anxiety about my "smart" kid and pre-school
full disclaimer: i have a pretty hard time talking about this, because i feel somehow like acknowledging that DD is advanced for her age makes it sound like i think she's 'better' than other kids. i know i don't feel this way but deep down inside i'm worried that other people will THINK i feel this way. i've never really talked about this before, so please bear with me while i try to naviagate my actual anxieties with my anxieties about discussing them!
so okay, DD (three and a half) is a really smart kid. her pedi has been using the word "gifted" since she was about 18 months old, which i'm conflicted about. i mean, what's "gifted" for the pre-school set?! the reason she brought it up was specifically to talk to me about making sure that DD's intellectual needs are met in her home and school environments so she can thrive and continue to grow and advance like she has been, which i'm definitely concerned about even though i know i shouldn't let it overwhelm me. it's not supposed to be something "scary", it's supposed to be an exciting opportunity to encourage my kid to grow at her own rate.
her old "school" she went to when i was working as a nanny (a family daycare) was *perfect* because the small groups allowed for indivualized learning and DD was able to learn at her...fine, i'll say it, "accelerated" pace. this family daycare is not an option for us right now for reasons that deserve a whole separate post, so now that i'm working again i've found a local center that is affordable and i've gotten good recommendations about. we went to visit her classroom today and it was a strange experience for me. she walked in and started reading things off the wall, counting things in spanish, and pointing out colors in spanish and the teachers exchanged glances and joked "hey, what are you EIGHT?!" i just laughed and said "she THINKS she's eight."
it was awkward for ME, not for DD. i was in that weird place between "you don't need to show off!" and "good for you, honey!" i'm worried already, before she's even started at this school, that being in a classroom with 12 other kids is going to be detrimental to her. it'll be a new social experience for her, for sure, but i know she'll be fine with that. she's a friendly, independent kid with no qualms about new places and people, so she'll flourish in that aspect. i just can't shake the feeling that i'm neglecting her growth by not continuing to send her somewhere that she'll have one-on-one specialized attention. am i totally overreacting?
i should put it out there too that i was a "smart kid" growing up. i was the kid, from a young age, that would sit out in the hallway and do different schoolwork from the rest of the kids because my teachers felt i should be learning "ahead". i was nutured by those teachers and by my parents who always supported and encouraged my strong mind. i want to make sure DD is nurtured in the same way, but at three and a half what can i realistically do to make sure her needs are being met???
any ideas?
i feel so uncomfortable right now, geesh. why is this so hard for me to talk about???
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I was a "smart for my age" kid too & I know it can be tough. I think you are going to do a fabulous job supporting her with her schooling. I have no advice since I have zero experience with this, though I do think Buggies is a genius 
but I want to say I know you & she will do a great job. Being both smart AND social is fabulous, often it's one or the other.
from one smart kid's mother to another, i can tell you to relax. smart people are smart wherever they are, no matter how much educational institutions want to lead us to believe otherwise. especially at this age. when my kid was in preschool, yeah, she already knew the material they were teaching like colors and shapes and basic math and reading. she learned all the songs and stayed engaged because it was fun for her. but what she was actually learning was not what they were teaching. she was learning who is in charge of whom in the faculty. she knew when they put partitions up in school to conceal something, what they were concealing and why. by kindergarten, she was coming home talking about the layout of buildings and what materials were different and which were similar to the DMV or the doctor's office, and which were the same as at our home. she'd discuss which kids were wearing the same clothes two and three days a week, and which teacher didn't like who, and which parent's house a classmate must have slept at because of what he was wearing or how her hair was done. by second grade, she learned that teachers approach kids differently based on who they are, and that the "good" kids are the ones who make their teachers' lives easier by not being disruptive, and those kids get better grades no matter how much they do or do not know. now in fifth grade, she learned that school is "really free child care," and that schools are more concerned with social control and uniformity than teaching material, and that answers on tests that address the question directly and correctly will still be marked wrong for being in a different format than how it was "taught" to the kids. she knows how truck suspensions are different than cars', and we have never had a truck during our lifetime. she talks about how bridges are made, and how opinions are formed. when she wants to learn something, she walks to the library and learns it.
all i am saying is, a smart person can be plucked off a farm in iowa and dumped in manhattan and do just fine, while my NJ brethren come up to me on city streets and say, "is that east?"
structured, didactic learning has absolutely NOTHING to do with intelligence. not one single thing. there are doctors who are less intelligent than your child, it's true. all structured learning shows is a person's ability and willingness to follow a program, and that is IT.
i'm sure your kid's doctor did notice something in your child that made her take pause and talk to you about stimulating your daughter's intelligent mind. but i wonder if she might have been blowing a bit of smoke up your ass, just a little. or, maybe she is one of those doctors with an average or lesser IQ who believes that smart people need to immerse themselves in a regimented structure to "nurture" (mold, conform)that intelligence. but the truth is, intelligence is either there or it's not, and even if your kid is in the worst school imaginable, she will FIND things to learn. if they're not handing to to her with the material, she will look elsewhere because she can't help it because she is truly gifted.
so relax. get your kid books and when your child is interested in something, pounce and get her everything she needs to explore it. her gifts will then flourish and you'll look like the best mother ever and you can show up at her nobel ceremony and accept all the praise.
