She is very erratic on achievement tests and has had more that one teacher who was insistent that she was not gifted at all....By the end of 3rd grade, dd was performing just at grade level and was pretty beaten down....Dd wants to drop out of the TAG reading class she is in....She wants to be "normal" and has no friends who are in the advanced classes. She doesn't want to be viewed as a "geek," .....I suppose that it is possible that she simply isn't gifted, but just bright/right on the cusp as the second set of testing would indicate and maybe I should just let her be an avg student who speaks poorly. However, the kids in that group who she chooses to hang out with don't seem to suit her well either. She complains constantly about how they drive her crazy, cheat off of her papers, insist on being in her group and then having her do all the work... She rolls over and does whatever they want in order to avoid having them get mad at her or cry.
I don't know what the best path is, but I suspect it's a balance between what she feels she needs and what you feel she needs. We've had similar issues with our DD 10. Our DD tends to the absentminded and disorganized, which does not impress her teachers, although they all find her very "sweet" and "lovely".
DD worries about sticking out at school. She tells us that she doesn't want to be "one of the kids who think they're cool", but she also doesn't want to be made fun of by others. A great example of this occurred tonight when she had homework to compare two books. She had wonderful ideas about them related to narrative style (her words) but when she went to start writing, she worried that she would have to read it out loud to her group and that they would think it was weird. (sigh....) In the end, Where I've sort of settled is that she needs to feel comfortable and safe at school. However, she also needs to put effort into her work, because we expect her to continue to grow. We tell her that doing less than she is able to do with reasonable effort is not an acceptable choice, no matter what abilities she has--and that all students are expected to put effort into their work (yes, I realize that that part is in my dreams, but she hasn't realized that yet
). However, we also let her decide how much to put herself "out there" while she's at school, and then quietly feed her strengths and her interests when she's at home. My hope is that this combination allows her to grow into herself at school and to enjoy herself--as herself--at home. Little by little, I think she will carry her "real" self into the wider world as she grows in confidence. At least, that's what I *hope* will happen!
