Yep. In our house “Wierdo” is one of our favorite names for each other. It’s invariably met with “Thank you!”.
You guys RAWK as parents! You’ve got a brain on your hands and that’s COOL. She’s more advanced than her peers and it’s a hard way to be at 6 years of age but don’t stop doing what you’re doing with her. She should be encouraged to be more social perhaps and play as the other kids play but she’s going to get picked on no matter what.
I am tall, always have been and that made me a mark. I was skinny and that made life harder, too. I read all sorts of advanced books about Greek/Norse/Egyptian mythology, ESP and telekinesis, ghost stories and superstitions, myths and legends… etc, and I was labeled weird, too. But I did have friends because I played well with other kids. I was into Barbies and horses, along with the weird hobbies.
Your lil’ one needs a healthy mix of everything. I’d watch how she interacts with other 6 year olds and see what areas she may need help with. BUT never ever let her feel bad for being different and also don’t make her feel superior over others. Don’t change how you’ve been with her up until now, you’ve done nothing wrong at all. I salute you for encouraging her curiosity and exposing her to all these wonderful things!
I wish all parents would explain that being different is a great thing, that EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. We are different, no matter how hard we try to be the same. Unless you are a clone, you’re going to be different somehow, in some way… and, oh well. She sounds like an absolute JOY, BTW. I hope you and spouse realize how wonderful she is. I wonder if there are any peer groups in your area that have interests like your daughter that she could join. Good luck!
I was a ‘weird’ kid. I was in gifted classes, interested in things other kids weren’t and I tended to get lost in books during class and miss moving on to a new subject. I was taller than all the other kids (for years, and I’m female), had short hair (in the third grade), braces (for three years) and glasses (at the age of seven). These are all classic things to get made fun of for.
My problems started in kindergarten and didn’t get better until senior year of high school. I tried to ‘fit in’ and got made more fun of for trying to be ‘cool’. You know how there is always one kid that no one likes, no one talks to? That wasn’t me, but I made friends with her, bringing more social stigma down on my head.
She’s going to find kids that are interested in the things she is as long as she’s willing to try to make friends with them. She’ll get hurt, probably a lot, but in the end, she’ll feel better that she didn’t try to be someone she’s not.
FYI, kids don’t stop making fun of someone just because they don’t react. Sometimes they pick one and he or she is the brunt of jokes for all time. Teaching her to deal with it is something I can’t help with, as I had a hard time doing it myself.
Make sure she is involved in extracurricular activities with kids her own age, but only things that she is interested in. I went to art camp and science camp as a kid. Science camp opened up new worlds for me. I met kids interested in rocketry and chemistry and the science of photography. I felt normal.
Get her into a gifted and talented program if there is one offered by the school, but don’t make her stay if she’s uncomfortable.
It sounds like you’re a great parent, and you’re not afraid to help your daughter be weird and love herself for it.
Normal is just a setting on a washing machine. Weird is much more fun.
It’s wonderful that you are concerned about this, and that she opened up and told you.
How about expanding her horizons into the “normal?” Kids, like everyone else, need a common frame of reference to be able to communicate.
If there’s no common ground with “normal” kids, your kid is, by definition, “ab-normal” – not bad, not crazy, but not normal for what we view as normal six year old interests and behaviors.
If you interject some normal behaviors and interests–what you deem as boring family behavior–you give her an in to share her real interests. Get her into soccer or baseball (if she’s interested in math, baseball is nothing if not an orgasm of statistics) or something else her classmates are into (many schools have lots of after school activities–even for real young ones). Encourage her in those activities. If she sees you think she’s being boring or that your not interested in what she’s doing, she’ll lose interest also and you’ll defeat the purpose. Once a common ground is established, people will see that her original interests are, well, original. Who knows, she may convert some to the “weird side”.
We have a 11x17 sign on our fridge. It’s a quote from Hunter S. Thompson, the great Gonzo himself. It says, “Weird behavior is natural in smart children.” Amen.
I’m not a parent, but I was in her shoes once. Seriously, looking back, I do remember a lot of times I felt like a pathetic outsider. But there were at least as many times that I had fun playing with the minds of the normals (although I would be dishonest to say that I was the only one laughing). I would say the best thing for her is to make sure that she has the opportunity to socialize with other smart kids. Having more “normal” friends is fine too, and might help her turn into a future leader, but I think she needs people her own age to stimulate her mind and let her know she’s not alone as well. So if you can get her into any special programs for smart kids, by all means do.
