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Wow E&C, you just described my experience as well!

As an extremely shy introvert, I just had to comment!

I really feel for you Lori. We live in a very small community where everyone's nose is in everyone's business. If anything in town happens, then everyone else knows it is a matter of minutes. Gossip is the main recreational sport, closely followed by football. Actually, I'm convinced that football is just a socially acceptable reason for gathering to gossip! And anything that makes you different (whether you are different from the public school kids or from the other homeschoolers) makes you an immediate target. There are certain pockets of intellectual or social inbreeding that encourages uniformity. Anything outside of the norm is then suspicious and undesirable.

So it is hard to ignore these people, or to walk up to them and strike up a conversation. Being different here is similar to having the plague. People do avoid you rather than be seen speaking to you.

I remember when DS was beginning first grade. You will have to picture a six year old boy who very energetic, talks with great enthusiasm and energy about unusual topics, spends a great deal of time in an imaginary world of his own design, and who should really be in third grade. (not too unusual for this group!) We got a "friendly" letter in the mail from an anonymous neighbor suggesting that "he may be as smart as we think he is" but that he would have to learn how to adapt to the real world, and that we should seek intervention before it was too late.

Now you would think that when DS was accelerated a grade, people would have been a little more accepting of DS or of us. Maybe he really is that smart? Maybe kids with really high IQs are just a little bit different than your average kid? Maybe he is completely normal for who he is and doesn't need intervention in order to "fix" him (or save him before it is too late!). No. Even the other parents whose kids were in the gifted program stopped talking to us because now we were different from them.

So I hear you Lori. It is indeed a very lonely road to travel.

So maybe it is background noise that should be ignored. But when you are walking down the sidewalk on Halloween night and your next-door neighbor has stopped ten feet behind you, holding her kids back so that they will not walk with your son (and explaining loudly to her kids why she is holding them back)... and your son is stopped on the sidewalk, staring at the mom and her three kids because he really wants to go door to door with his friends, and not understanding why they don't walk the ten feet up to join him... then it is really difficult to not feel like you have the plague.

Sorry for venting on you guys. I guess this it struck a nerve. Must repeat original healing mantra...


Okay... I feel better now.

I'm so sorry for your experience ebeth!! What was the mom explaining to her kids on Halloween night? What is it they are saying makes your child unacceptable to play with?

I'm sorry, too, ebeth. But see, I think I'd pretend I didn't hear her, smile broadly and say loudly, "Well, hello! Please, join us!"

If someone is going to snub me, I like them to do it right to my face. Most people won't. And at least it makes it clear that this is THEIR problem, not yours.

So if I invite and they decline, I shrug lightly and say, "Oh, too bad. We'll see you along the way then!" Then I walk on with my head held high.

If you don't care that someone is being a jerk, it's hard for that person to get anything out of being mean to you.

I'm with you Kriston! There was a mom at school that just didn't speak to me one day in the library. She was with 2 other moms and they both were chatting with me and she just kept her head down and completely ignored me! I thought "good grief, we aren't in junior high!!!" and I sat down next to her, put my hand on her shoulder, and said "hey, how are you doing?" She smiled at me and started talking!!! Since then we have been on very friendly terms and I actually really like her! I don't think now that she was being a jerk, I think she was just being shy. Anyway, it worked out well in my situation!!

I'm all for that EandC!


I'm not down with parents who TELL their kids they can't play with your child because they are different. Especially when it's obvious the kid wants to play with the other child. That's just cruel to both children.

I totally agree 'Neato! I just can't imagine what that other mom told her children. The only time I've ever told my kids not to play with another child is if the other child is being mean to my kids and even then I've NEVER said it in front of the other child and I've always tried to get them to work things out first. I don't understand people just being against a child just because they are different.

Oh, you just don't live in my small, ego-centric, bizarre little community. Anyone who is labeled as different is seriously shunned. We have a boy on the block that has Asperger syndrome. It is a very mild case and the boy (5th grader) is for the most part very normal. His mom mentioned that he has been identified as gifted as well. For many years now the other moms on the block have always referred to this kid as "That Boy" (never by name). As in "We don't trust That Boy." "We can't let our kids play with That Boy." I have heard those comments specifically about this poor kid. When it became apparent that our son was quirky and very different from the other kids on the block (high energy with both mind and body going a million miles a minute, adult-like conversation since the age of 2, lost in an imaginary world where he talks out loud and acts out space battles, lego adventures, or whatever exciting book he is currently reading, etc.) then we began to get the same treatment. The next door neighbor makes no secret of announcing that our son is crazy for his vivid imagination and that they don't trust him. She will actually come outside and escort her kids inside, even if they are playing happily together. So I think on Halloween night she said something like that.

Note: We have tried to tell him that it is okay to talk and act out his imaginary stories at home with his legos, but not while walking on the sidewalk to school. He did this a lot in Kindergarten and 1st grade, but has mostly stopped. He is starting to understand the social ramifications of being different, but it is a slow process. I think his mind is just always racing and rarely sits still.

That's great advice, Kriston. I might have to crawl out of my shy shell and give that one a try!

That is, by the way, just about the same advice that I just gave to my DS while going to bed tonight. If a kid comes up and provokes you on the playground, then just smile and say "Oh, let's be friends!". Bullies only verbally tease you in order to get you to respond physically so that they can tell on you. If you let them know that you aren't going to play that game, then they will stop. Different situation here, but the same advice applies. Actually the parents are verbally bullying for a social effect, so maybe it is the same situation.... Hummm. Go figure!

Good point, ebeth. I think you're right that it's the same thing exactly. Bullying is bullying, regardless of age.