Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Any EG kids not feel comfortable with older kids?

DS is going to be seven next month and is at science camp this week. We put him in the group with 7-9 year olds instead of 4-6 year olds, but he said he does not like how it feels being the youngest in the group. He said he likes being the oldest. The teacher also said he did not socialize with the kids yesterday. He is more of an extrovert so it really surprised me. I was hoping he would find a better fit with the older kids and more things in common, but he said when they were working on a group project yesterday the kids did not let him participate.
I know it was just the first day, but it has me rethinking if pursuing a skipping 1st grade for this school year is a good idea socially for him. Maybe being the oldest gives him more confidence to deal socially.

Again I wish it would be easier to figure out what to do...

Wow... totally same thing here!! DD will be 9 in three weeks. She is also going to Science camp this week and I, too, put her in a group with older kids (9-12). Yesterday, when she came home, she mentioned that she felt very young and a little uncomfortable when it came to socializing with the other kids. She is an extreme extrovert who has many friends and loves to meet new people. I am chalking this up to first-day 'ickies'... a term she coined for that yucky nervous feeling you get in your stomach when somthing makes you uncomfortable, rather than that she does not fit in with the older kids. Maybe this is the case with your DS, too.

If you figure out the right answers to anything related to parenting a giftie, you are one lucky person! If my mother's day present was relative to the amount of time I spend worrying about DD, I am due a trip to Hawaii and a Lexus SUV for this year alone, LOL.

PS - did he like science camp? DD is having a blast. They made polymers into rubber balls, learned how to develop a video game and how to dust for finger prints.

We also had this experience this summer when DD, 7 (not EG, but anyway) went to a camp that was 7-13. She said the older kids were too bossy. I think she's used to taking a leadership role and didn't like being the littlest and not taken seriously. She actually thrived in her last year of preschool when she was one of the oldest and was sort of idolized by the younger girls.

I think, though, that one year ahead (as witha skip) is pretty different than 4-5 years older.

I'd say that my girls might be more in the HG than EG category but I have one who does much, much better when placed with older kids and one who doesn't. My oldest has always seemed older than her age and the fit since skipping a grade has been much better socially.

My youngest has always been the youngest in most things she does due to where her bd falls and us kind of sneaking around a K cut-off by starting her elsewhere and then moving her. It's a tough situation with her b/c, when she does a class like a drama class where she's on the older end of the spectrum, she is generally disengaged and doesn't like the way the other kids act, but she doesn't complain. When she's the youngest, she is unhappy b/c she feels like other people talk down to her and treat her like a baby.

I think that part of it comes from her dumbing down and not showing what she can do, so the older kids have no reason to assume that she is very capable. For her, the other piece is that she is very, very small physically. Going into 6th grade, she's 4'4" and well under 60 lbs. She has a number of kids in her grade who are a good foot taller than her. It's a bummer but she's got short Italian genes and I don't know what I can do about that.

Mr W (3.5y) is in with 4.5-5.5y in a curriculum based day care. He also has play dates with kids in the 5-9y age range. He gets along really well with them all.

In the case of his current school, he told me after his first day, "Dad, they can talk!" referring to his classmates.

Prior to that he was in a Montessori school with just one or two kids older than him in his room but often ended the day with a large group of mixed age kids.

In the latter case, he gravitated to the older kids due to the more complex nature of their games, and once the older kids realized he could hang, they accepted him. One kindergarten kid came up to me when Mr W was 2.5Y and told me, "He learns really fast!!"

Overall it has worked out in Mr W's case because he has been exposed to older kids from almost the very beginning. He is also very much an extrovert.

Mr W does get mad when he gets talked down to. We prep him when going to a new situation by reminding him to act like an adult, ie shake hands, introduce himself, and we encourage him to address people when they ask us questions about him. Once he breaks the ice then he gets included.

Perhaps you can work on social strategies with your DS on how to become part of the scene. IE, introduce himself, being aggressive in getting included, making one friend at a time, etc.

The ironic thing in our instance is that our one who does better with older kids is very much an introvert. Our younger one is amazing socially adept (she just reads people really well) and one of the biggest extroverts I've ever met. She just doesn't feel like the older kids accept her well all of the time & has developed a bit of a complex about her size.

When there is an older girl alone, DD and her are great together, despite DD's small size. But when there are more than one older kids, sometimes they get cliquey, just because they are older and bigger and one may just want to hang with the other kid. As they get into that 6-8 age range, these things seem to happen more and hanging with older kids is not always an option.

Our daughter, who is introverted, much prefers older kids. Looking through the posts on this thread most of those kids who'd prefer younger/same age kids seem to be extroverts. I wonder if for an extroverted kid, who likes to lead play and be in the thick of things, older kids just aren't as satisfying? They're possibly already getting to play their own choice of games, they're able to be take control of the kinds of interactions they are having etc. Where as for introverted kids, older kids offer a chance to play the kinds of things they want to play (simply be being more aware of the same themes and ideas) but can't necessarily negotiate with same age kids to play. I have no idea if this is actually the case, just my thoughts!

Having said that, we have had the same experience as you too, Wren. Our dd plays beautifully with a couple of friends' daughters who are a two or three years older - when she and one of them are together one on one. But as soon as there is more than one, naturally the dynamic changes and dd is left struggling to participate equally.

Giftodd,
That is an interesting observation. That may be the case, where with same aged slightly younger kids they are able to dominate to make play and activities interesting to them. Where with older kids my son has felt very rejected in the last two days. He has played with older kids before but usually with just one and it's been good, but camp has not been good. He likes that they do more interesting things, but socially he feels completely excluded and when they were working on a group project he was not allowed to participate by the other boys either. Last week he was there but in the 4-6 group, but there were a lot of younger ones so he did not socialize much there either.

My introvert is more uncomfortable with older kids than my extravert. Her preference in situations when she is not with a friend, is for adults or children who are much younger and are open to being "mothered". She is very shy about approaching same age peers or older kids.

I've actually always wondered about the "prefers the company of older kids" that is mentioned in a lot of gifted checklists. I wonder how much age and gender impact that generality. DD really liked and played well with girls who were older than her when she is toddler/preschool age. As she got older it seemed to me that even if I put the shy factor aside, she would have preferred younger to older if she was playing, because younger kids were more interested in imaginative, creative play while older girls were interested in things she found stupid and boring (e.g pop culture, make up, etc.). I recall a similar issue for the first gifted girl I worked with as a teacher. She was hard pressed to find another 4th/5th grade girl who still wanted to engage in imaginative play (they were more likely to walk around the playground giggling about who had a crush on who).

It seems like the social play of boys is less age sensitive, at least in elementary school, so DS (who is pretty tall anyway) has a blast running around with boys of any age.

Thinking about the OP's situation, I also wonder about the difference between structured and unstructured associations. Several people have mentioned individual vs. group dynamics.

I realize that any gender comments are overgeneralizations. I'm just wondering about trends. Anyone else have any thoughts re: age/gender?