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I just have to say ... what a relief to find like minded individuals that are dealing with the same things that I am. As for my friend ... it is hard for me to step away because we were close friends before we got pregnant. We meet in school while we were both working on our masters and have had so much in common. We can have some amazing conversations when it does not evolve around the kiddos and I know it would be hard to give up on the friendship, but I am realistic and know from reading up on G+ kiddos that my main focus has got to be my DD and the up hill battle I am sure we will have in front of us. So this is why I questioned the tests, because opinions I have read online is that if you plan to send your child to public school which we do, than you will need to have your child classified before they get into school so you are not relying on the teachers and the school district. I do think that as some suggest it is too early for us to test and we should probably wait until she is 3 or 4. But I want to research all of it before stepping into that arena, so please keep the advice coming and the links to websites and articles. I do appreciate it!

Yes, see, school entry is a reason for testing that makes sense to me. If you want early-entry into K, you probably need to have some test scores in hand. I'm with you there!

Dear friends from your life B.K. (before kids) are hard cases. If you want to hold on to her, you either have to stop discussing kids--maybe meet once a month for a girls' night out or something, and limit the kid talk--or you have to hash it out with her. If you really value the friendship, I think you have to be honest. It's a risk, but so is doing nothing. You may lose her, but if you don't, you have lost the soul of the friendship, haven't you?

If it's a real, honest friendship, I think it will weather the storm. If not, I'd personally prefer to know that and not hope that it's something more than it is. You know?

But I do realize that not everyone is me...

Yup, those are the sorts of things I've had suggested to me, and of course scared me until I was able to read a few articles and determine why ds probably didn't have asperger's or add. Might make my own handouts, now you suggest it!

ditto on what Kriston said!

Seeing your intentions to send your DD to public school and not knowing what state you are in I wanted to suggest looking into what your school district/state offer in the way of public schooling. Here you are out of luck with a gifted child in public school. There are very few to no accomidations made until high school and then the AP classes really won't help more than a really bright child. There are a few schools that will works with a child but in our experience it wasn't enough. Hopefully this won't be the case in your situation but you definately have a challenge in front of you on the school front.

I agree with the friendship advice you've been given. It has been very complex in our situation as well and we are down to few close friends because they just can't accept our children without thinking it's a competition.

Melmichigan,

I live in Texas and yes the public school districts anywhere is a concern. I do know the elementary school she will be going to is an exemplary school, but you bring up some good points that a few weeks ago I would not even consider a concern, but after first realizing that not only is my child above average but possibly in the HG+ she will probably need to jump in grades. She is already going to be one of the youngest in her class since her birthday is in August and the social issues already concerns me and I wonder how other parents of HG+ parents deal with the advancement of their kids and how the kids adjust socially. So am I so stern on public school, at this point I can't be but what is my options, because I am not one for home schooling and don't know of any private schools in my area that focus on the gifted. But I am new to all of this and still stumbling through all of this so maybe by the time my kiddo is 5 I will have it figured out!

As for friendships ... competition seems to always be the center of all the conflicts. They see it as competition when you just want to talk it out and possibly bounce ideas off them because when it is your first child it is amazing but mysterious all rolled into one. The other day (before starting this post) I was talking to the mentioned friend who has a soon to be 4 month old daughter and while on the phone with me her DD was cooing and she stated what's that DD did you just say elephant? I think right after she said it she realized what she said. I was in shock, so clearly in this need for competition I was just making all of this up and clearly my DD never said such a thing. I confronted her with are you dishing on my DD? At first it was no, of course not, but knowing she had no where to go she admitted she was. My comment to her was if I made that up how can do you explain how she is today? She just got quiet. It rubbed me the wrong way and the funny thing is I have another friend who has two kids and the oldest is above average, but when she hears the stories of Katelyn she is always in shock and making comparisons to her DS and never resentful of my DD abilities. No competition is a nice thing!

Hi Katelyn'sMom!

I'm ebeth, and I just wanted to say that we have a son who is 8 years old and in the public school system. Although it is not perfect and we do still have some battles to wage, we are fairly pleased with how accommodating they have been. He has be accelerated by one grade to 4th currently, and he goes up to 7th grade for Science. We are currently "discussing" what to do for him for math with the school. He is also a summer birthday and is a wiggly little boy in a class with kids who are on average two years older than him and many inches and pounds bigger than him. So it really depends on the individual school and how the teachers and principle feel about it. I would seriously start looking to see if your school has a formal grade acceleration policy, particularly on a web site.

And as to the ADHD or aspergers' questions, there is a wonderful book by James Webb called Misdiagnosis. I will post a link to Amazon here, but I am a big fan of the local library!! It is a great book for comparing the traits of a highly gifted child with those of a child suffering from ADHD, aspergers', or many other issues. He makes the point that you can be both gifted and have ADHD, but that you need to take the giftedness into account whenever making a diagnosis. I don't know if helps or not. We have had well meaning teacher and principles make suggestions for ADHD. Funny thing is, after those grade skips, the symptoms seemed to disappear!

http://www.amazon.com/Misdiagnosis-...mp;s=books&qid=1224880408&sr=1-1

I have a friend whose GT child's Montessori elementary school kept pushing an AS diagnosis (though the boy's dad is a child psychologist and an expert on the subject!).

The problem was that the kid showed the alleged "symptoms" (besides GTness, of course) only at the end of the week, when he was tired, run-down and bored. After a restful, challenging weekend at home, he no longer looked like an AS kid.

Just an example to support what ebeth is saying...

Thank you for your post ebeth. Your experience with the public school district does give me hope and I do know that there is a formal grade acceleration policy at the school district. I looked that up a few months ago.

As for the ADHD or aspergers, I personally am not worried at this point. DD has shown no signs other than socially but in the last few weeks that is coming around somewhat. Overall we notice that she is very social with adults and much older kids and does not seem too interested in kiddos her own age. Which in the recent weeks ties directly to the characteristics of GT. And as for ADHD, she is a patient calm child and not hyper at all.

Some private schools have GT kids making up a large percentage of the class. You need to look at the private schools more closely.

Most established private schools in Texas administer intelligence tests prior to admittance and will place children with their scholastic peers. I work with a man who was placed in 3rd grade when he was accepted as a 5 year old AND he was given a full scholarship as well as were many of his classmates.

Over 1/4 of the students in his graduating class were National Merit Scholars and the average SAT score among them was > 1500 with SAT > 1400 for the class. That implies a very high IQ average in his class as well as very good educational opportunities for everyone.

A friend's daughter goes to another private school here in town and she had a 1570 on her SAT this fall. She says she is not the smartest person in her class - maybe in the top ten. I know she was reading Tolkien and doing perfect pencil sketches when she was 10 years old. She has since developed an amazing work ethic and plans to go into medicine like her dad and mom.