Thank you master of none. I really appreciate your response. It definitely struck a cord. I am just learning how to have this confidence that you mention and have been in a lot of chats with DH about our role as her advocate and champion. Your post reminded me of our recent school decision. We ended up picking the accelarated school with gifted instructors, putting her in K a year early, for the very reason you mention- thinking of her needs v. my own comfort with a more "average" or what is thought to be "normal" pace. Trust me this is a lot of internal arguing going on about my assumptions about what is appropriate when ;-)... I imagine that occurs for a lot of parents just discovering this world of high IQ, OEs, weekly OT apts, visual spatial learning, etc.
My dd is already doing the gifted girl hiding behavior, and she is also an extreme introvert so she immediately scans a room and quickly modifies her behavior to match the group. This behavior in itself caused her to partially reject reading even though she had been quite passionate and emotional about it (i.e. none of her friends were reading). Of course she didn't do it perfectly and apparently for introverts perfections is quite important. I am working with her to understand and also teach myself how these are incredible strengths and nurture them.
Fortunately, my DH is quite similar to this, an extreme introvert himself so he is quite enlightening on the motivations.
Thanks for the post, very thought provoking.
