Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How do YOU fight the dumbing down issue

I just listened to our DD10 state something about not wanting her homework to sound like she is too smart. AAAAAAH! The dreaded "dumbing down" syndrome has hit our house! Can you all list some personal conversations, tips, books that you have used to beat back this demon?
FYI - DD is mentored by a college student and is in Science Olympiad so it's not like she isn't surrounded by people who love to learn.
DD is choosing to "dumb down" her writing for language arts. This is where it seems to be an issue.

You may wish to ask what she was thinking when she said this.

For example, her thoughts may be reflective of "knowing her audience" and keen "perspective taking", therefore having an interest in writing in a way that may resonate with others. In this example, the motivation to simplify her writing may be coming from a positive place.

A less positive example of a possible motivation for a student to wish to "dumb down" their writing may be the student having inklings of a practice of differentiated task demands, in which top students are not taught at a higher level (with appropriate curriculum placement, pacing, and intellectual peers in their zone of proximal development) but rather are required to produce at a higher level to achieve the same scoring or grades.

It may be important to learn what your daughter is thinking before making a decision to intervene in her strategy.

I'd talk to your dd to try to find out the reasons behind why she's saying she doesn't want her homework to sound like she's too smart. Is it possible the comment came after a parent had looked at her work and asked her to add more? If it's something like that, I'd just respect what she had to say. I've run into situations like that with my kids where my kids had a much better idea of what the teacher wanted in the assignment than I did.

OTOH, if she's worried about sounding smarter than peers, or if she's had comments from the teacher saying she was "trying to sound smart" etc - whatever - I'd wonder if it tied back in with the anxiety you'd mentioned in your earlier post, and if there's something more going on at school that you need to dig into?

*OR* it's possible it's just trying to "dumb-down" to fit in with peers, and that's the *only* thing that's up, then you can talk to her about how to be true to yourself and how trying to be someone you aren't ultimately doesn't work.

Best wishes,

polarbear

When I was able to get 2 seconds of DD's time away from Minecraft, I pulled out a bit of information. I asked a general question of both my girls after stating that across the US there was a problem with middle school girls "dumbing down", pretending to be less smart than they are - did they see this at their middle school? DD11 thought that was odd and said she hadn't seen anyone doing that. She left the room, and I noticed that DD10 was trying to get back on Minecraft (evading the question). She finally said that "maybe girls do it so other kids don't think they are weird." I asked if that happened at her school. After conversing about other people, I reminded her that she had talked about changing her language arts papers so she wouldn't sound so smart.

Well, after lots of nudging and pulling, she finally said she was concerned about being seen as strange, but that she hadn't really noticed any taunting or teasing of anyone about being smart. She said she is just producing her regular writing and not altering it.

So, she is worried about being "weird". And, she is back to noting what makes girls popular (certain tee shirts and I don't remember the other stuff). Definitely some insecurity going on.

PS - I'd still like some personal stories about how people dealt with their child not wanting to stand out (which makes me think of that gopher game where people try to smash the gopher into the hole).

Whack-a-mole is the game

If a child is a "blender" one can try to surround them with smart peers/friends. So if they are going to blend at least they "blend smart".

I hated being seen as weird as a kid (heck, also as an adult) but to me there was/is a line between not wanting to stand out and actually dumbing down. I didn't want to attract attention so for things like class participation I'd do the bare minimum and try to fly under the radar. Probably brought my grades down but it was worth it to maintain my teenage social life and not attract negative attention. Tests, I'd write everything I could and hope the teacher wouldn't single me out when handing out marks. I usually didn't dumb things down although if I was called on in class I wouldn't exactly go out of my way to show off either. I have no idea what could have been said or done to encourage me to not downplay things. Honestly, I'm an introvert who was trying to survive junior/senior high school which can be a pretty nasty place at times. Outside of school I read like crazy, had great conversations with family and close friends and was able to fully be myself. Not sure if that helps or not but figured I'd offer one view from the other side.

My DD10 has experienced being different in a number of ways. It was celebrated in pre-K. She was ostracized by her teacher for it in K. Other years, it has fallen in between the two extremes.

DD recently purchased a new journal, and she proudly displayed the cover to me, which says, "Why bother trying to fit in when you were born to stand out?" After I read it, she said something to the effect of, "Well, I'm a weirdo anyway, I might as well embrace it."

And that's the thing... that "weirdo" label can, in a society that celebrates individuality, be a positive one. In my DD's case, it helps that she has a Python-esque sense of humor, since that lends itself to the positive side of weird. There's a big difference between someone saying "OMG, you're such a weirdo!" while they're spraying milk out of their own noses, than when they're saying it out of anger or disgust.

So there's a strategy... embrace the difference, but change the context of what it means to be different.

If as your DD says, "she is just producing her regular writing and not altering it", then I wouldn't necessarily intervene. There are likely quite a few kids who take that approach and do all their writing during class or even not use the whole class time provided for revisions. You can always ask her to "alter" her regular writing for you so that you can get a sense of how much better her revised/edited writing can be if she puts in the extra time. Perhaps find out from her teachers how far beyond her classmates her writing is and whether there are any kids whose writing approaches hers. There are various competition and publishing opportunities for talented writers so those may be a better outlet for her to demonstrate her superior skills.

