Interesting point, Howlerkarma! I can tell when my kid's frontal lobes have short-circuited and she needs to be treated like an actual 4 year old, but most other people can't. They judge her by her usual behavior, and conclude that she is just suddenly being "bad." You're right, they're the ones not letting her be her age.
CCN, I sometimes feel like I'm overscheduling too, but I also just can't handle my kid's need for constant input! So I'm outsourcing it. Waiting for the day when she can self-direct for more than 20 minutes at a time!
As for the original post, strategies for deflecting are really useful, but there's also the underlying feeling of isolation when you have to do that. When I got this mid-year kindergarten admission for Hanni, I was really surprised at how my nearest and dearest, who KNOW what she'd like, said things like "She can always do kindergarten over again next year, right?" and "Don't let her get too far ahead." I quickly adopted the line that it's a really good thing that this school does mixed age groups, so that it won't be weird next year. That seems to calm people down. I let them assume that next year she'll be in the K-1 group again, when in fact it's more likely she'll be with the 1st-2nd group. It works, but meanwhile there's this wall between me and them.
