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

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