Driveby advice for Ruthie: tell her to try and focus her conversations on the *content* of her learning adventures, not the achievement aspects. In my experience and that of my boys, kids (and even most adults) are way more tolerant of hearing all your knowledge about ancient Egypt or how you used your microscope this summer to analyze water from all the local ponds or whatever than they are of hearing about skipping a grade or your PSAT scores.
For some reason, intellectual achievement is more intimidating/off-putting to a lot of people than athletic or artistic or political achievement. I never have figured out exactly why that is, but it's there, so she's going to have to learn to work around it.
I think it's because everyone is supposed to be achieving intellectually. They all start on a relatively even playing field and nobody really has the option of quitting and going with their strengths the way you can with sports or artistic things. Even other kids pick up on this- a very well grounded and sweet girl 2 years older than Ruth commented that "Wow, I guess I'm not that smart." when she heard that Ruth would be moving up a grade. She didn't mean it badly or anything, I just wish there was a way that other people didn't have to internalize it like that.
I didn't think of Mensa, probably because all I know about the organization I learned from the rather unflattering portrayal in The Know-it-All. That probably isn't fair. I am looking into Davidson Young Scholars which she qualifies for. They want her to take a different achievement test because the school didn't give her the full version of the one she took, though. One of the tests popular with homeschoolers who need to take standardized tests is accepted and it only
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For some reason, intellectual achievement is more intimidating/off-putting to a lot of people than athletic or artistic or political achievement. I never have figured out exactly why that is, but it's there, so she's going to have to learn to work around it.
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
I didn't think of Mensa, probably because all I know about the organization I learned from the rather unflattering portrayal in The Know-it-All. That probably isn't fair. I am looking into Davidson Young Scholars which she qualifies for. They want her to take a different achievement test because the school didn't give her the full version of the one she took, though. One of the tests popular with homeschoolers who need to take standardized tests is accepted and it only ( ... )
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