I have always been okay with my kids not scorching the earth on every school assignment - A's are sometimes good enough. They can use that extra time to develop their skills with other outlets or even pursue other passions.

Is the teacher publicly praising her for her work, and that causes embarrassment? Just a thought. I'm not sure how she would look "weird" otherwise, because why would any of the kids look at her work. If so, maybe talk to the teacher.

I am frequently struck by the way labels that were devastating when I was a kid have become badges of honour now, thanks to Bill Gates and friends. My son's most beaming smiles turn on when he's wearing his shirt "Come to the Geek side, we have pi". He, however, seems have have decided as early as grade 2 that he couldn't possibly fit in, and has gone out of his way to embrace/ flaunt his eccentricities (hair, clothes, interests, violent opposition to hockey....)

With a child who is trying to fit in, maybe, as Dude suggested, you can help her see the larger positive in a wider range of role models. There are tons of very visible, very smart people out there, making a world of difference and flaunting how different they themselves are. Their creativity, their success, and what makes them interesting is very much tied up with what makes them different. It's easy to forget such people in a world that places so much value on conformity, but they lead almost every field of endeavour. I wonder if you can find some such people in areas she's interested in, and help her see the wonderful in their different? (Not to mention the humour in all the pseudo-geek wannabes trying to imitate and be those folk they wouldn't have been caught dead with in our day! Revenge of the Nerds had no idea what real vengeance was going to end up looking like.)

As a totally different random thought, a story: over the last year DS had a 10-11 year old female friend (with whom he seemed to share a brain) who started in a gifted class in grade 5, and transformed from a Minecraft lover with all boys for friends, to a total girly-girl. I think for the first time, she had girls she could actually relate to - but their interests were still much stronger in areas like writing and art, and so we saw a great deal of turning away from male friends and more typical boy interests like Minecraft while she tried to find her own particular way in this new world of unexpectedly interesting female peers. Is it possible your DD's sense of being weird may be not exactly about dumbing down, but maybe triggered by changing, more girly interests among the girls, and she's trying to figure out where she fits in this new dynamic? With the grade skip, she may be experiencing a much less gradual transition into pre-teen life than your DD11.

I agree with cmguy - if your child is not the kind to stand up and be different and likes to blend in and be accepted, I would engineer social situations so that he is with peers who are smart (or more advanced academically) and that forces the child to give up the dumbing down. Personally, I never dumb down, embrace my uniqueness and have very few friends amongst my social group as a result (most of my friendships are through work where the peers are on the same wavelength). But, I have a blender son whose only aim is to please his peers by blending in - so, I ensure that he is accelerated in school, his extracurriculars are with kids more talented than him and that he goes to chess clubs with kids that have high ratings in the game etc. He is trying to keep up in some situations and that fixes the dumbing down.

Really like the comments about finding activities where she can find a peer group with similar interests, where she does not have to diminish her abilities. Such a difficult phase, especially for girls.

I wrote a blog post about this, with links to various articles:http://giftedchallenges.blogspot.com/2015/05/difficult-passage-gifted-girls-in.html.

DS had this issue all the way until 7th grade. It's really hard for the kid and most of the time we felt powerless to help. It was especially bad in middle school. DS was very proud of his academic pursuits, but he also felt strongly that he had to "fit in" so as not to be bullied. It was tough to watch. Eventually we switched him to a school (a "gifted" school) with very weak academics but at least there was a respect for academic achievement. Then he entered a magnet high school with many academically strong students and he is now very happy.

DD10 has never yet shown any sign of wanting to "dumb down and fit in". She has a core group of friends that she is really happy to be with. We just try to be very low-key with the families of these friends -- generously praising the other kids, not talking about DD's progress, etc. The hope is that she will be able to have friends who share her interest, so that she doesn't need to even try to fit in with other groups of kids.

Sorry, not much tips to share. Just want to let you know it's a common problem.

Oh I've read that blog post before, Gail, when I was worrying about DD a while ago! I loved the advice and it became our checklist
I've managed to get DD into quite a few STEM activities run by women which I'm really pleased about (astronomy club, chess club and a series of physics/chemistry workshops), and even some run by men which is also fine lol, she's been to a talk by (and chatted to) astronaut Marsha Ivins who was wonderful, a talk by Nanogirl here in NZ who is awesome, and we watch Vi Hart and Physicsgirl. I'm also going to get her into a local Robogals workshop when we can.
Yes, very much focused on the gender issue but we're trying to counteract a belief she developed a couple of years ago that girls couldn't be interested in science or people would laugh, which I found quite horrifying. We're trying very hard to celebrate being young, smart and female - despite society's general attitude otherwise (latest e.g. a holiday activity at the mall: boys build lego, girls make jewelry. SIGH) I'm the annoying mum in the background, piping up that DD should get to strip the wires during an electronics course, hehe