Hi Ania -
I think it's really hard to judge maturity in a gifted boy. As a parent of one, and don't have handfuls of other boys to compare him to. Honestly, I find myself comparing him to others who share his vocabulary and verbal expression - that is - adults! No wonder he comes up short.
His teachers see him as "immature and silly" but I know that has a lot to do with him being underchallenged and having way too much time on his hands, and also his frustration at being not being "gotten." DS9 also used to do that classic PG thing of wanting to interact exclusivly with the teacher during the elementary grades. Looks "dependent" from their perspective, but quite reasonable to want to interact with some one who understands the words you use and the ideas you are trying to explain.
Also, let's be honest about the "pg palor" that many, but not all, of our boys have: Large head, nearsightedness, asthma, allergies, and ADHD are all statistically more common among gifted kids.
I was so relieved to see meet another mom of PG boys in real life and see that our boys all looked a bit...well...how should I say it...
disco-ordinated!
They were sitting at lunch, trading deep adult level ideas with us, sputtering and wiggling and forgetting what they were going to say and full of intensity! Very lovable! But I could see where people's worries about maturity would kick in.
Then there was the recent brain scans that show that the cortical thickening that usually takes place at age 6 is delayed until age 11 in highly gifted kids and the scientists have no idea what that means. But as a mom, I don't mind being wrong, so I'll speculate that all the things that make our PGlet boys look "immature" have a physical basis right there in brain development, and are really just right for THEM, and not really a basis for what schoolroom they should be sitting in.
What if, I ask my son, the school decided to place all boys in classrooms by height? In some ways it would be wonderful! The short kids could excell at basketball for a change! But basically it's obvious that it arbitrary, and I think strict age grouping is arbitrary also.
Smile
