I think Master of None made good points - which you addressed. I would imagine we have all had some of the same conflicts that you are having at some time or other. The "what ifs" can really haunt you and you don't want to doubt yourself or your child or end up wishing you'd done something differently. I totally get that!
Your DD may be content now, but believe me that can change in the blink of an eye and you are lucky that you already have some experience with giftedness.
I understand that the cost of testing can be a major hurdle and if testing were cheap it would solve a lot of problems for many of us. We used a state college psychology/education department for our testing for DD9 (she had just turned 7 at the time of testing) and the cost was probably 1/2 what it could have been - but it was still a lot of money to us. However, some schools won't accept outside testing or outside testing from an unlicensed grad student. The test they used for our DD wasn't the ever-popular WISC either, but luckily our school did accept the test. This was all before we knew anything at all about what it meant to have a high IQ and to be "gifted".
Now we are at a crossroads with DD7 in 1st grade - much like you are. She is obviously educationally advanced - BUT - she is a pleaser at school and is doing just fine without any of the behavior issues that we had with her older sister that caused us to get the testing for her. Do we go ahead and have her tested so we know just how advanced she is so we can start advocating for her or do we just let her go on about her merry way and see how things turn out? Do we ask school to test her when the time comes since that would be free testing for us or do we pay to have her tested so we can control the testing information? If school does the testing and the results are not what we expected how will we feel about that? If we pay for the testing and the results are not what we expected how will we feel about that? What is best for her compared to what we think is best for her and are we doing it for her or more for us?
As you see - I absolutely get where you are at!!! This parenting thing is hard!! I'm a worry wort and I over analyze everything so that is another thing I agree with Master of None on - if we don't make a decision soon it will end up being made for us and that is something else I have issues with because I'm a control freak also.....lol!
Good Luck and I'm sure things will work out!
Yes! Exactly--it is comforting to know that I am not alone! It wasn't quite so difficult to ask for the acceleration eval. for dd12 because we already had test results that I had gotten privately and I knew the IAS would support skipping. And I know my dd is not me...but I do see where letting a kid go on their merry way putting forth minimum effort can lead...and I don't want that for her. Parenting is sure complicated!
