Second child girls!

I have a 6 y.o DS who is HG, and I suspect my 4 year old daughter has similar leanings. However, she seems to hide it. For example, she had a five year old girlfriend over to play a few days ago, and when this girl said, ohh, I don't like to read, so did my DD! I already feel like she is confused as to what she thinks she should be interested in. How early does it all start, with girls thinking it is not cool to be smart? I guess I'm just thinking aloud, not really looking for an answer

I'm a mother of boys, so I don't know specifically about girls, but my now 5 yo boy was definately starting to hide a bit around other children at 4 years old. I really noticed it in play. Alone, he would play elaborate make believe games with plots etc. With children his age, he would run around like crazy and just roar. He is my oldest, too.

So I guess I'm saying, it wouldn't surprise me at all if she was getting that message somehow.

I wonder what you do about it, though? I guess it depends on the child. In my case, I have been trying to expose my DS to other children who are perhaps more l;ike him, and older children too, so that he starts to feel like it is ok to be who he is.

This is an old article by Linda Silverman but she describes the phenomenon that you describe -- gifted girls going underground at a very young age. I believe that this link is still good.
http://www.jeffcopublicschools.org/programs/gifted_talented/where_have_all_the_girls_gone.pdf

This is very interesting. My second child is a daughter (first born ds10 is the only id gifted one right now). She is extremely social at home and at school. I wonder, how can you tell if a girl is gifted if they've gotten so good at pretending they're not? I've heard on this board "test one, test them all" but if I brought it up to my dd8's school, they'd think I was nuts. Dd8 has always been "right on" in school.

The funny thing is that when we meet people for the first time, more often than not, they think dd8 is my oldest child. She is much more socially mature and well spoken than the actual oldest child!! She really gets a kick out of that!

Knute, great link, thanks. My daughter is much happier to read to me and talk about math now that it is summer and she doesn't have preschool! She is also mostly interested in playing with her brother ... Long, complex games of good and evil, big life themes. She hasn't asked much about the gaggle of preschool girls she ran with last year, but we have had a few over for playdates, which she seems to mildly enjoy but not talk much about afterwards.

Jeez, never thought I would be seriously considering homeschooling! No offense to homeschoolers, just never thought it would be on my radar. I really want her to learn to be proud of her smarts and skills, though.

great article, thanks for posting. I saw my dd5 in the description of girls, so this makes me feel better about continuing to consider keeping her one-year-ahead instead of going back to K in the fall.

(I also saw my ds10 in the description of the boy, hanging on the periphery of the playground thinking his own big thoughts. )

Dd does seem 'bossy', but I will keep her little leadership potential in mind next time I am see this sort of thing; Folks have mentioned how she'll make a great ceo, and I always think, yeah, or Commander of the Pacific Fleet! She is pretty hard core.

DD13 learned to read at 4. She had a friend who as families we were really close. When the friend and her mother came over my DD went to read to her. The friend freaked out, wanted nothing to do with DD reading to her. DD stopped reading for a while. The funny thing is that four year old friend is very dyslexic and I have wondered if the reaction was somehow related to that.

DD2.9 learned her letters and at about 20 months was really into X. She had figured out how to write it etc. We went over to a friends house who was painting. The other little girl was making scribbles and then declaring them to be things such as cats etc. My little one painted an awkward X. The other little girl asked what it was. My little one answered, "Just Painting." I could not believe at 20 odd months that she was hiding what she was doing.....

I don't know, it should be an interesting battle at our house! I have to constantly talk to DS8 about calling DD5 "stupid". She can read now, although she still guesses on unfamiliar words, but he thinks she should have known 3 years ago like he did at her age. It's hard for him, because practically everybody is "stupid" compared to him, so he can't see that she is really a pretty smart girl. She just isn't on his level, but he doesn't know anybody who is. I'm hoping that at least this will translate into her trying to show how smart she is, rather than hiding it, but that could lead to a whole different can of worms if she's always trying to catch up to brother who is not only on a different level but also 4 years older. She seems pretty oblivious to it all so far, which might be the best course.

This was a big part of our decision to homeschool too. When I saw DS hiding his abilities in a playgroup, I thought how much worse it would be in a more structured classroom. I don't think every child has this problem, but mine certainly did.

The thing I wonder - is how are you supposed to tell what is "hiding" at school and what is just achieving less due to being distracted by processing more? Does that make sense? Is my gifted DD's handwriting so much better at home because she is dumbing down at preschool or because she's just more interested in getting it over and moving on to something more interesting (the sand pit)? Of course she's more interested in the sandpit at preschool because the puzzles are years too easy for her. I just don't know whether to worry or not. And I really don't know what to make of DD either. She just seems so "normal" to me... is she pretending? Is she just a really easy going kid who's not that interested in academic pursuit?

