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Ugh. This reminds me of when I was around 6 years old and my mom dropped me off to hang out with a classmate. The parents were drinking beer and mockingly telling me to show them how well I could dance to their Bon Jovi music. I was in dance class at the time. Even at that age, I knew what they were doing was messed up and that I was being mocked. I was in dance class and I don't think their daughter was... There was a jealousy element at play (maybe because I lived in the nicer neighborhood or maybe the mom just didn't like my mother) and they were trying to bring me down a notch. I was 6!
They might not have been acting in a mean-spirited way, but just lightheartedly letting you know that they recognized certain differences. I'm reminded of the South Park episode Chicken Pox, which explained how we can live in harmony with such people:
Mr. McCormick: (saying grace) Lord, we thank you for this staggering payload of frozen waffles you have bestowed upon us. And since we have been faithful to you, we know you will send us some good fortune, one of these days, even though you sure as hell seem to be taking your sweet time. Amen.
* * *
Kyle's father: ... Kyle, we humans work as a society, and in order for a society to thrive, we need gods, and clods.
Kyle: Gods and clods?
Kyle's father: Yes. You see, I spent a lot of time going to law school, and I was able to go because I have a slightly higher intellect than others. But I still need people to pump my gas, and make my french fries, and fix my laundry machine when it breaks down.
Kyle: Oooohh, I see. Gods and clods!
Kyle's father: That's right. So Kenny's family is happy just the way they are, and we're all a functioning part of America.
Striving to increase my rate of flow, and fight forum gloopiness.
We see pretty much the exact same thing with our dd13. In math in particular, she's convinced that she's "bad" at it partially b/c she has friends who are in pre-calc this year and she's not, but again these other teens are 15-16.
Has she taken an IQ test, the SAT or ACT for a talent search, or a math contest such as the AMC 8? Her scores provide an objective indication of her intelligence and math talent, and if you think she is being too negative you could remind her of them.
The obvious problem outside the context of this situation is that DD still isn't challenged to that ideal '80%' level even among this peer group-- thus the interpretation that she's "about average" and that apparently everyone else doesn't work all that hard at academics, either, combined with rampant task-avoidant perfectionism and procrastination as a motivational tool-- but this is about as far as we're comfortable pushing things on the social front.
I do think that you have it harder in that regard. My dd has some real processing speed issues (she's pretty average in terms of how fast she does things, deep not fast, save for reading, at which she is extremely fast). For that reason, and b/c she's been able to subject accelerate in some areas, take AP and pre-AP classes, etc., the fit is reasonable for her at this point. She also has to work if only due to the massive quantity (she had 4+ hrs of homework last year most nights, which is apparently the expected quantity for freshman with heavily loaded schedules as she had last year). We couldn't accelerate more b/c she would likely be crushed under the sheer quantity of work. There are areas, especially English, where the challenge level was still poor last year, but that's one where she's really never had a good fit save for maybe two years in her entire schooling. Yours may be more evenly gifted, though. Mine has some areas where she's somewhat regularly gifted and some where she's super gifted.
Originally Posted by Bostonian
Has she taken an IQ test, the SAT or ACT for a talent search, or a math contest such as the AMC 8? Her scores provide an objective indication of her intelligence and math talent, and if you think she is being too negative you could remind her of them.
Yes on all of the above except for the AMC. She's qualified as gifted even as compared to kids in her grade and above in math on both the SAT and ACT (talent search awards, per charts like this ). It doesn't stop her from seeing it as a weak area b/c it is a weak area for her in comparison to her other strengths and b/c she knows kids who are, albeit older than her, who are more advanced than she is right now.
None the less, I'm hoping that this isn't a major issue and don't want to totally derail HowlerKarma's thread to make it about my kiddo! I mostly wanted to commiserate although she's dealing with a more accelerated kiddo than am I b/c we have some similar issues.
Yes, the issues are directly comparable, as DD also still shows up as "highly gifted" even after a three year acceleration. The workload is also the greatest challenge for her, not the level of that work.
I don't think of this as derailing in ANY way. It's a discussion about different facets and experiences with this same issue, in my estimation. It's a series of interconnected problems that are obviously not unique, or we wouldn't all have such similar experiences.
Bostonian, she tends to chalk up such experiences to 'singularity/luck' or "I was just having a good day-- EVERYONE has good days once in a while." It doesn't seem to occur to her that no, not everyone seems to have "good" days precisely timed to coincide with every standardized testing experience they ever have. Or that even under what could only be construed as extremely adverse circumstances, scoring in the 99th percentile out of grade level anyway is... er... exceptional. We've not done much of the nationally normed stuff thus far because of problems managing her (hidden, medical) disability via formal accommodations. (It took College Board nearly twelve weeks to approve her for a series of accommodations this spring, and there was no way that she *could* test without them.)
