The key to all of this and to any of these kids is flexibility. You have to be willing to make short term plans and have long term hopes because everything can change over a summer.
This is so true. We're currently have school holidays and in the one week we've had so far, dd has shot ahead again. You can think you've finally worked out an accommodation and suddenly need changes again!
I would think long and hard before I would allow this kind of acceleration in the general population of a public school.
This is a great piece of advice. Dds new school has a cohort of highly gifted kids and the cultural mix means that the majority of kids there are at the very least high achievers, focused on their work. Her previous school had some smart kids, but was much more relaxed. In that context her lack of worldliness was much more marked - all the kids knew the latest music trends and bands, watched TV shows that I don't feel are appropriate for young kids and so on. At her current school the kids are much more focused on school work. It's acceptable to be smart and scholastic effort is valued by both the teachers and students.
In terms of how we dealt with her anxiety, I can't really say we had a plan. We kind of approached it by gently insisting on exposure to the things that scare her. It's still an issue from time to time (she won't use the school toilets for example), but the school is hooking her up with their counselor who is experienced with gifted kids. Now things come out of the blue (like the toilet issue) rather than being constant.
Oh and constant explainations helped her too... for an extreme example, dd was terrified of getting pregnant 8 months ago. This resulted in a very detailed conversation about why she could not get pregnant now (covering her age, puberty etc). Then she got worried about getting magically pregnant after puberty. Sooooo... we had a conversation about why it would be her choice when and if she did get pregnant(a very high level discussion about the technicalities of sex and contraception)... not a conversation that I was expecting to have with that level of detail for quite some time. She just wouldn't believe me until she had all the evidence. She has at least declared she will never have sex
Goodness they're complicated little things.
