Not Your Question

First, I had to explain to my child she is smart, and not everyone else is as smart as she is. Our first example of this was attending a story time at the library with kids who were between two and four years old. My child was in the middle of that range. So, I could explain that when the librarian asked super easy questions, like “What color is the duck?” that was not her question. She needed to sit back and let the younger children answer those easy questions. The questions always get harder, wait for your question, I would tell her.

Pause

How would she know which question was for her? We agreed that she not only would wait for the harder question, but once it was asked to the group, pause for a count of five. Literally, she would count to five in her head. If no one spoke up, it was her turn to answer. This might not mean she is the only kid who knows the answer, but this does mean she let every other child have a chance first.

This approach allowed her to show her intelligence, without over shadowing the other kids. It let her shine without stealing the air from the room for the other kids. She knew every answer at story time, but saying them all would be rude. Telling a child not to be rude is vague and confusing, giving them a set of rules you can live by helps them navigate the world.

Eventually, she realized that it wasn’t only younger children answering the easy questions. So we had to discuss how not all kids knew the rule for waiting for their question. I also had to eventually explain that other kids might not know everything she did. We read a lot of books and her memory was excellent. Not everyone has lots of books or a good memory. I did not want her to view her peers as stupid, but it is important to know that not everyone has the same skills or background.

Rhetorical Questions

The one issue we had with this method? Adults doing story time sometimes ask rhetorical questions. They ask things like “What do you think the butterfly will do in the cocoon?” Not expecting that your preschool age child will reply “Metamorphosis!” They think this is their part to teach. They were generally wrong. This was when my child finally spoke up. Thankfully, we never had a problem with a story time adult getting upset. I suspect that was mostly luck. I know some adults really hate when a child steals their thunder.

High School

Because we homeschooled, this rule only came up at our co-ops. However, my child had internalized this rule, and apparently lived by it. I rarely taught her in the older years, as we agreed she wanted other teachers and I was happy to teach younger kids in the co-op. One week though, I did get to see what this looked like. I sat in on her high school sociology class. The teacher asked the class, “What continent has the greatest diversity of human genetics?” The other students paused to think, and after several seconds my child threw out “Africa.” The teacher asked the class if anyone else wanted to make a guess. Literally the entire class of teens said, “No, if she says it is Africa, it is Africa.” The teacher then had to concede that was in fact the right answer.

What I found interesting, was that the entire class easily agreed that if my kid spoke up, that was the right answer. However, they didn’t show any of the signs of annoyance or frustration I have seen smart kids sometimes get from their peers. The rule of sitting back and letting others have a chance had worked! She had the respect of her peers. She participated in class without overshadowing the other students.

College

This kid is now in college. The other day she was telling me about a kid in one of her classes whose mother never told him these rules. She saw very clearly the behavior I had helped her avoid and how annoying it is. No one wants to be in class with a kid who jumps in to answer every single question and doesn’t give anyone else a turn.

She still follows this rule. She waits to let the other students have a turn. She holds back, so other students answer the easy questions. That said, college is strange for her, as many students don’t want to speak up in class, at all. My kid has no fear of speaking up and apparently often speaks the most of anyone in her college classes. But at least she is aware that it is important to give others a chance.

She says the weirdest part is when the teacher asks a really easy question and she thinks, “That isn’t my question, that’s too easy.” But no one else speaks up. She recently told me that when that happens, she sometimes chooses to say something strange or incorrect, to just make the rest of the class more comfortable. Then they feel better speaking up because she answered the easy question wrong. The teacher gets class participation and she can rejoin with real answers later. So in this way, she has exceeded my expectations of her social skills. She has learned to put others at ease without worrying about her ego. She knows she can wait until later to demonstrate she actually does know the material.