Iucounu We love South Park-- DD most of all. (Probably ought to be embarrassed by that, huh?) My DD is also a HUGE fan of The Simpsons. She is Lisa.(But shhhh... don't tell her.) And LISA...
Young lady, in THIS house, we obey the laws of Thermodynamics... -- best quote EVER from The Simpsons. The full clip here:
It's so hard to be 13, even without the challenges she has. Do you think her disability has any issue with her inability to acknowledge her own achievements?
My dh has always been quick to dismiss or minimize his accomplishments (which is infuriating). He claims it's because he's always been really good at lots of things but not great at anything - this from a collegiate athlete who also can play nearly anything on the piano by ear AND can instantly transpose the key. I think some of his comes from having a PG older brother. His parents were careful to never compare the boys and always really emotionally supportive of his endeavors. He says he never believed his parents' praises were genuine because "they were obligated to praise me. I suspect this issue is made worse by his intense perfectionism. He measures himself to the elite in everything and falls short.
Oddly, my family was very "so what?" about talents /accomplishments. My family's favorite joke for me was, "She cheats in school." But my self esteem is miles higher than dh. Not that we're adopting this technique for our kids. No way.
No, I don't think that the disability is necessarily making her less likely to acknowledge her strengths rationally. It's more like your DH's situation. She just thinks that she's "mediocre" at something if she isn't, I don't know, ranked in the top 2 or 3 in the U.S., or something. It's truly wacky, because she still hasn't discovered her "thing" yet, either. So none of us have seen what she's actually capable of when she puts the pedal all the way to the floor cognitively, but the flickers that we've seen when she performs under strain are pretty awe-inspiring, even in the context of DH and I both being HG+ ourselves. So I suspect that someday, she will find something that she's proud of and pleased by, and that will be that. It just hasn't happened yet.
With that said, however, she certainly doesn't need "taking down a peg" by anyone.
She already beats herself up plenty, to the point that we've only just moved comfortably past perfectionism-fueled anxiety issues so serious that we were concerned for her health!
The disability issue is one that forces a very hard boundary on some kinds of physical contact, and the boyfriend is continuously trying to "negotiate" on this point, which is starting to really tick my DD off. She's well aware that both her cognitive abilities and her experience (after all, she's lived this way all her life) make her personal judgment on this subject pretty much the only expert opinion between the two of them. At 13, he really CANNOT get it the way she does, and she knows it, but is desperately trying to avoid being forced to tell him so in quite bald terms. If anything, her PG status makes her far more capable of managing on that front, even if the disability does make things trickier to begin with.
She just thinks that she's "mediocre" at something if she isn't, I don't know, ranked in the top 2 or 3 in the U.S., or something. It's truly wacky, because she still hasn't discovered her "thing" yet, either.
Well you can go through life with no idea what you want to go do with yourself. I've been doing that since high school.
I think I'm celebrating my 20th year of teenage angst this year!
Most people don't have my particular problem, however, so I think it's a low risk outcome.
Sometimes the best thing we can teach our kids is that it's okay to say to adults "I'm sorry, but I simply don't feel comfortable discussing this with you." Assuming it's a case of the grownups cornering your daughter when she's socializing with their son. Which, fwiw, is just about the height of gaucherie, IMO.
In that case, isn't the appropriate response to say something along the lines of:
"I am profoundly more than you in ways in which you can only begin to comprehend. We have spoken enough for now and I grow tired of your questions. You are dismissed."
No, because one is expressing appropriate personal boundaries, and the second is just snotty.
In that case, isn't the appropriate response to say something along the lines of:
"I am profoundly more than you in ways in which you can only begin to comprehend. We have spoken enough for now and I grow tired of your questions. You are dismissed."
No, because one is expressing appropriate personal boundaries, and the second is just snotty.
What about if he'd added, "... so that I may focus on creating my race of atomic supermen, to take over the world!"? Wouldn't that take the edge off?
Striving to increase my rate of flow, and fight forum gloopiness.
In that case, isn't the appropriate response to say something along the lines of:
"I am profoundly more than you in ways in which you can only begin to comprehend. We have spoken enough for now and I grow tired of your questions. You are dismissed."
No, because one is expressing appropriate personal boundaries, and the second is just snotty.
What about if he'd added, "... so that I may focus on creating my race of atomic supermen, to take over the world!"? Wouldn't that take the edge off?
That's pretty much where I was trying to go with it.
They have to understand that they are already obsolete.
Kind of like no one buys Apple II computers anymore. Who wants an Apple II when you can get an iPod, an iPad, an iPhone, and an iRandomOverpricedUnderpoweredConsumerGood.
We love South Park-- DD most of all. (Probably ought to be embarrassed by that, huh?) My DD is also a HUGE fan of The Simpsons. She 
