DS4 has an older, ND cousin who is also in kindergarten this year, so we go out of our way at family gatherings not to say a peep about DS4's abilities or school experience. This can be trying for two reasons: 1) the cousin's mother freely brags (in a healthy way) about her son's accomplishments, while abiding the family's tacit agreement not to acknowledge or inquire about anything my son is doing, and 2) the ND cousin believes he has the right to boss my son because my son is younger than him. At Thanksgiving, I felt like telling him that age doesn't matter, given that the boys are both in kindergarten and share the same interests, but I think the fact that my son started school early has made the age-based pecking order all the more important to everyone--not less. I'm still not sure how to deal with this, and we'll be together again at Christmas.
