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This seems a most unusual point of view to me. I'm in a few different mom's organizations, and it seems to me that at least 50% of our discussions are about our kids. What's going on with them, challenges we're facing, and what milestones they are reaching. It's not really 'bragging' per se, but mostly about sharing our excitement about our kid's development. Watching kids grow and learn *is* exciting.

For me, if I talk about things my DD5 is doing, it is perceived as bragging because she is ahead. If I talk about my preemie twins who are slightly delayed due to their prematurity, no one even bats and eye or they even get excited with me. It feels very isolating not being able to discuss one of your kids. I wish I didn't have to edit out all cognitive things going on in her life.

Obviously, this all depends on the type of person the parent is, and the type of people they are talking to. I find moms discuss their kids more than dads. I find both types discuss their kids more with actual friends more than acquaintances, random coworkers or strangers. But all that being said, I have even heard my extremely introverted DH share with a friend that the twins are crawling now.

All that to say, that obviously you should do what you are comfortable with, but most parents I know like to be able to discuss their kids. Many, many moms I know also blog about their families and kids. It is a great way to share with distant family and friends what is going on in your life and also a great way to remember it later for yourself. (I don't remember much of my twins first year, for example.)

Just my $.02.

I like to discuss and celebrate what kids are doing--all kids! I have a friend with a developmentally delayed child, and I get just as excited about what he's newly able to do as I do about what my friends with PG kids tell me about their kids' development. And all those kids in between delayed and gifted. Kids are just really, really cool, and it's fun to celebrate how they grow and change.

I think maybe what we're talking about is not so much "bragging," as in "my kid is better than your kid" or something icky like that. I think it's about being excited and enjoying what kids are doing. It's about sharing the good days, and not just trying to solve (or even just complaining about) the problems. It's about loving our job of parenting.

We have a brag thread here, and it's one of my favorite threads to read. I LOVE hearing what cool things these kids are doing, the challenges they're overcoming, the kindnesses they show to other people. That's really the sort of stuff we brag about here. I personally think that's very healthy, and it's definitely not focused on precociousness. It's about celebrating happy growth as a community. I like that, and I wish people IRL could do more of that with us.

Yep. I think it is a problem of multiple definitions. I often call it "bragging" when I say something positive about DD, even when it is about run-of-the-mill every-kid-does-it stuff. But I certainly do not engage in (or believe in) the sort of my-kid-is-better-than-yours nonsense that is true bragging.

Kriston, you said it much better. One of the things I love about this place is it is such a safe and welcoming place to talk about our kids. All kinds of kids.

It seems like many parents of gifted kids believe the problem of these competitive milestone conversations are just that other kids are behind their kid so they can't comfortably discuss their kid's accomplishments. I'm wondering if anyone has considered that there is another even more uncomfortable place in these conversations and that is for the folks on the other end of the developmental bell curve. We are on both ends of the bell curve and perhaps it takes that experience to really question the entire approach of defining milestones or accomplishments as what makes our children valuable or interesting people worthy of discussion in casual conversation.

I'm sure my opinion is unusual though in my experience not uncommon among parents of kids with disabilities (perhaps more than "slight" as you mentioned). I'm sure what you are describing is very common for moms' groups which is why some people find them irritating and promoting of parental insecurity.

I don't think it is uncommon to find people who gas on about the ages their children accomplish milestones as being irritating. We attended one playgroup where such talk dominated the conversation. Sure, most were clever enough to be creative about the way they presented the conversation "I'm really wondering if Susie will have trouble with reading since we are in a bilingual household, she's already sight reading some of course..." or "Junior just won't watch kid's programming but of course he's always just been so advanced..."


I've been interested in the moms who enjoy their kids but aren't reciting milestones. Let's have a conversation about books, restaurants, a happy moment yesterday, how tired we are...all of that stuff is more supportive and more interesting to me.

I don't see it as an introvert-extrovert question. I'm very extroverted, but I don't think my child's life and his accomplishments belong to me to brag about, to blog about, to define my identity by. I don't see what makes my child worth loving, worth carrying about, worth talking about that he was 3 months early in sitting up or making a two word sentence. That seems like nonsense to focus on. It tends to make most people who are out of the middle of the developmental bell curve feel bad and I don't see what it accomplishes in the process.

Maybe my perspective is different because I have a teenager and I've seen that being very low key is the long term road to having people in your life support your decisions. We've received absolutely no flack for our kid being PG and being radically accelerated . We don't hide, but share as it comes up in context and don't talk milestones. It has worked well for us.

Doesn't that reveal that there is a competitive element to these conversations?

It is defining what it special about a child in relationship to developmental milestones especially when they are naturally occurring ones. I understand if you've fought hard for years to get a child to say their first word or take their first step - that's a milestone. But, for most kids these things happen pretty incidentally without a lot of effort. So, it may be worth pondering...how would you feel if today is the last day your daughter seems precocious. How would that change how you talk about her, blog about her, think about her life? What might you focus on instead?

I definitely think that early demand for stimulation is a real indicator. Lucky you picked up on it. As an infant, our DS10 would cry if we weren't at least giving him eye contact, from very early on. He would also cry if left lying down, cry if in wind, sun.... He was absolutely exhausting because of it.

We just thought it was some sort of colic.

Likewise, when he started talking very, very early, we really didn't understand how early this was compared to other kids.

We really had no idea and didn't start figuring out the whole GT thing until K. So,we did no reading on this issue and made some mistakes:

1. Letting people praise our child for smartness.

We didn't know how to deal with all the people exclaiming over our non-walking, super-talking baby. We were happy to let people praise him for being "so smart" because we thought it would be good for his self-esteem. It turns out that he so identifies with being "smart" that now he avoids anything he doesn't get right away. He has unbelievably high standards for himself that he struggles to meet, all because he's laboring under this idea that he's smart, so everything should be super-easy, and if it's not (gulp) maybe he's not smart.

What I know now is that no matter how smart the kid is, you shouldn't praise the child for this gift, but instead for what the child is doing with the gift. Praise hard work, praise trying, praise thinking things through.

Oops, I was giong to write more but parental duty calls...
GL,,

bk

Goodness, I'm sorry you had such a poor experience. I wouldn't want to talk with moms who talk like that either. That sounds very different than the groups I am familiar with in my area.

We discuss all kinds of things, including what you have mentioned above and more. Books, movies, politics, and hopes for the future. It's not all about the kids. Now, if I could just find another mom IRL who likes sci-fi books, I'll be all set.

Everyone is different, and we all look for different things in our friendships. I just don't want other people to feel that there is something wrong with them because they want to talk about what is going on in their kids lives. Many parents (obviously not all) love to talk about their kids regardless of whether they are advanced or not.

This is great advice!

newMom21C, my DD was not as advanced as your DD sounds, but she was very demanding in that first year. My suggestion is to find a way to get a break now and then, just to mitigate the extreme exhaustion that goes along with this level of demand. Maybe your DH, a friend, or even a teenager you know could watch her for an hour or even a half hour now and then to give you a chance to catch your breath, so to speak. A nice hot bath with a good book can do wonders for your energy level. Good luck!