This seems to be the case here. Lately several parents have been telling me that their kids are ahead in math and that they think they should skip a grade. Generally the kids are average or brighter than average, but really probably not gifted. I guess they may feel like I would understand, but it feels more like they are saying "My kid's just as smart as yours is!"
We've had this experience as well. It do think that it is coming from a parent who has finally accepted that my kids are atypically bright (there was a lot of unpleasant competition/one man upship going on for a while) and who is now attempting to commiserate. I have really been trying to be self-reflective on why this bugs me so much. I don't think that there is a major attempt at competition going on from the other parent at the moment.
I've known this parent's children since they were quite little. I am as certain as I can be without having them IQ tested and showing me the results
that they are not gifted. One has managed to get a gifted label for one subject at school according to this parent, though, b/c I've heard about it everytime we've spoken for the past month. The district this child is in tends to be pretty freewheeling with dispensing GT labels given that they id somewhat more than 1/3 of the kids in some schools as gifted in some way, shape or form based upon behavior surveys, etc.
I do think that the parent feels like I would understand b/c our kids must be similarly able and so is discussing it with me. I don't know what about this rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps it is that we've had to fight so hard for any type of GT id for dd#2, who has IQ scores ranging from the upper 120s to upper 140s -- this kid is clearly gifted, but isn't in the freewheeling GT id district. Perhaps I am just a crummy person who is bugged by something that in no way impacts me. Perhaps I can't happily commiserate with someone when we aren't dealing with the same thing (like me expecting an African-American parent to happily commiserate with me about the challenge of discrimination that my white children are facing in our society as compared to her kids who must be experiencing the same).
I don't know, but it isn't always an easy conversation to have when it doesn't feel like you're talking about the same needs.