i see your point about a smart person being smart no matter what environment you put them in. i bet she'll find her way to do her thing, whatever her "thing" may be. it's just tough for me to compare this new school (which she admittedly hasn't even started at!) to her old one, where she had the luxury of a teacher who worked with her solo on whatever she wanted to focus on. i feel like that's why she has alot of the knowledge she has today, because of the great early experiences she had at that daycare. she was counting in spanish and recognizing all her letters by her second birthday, and it sure as shit wasn't entirely to my credit. starting at this school is new, it's different, it's something to get used to.
and if i want to look like the best mother in the world i'll probably have to stop swearing in front of her and letting her run around naked with snot smeared all over her face and ketchup in her hair, so i'll just skip trying for the mom-of-the-year award. i bet being the mom of a nobel prize winner is pretty high pressure.
i really like her doc (for the most part; there's a couple things we've totally disagreed about) and i dont think she's a blow-smoke-up-my-ass type. it came up during checkups and stuff a couple times, like the doc would pull out a book of shapes to see if DD recognized any of them and DD would grab it and look through it and say "hey, those three triangles are rojo. red. R is for red. but why arent there any octogons in this book? hey, look at that butterfly! it used to be a caterpillar but then it went through metamorphosis!" shit like that, you know? the emphasis was always on making sure DD has stuff to keep her mind busy, making sure i give her the information she's craving. it was never on structuring her learning.
and it's not the lack of structure that worries me about the new school, it's the exact opposite. i'm not looking for an "okay, from 9-10 every day we work on letters from these worksheets, 10-11 is numbers from THESE worksheets, 11-12 is shapes" etc, kind of thing. it's the individualized learning that i'm worried she'll be missing out on. if they're following a "curriculum" that DD is already familiar with, will that leave her frustrated and bored?
truth is it might not, and i guess that's why i need to chill the eff out. i'm overthinking the whole thing.
time to shut off the old neurotic brain.
on all of that. my kid's doctor said the same sort of thing to me once. actually more than once. i of course remain convinced that my child is a genius, but now that its like a decade later and i'm actually watching her learn and grow, i'm more experienced with how people react to her. some people were VERY put off by how smart she was, they thought she was rude for her adult manner of speaking. others were aghast, which i found kind of insulting.
i also know that people like doctors feel that every kid needs their intellect nurtured, and even kinda smart kids get that "you better make sure she's stimulated, with that brain she's got!" remarks from people. more from the perspective of all kids have the potential to be very intelligent if nurtured, and it can't hurt to throw a parent a bone to get them to do it.
but seriously, if you do have a genius on your hands, you will probably have to think about home schooling or tutoring or getting her into a special school. i wouldn't take a pediatrician's word for it, i would get that kid evaluated by a qualified shrink with no financial incentive to blow smoke up your ass.
(i.e. not affiliated with any school or program)
i thought about doing that for my kid, but i couldn't afford the evaluation, and she is learning lots of stuff and that's all i care about so i figured, same net result.
i'm the proud mom of a smart, who knows how smart, nonconformist.
another thing i thought of was getting your kid to a good shrink, one not affiliated with any school over the next few years to really assess whether her gifts are to the point where you'd have to change your education plan for her. i mean, it is possible to be too smart for school and there are parents who change their whole lives around educating their gifted kids.
but i would think such a thing wouldn't even be measurable until she's in like first grade.
where that one family has the "gifted" little girl and they're always shoving flash cards in her face so she can into some special preschool, and another family has a kid who puts a bucket on his head and bangs it against the wall at a family party and the parents are like "oh, the doctor said it can only cause a consussion if he bangs the BACK of his head, so it's no big deal".
and it's like, haha, my kid is BOTH of those. she's the smartass kid who likes to show off what she knows, but she's also the goofball who puts buckets on her feet and falls down the stairs.
i did like that movie.
my kid's got some stories like that too. incredibly smart in a lot of ways, then does something breathtakingly dumb.
When I started kindergarten, I could read, so after two weeks my parents and teacher agreed to put me into first grade. I stayed in the grade level ahead of my age all through school, and the one thing I noticed looking back was that, although I was academically fine, I often felt socially out of my league. This was particularly true in sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
Here is a thought: it might be good for your daughter to experience the social environment of being with lots of kids her own age, even if she's academically ahead. You can always re-evaluate if she seems like she's acting out of boredom, or when she starts kindergarten. But there are so many other things kids are learning at this age just about how to interact with one another, it might balance out.
i think being in a classroom is going to be good for her on alot of levels, so in the meantime i'm going to try to chill out and not worry about anything unless there ends up being a reason to.
*try* being the operative word, haha. 
whatever you do, don't let them skip her or accelerate her even for a few classes with an older group! I was skipped and it changed the course of my life. all water under the bridge now and I turned out ok, but overall it was a detriment to my social and emotional growth as a person long after school and childhood ended.
It is natural to feel nervous or anxious about having a child whose gifts are more easily recognized and acknowledged because we've all seen how, what's the expression? that nail that pops up is the one that gets smacked down. That will be something that you both will have to get used to...that there are people who are just haters and will resent her smarts just because.
water rises to it's own level, and so do people. she'll be ok.
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even more reason i wish we lived closer to each other. our kiddoes would probably hang out for an afternoon and solve the energy crisis or something.
and thankyou, btw. <3