I see this so much with dd5. She hid herself from super earlier (before two it was apparent at daycare). Now, at school, I can see they think she's smart but don't see what all the fuss is about. She can tell the time to the minute, but ask her what the time is in front of someone (even if it's a much younger kid) and she'll tell you she doesn't know. She reads with beautiful expression at home, but at school she is monotone as she reads. She's in all the top groups at school and takes her work very seriously despite coming home and saying it's very easy, but she'll never show more than she has asked. She appears to fit in with her ppers because she'll play with any one, but at home says she feels lonely at school.

A while ago on another thread Katelyn'sMom made a comment about having a child that will wait until the box is opened rather than open it herself and that has stayed with me ever since because it is such an apt description of dd. The problem is getting the school to see dd needs it. Because she hides, I look extra pushy.

In contrast a friend of mine has an MG, maybe HG son, who obviously doesn't fit in with his peers. He shows all the signs of the boy in the link posted. Another friend, a teacher, raves about this boy where as I know she thinks I push dd too far (dd, aware she's being evaluated, barely speaks in her presence - needless to say I tend to catch up with her without dd as a rule).

Sigh...

Both of my daughters (8 and 3) have gone "underground" at various times, and in different situations, but for what appears to be the same reason "kids my age aren't supposed to do X" or "kids my age are only supposed to be able to do Y".

DD8 has decided on her own that she can't stay underground very long. She sees it as being polite to the person she is with, when she tries to fit in with them, or be interested in what they do, but the whole time she is only 1/4 of the way engaged in the activity and the rest of her brain is usually singing songs or observing other people or trying to figure out why this other person her age can only do X when she can do XY and Z.

It has been interesting to see her come to accept that she is different and that she is proud of being smart and she wants to be the top of the class . She still has a hard time when others don't understand her and she gets her feelings hurt, probably more than I know, but she is growing in self-confidence daily and is going underground less and less. We have spent a lot of time finding people who will let her be herself as well as given her opportunities to be the questioning inquisitive kid with wild amazing ideas purely because as a gifted female, I know what it is like to go underground and how bad it makes you feel when you have to pretend to be someone you really aren't. (been there, done that, still do sometimes ).

Our younger DD started going underground at about 2. I was amazed the first time I saw it. I think it will be more difficult to get her to stop going underground because she already compares herself to her older sister. So far it is to ask when she will be old enough to do things, or when she will learn to do other things, but I see it getting more than that in the future. I don't remember DD8 going under so early, but maybe she did and we just missed it.

It helped a lot to give DD8 an opportunity to be herself and to nudge her to be herself in school. (We would do little pep talks on the way to school when I noticed her going underground.) The more often she saw success and positive responses to her being herself the more she did it. (Sort of like self-fulfilling prophecy)

I wonder if it's all tied up with the princesses somehow, and I'm only partially kidding. My DS barely 4's preschool is full of girls loving the princesses, and though she was much more about "Dora" at 2 and 3, she is definitely into princesses and the attention she gets when she dresses up like one. All well and good, but when you actually read any princess stories, it gets a little nauseating, always being saved by the prince after being locked up, etc. You rarely see the princesses solving math problems, working, or curling up with an exciting book. Sorry, Rapunzel.

My HG DS6 just finished a year of essentially mainstream kindergarten, and as I look back on the year, I wonder whether it was good for him or not. He' a lot like the boy in the article, so the year started out great, then devolved into boredom since nothing was new and it was repetitive, friendships unraveled, and he wasn't very into it by the end. He's starting a program for HG/PG kids this fall and couldn't be happier ... he met the kids at shadow day and really hit it off. I just wonder how much more complicated that switch would be for my daughter and if a year in a mainstream kindergarten would be even worse for her. I was all about full-day kindergarten vs. half day (in AZ that's a big thing), but maybe less really is more for gifted girls who might need to learn more confidence to stand out and be the smart one.

Kerry, I do the pep talks too!

And I agree, "Let's ban "Bossy!"

I have 2 gifted daughters. One is 9 and her kindergarten year was at Montessori - only 12 hours a week. My little one, 5, just finished HER kindergarten year at a public school, all day but had a Montessori start in preschool. I seriously don't know which was better. There is a confidence thing. The little one, in public school, is lacking writing confidence and spelling. Her number sense is not as good, but her organization skills and manners and such seem to bet better. Who knows...

Paper bag princess is my favorite princess story!

That was DD8s favorite story too - I'd forgotten about it, I'll have to introduce DD3 to it.