And as for sports, maybe it’s right for her, I dunno. But most of the sports I played just made me feel like more of an outcast for being an uncoordinated dork.
I was going to give you some ever-so sagely advice Cal, but it looks like the TMs have got it fairly well covered so I have to ask this: Where is your sig from? It’s driving me crazy!
I’m thinking yanking her out of school and homeschooling her would be a start. The kid’s obviously brilliant. She’s gonna be bored to tears if you’re sending her to a public school. She can get social interaction elsewhere, it’s not like school is the only place to socialize a child.
I’m so glad you’re an involved and obviously loving parent. That’s going to help your daughter almost more than anything else.
Whenever possible, try to meet her friends and (more importnantly) her friends’ parents. If you’re concerned about bullying, call her teacher.
I have to enthusiastically second the idea of some kind of extracurricular activity. I’d suggest something like Girl Scouts or the local Y. (Disclaimer: I work for the Girl Scouts, so I may be prejudiced 
) Ideally these are groups that don’t just have one “focus.” These should help her become exposed, in an age-appropriate way, to lots of things which may catch her interest, from science to sports to nature to sewing to car maintenance to buisness. They will also get her involved with caring adults, and help her learn social skills in a context outside of the classroom or schoolyard. Just my 2 cents, for what they’re worth.
Not a parent, but I have been weird for over two decades now. My brother’s been doing it for even longer. And Obsidian’s favorite nickname for me is “freak.” I loved and still love mythology, was reading adult books at 10 and was in college before I stopped feeling smarter then my teachers. Your daughter’s got a tough road ahead, but in the end she’ll end up better off then the kids making fun of her now. I found being smarter then the bullies was great, you can use big words, confuse them and make your escape.
The advice given so far is great. Tell her that being weird isn’t a bad thing, that the world would be no fun if everyone is exactly the same. She loves mythology, and that’s full of outsiders turned popular. Rent Disney’s Hercules if she hasn’t seen it yet. Look up the myths of Dionysus, Theseus, Ariadne and Hippolytus, Dido & Aenaes and see if any can be told in a 6 year old friendly manner to make her feel better about outsiders who had happy endings. Also, Greeks practiced outsider-friendship. Anyone who didn’t welcome outsiders with open arms opened themselves up to BIG trouble. Gods often visited in disguse, often as ostracized people, and if they were treated poorly, there was wrath. Here’s a good site for myths: http://www.paleothea.com/
I digressed a bit up there. Basically I just want to say the best thing you can do is encourage her and make sure she knows weird is good and normal is boring.
And if she’s ever interested in other pantheons drop me a line, mythology is one of my favorite things.
I had a teacher who I befriended in middle school who often remarked how special I was. It was her way of saying that I was weird, but in a good way. It didn’t make me feel 100% better, but at least I could feel like my “weirdness” didn’t have to mean “crazy”, like all the kids were saying.
I’d look for a gifted and talented program. My daughter does one on Saturday afternoons. It (and an acting course) has made a WORLD of difference to my kid. Not only does she do interesting stuff (she spent a term doing electronics, and apparently she’s really really good at it, and next term she’s torn between designing, building and firing rockets, or emergency first aid) but she gets to play with kids who think like she does. And you know, they play differently. With her age peers, she hangs back and tries to figure out how they play before joining in (and dumbing down). With her mind peers, there is an enormous age range (she’s about the middle of her group) but the play is more equal.
My daughter is six and very tall, with glasses. She’s wanted to be an astronaut and space doctor for the last three years. She says she wants to go to other worlds and find out if aliens exist, and what they think about.
This isn’t a mainstream wish that sits easily with girls in her age group. Having friends that also think outside the expected has been wonderful for her.
Just an idea to possibly consider for the future… My friend has an intelligent son who is socially different. She enrolled him in Mensa so he could meet other kids like himself. According to her, there are lots of kid-related Mensan activities.
DId anyone here see About a Boy? If you did, you may remember that the kid there was absolutely wonderful - had a smart and loving upbringing with a mother who taught him not to be a “sheep.” Terrific kid to become an adult - if he managed to live through school without being killed (and I mean literally). The mother dressed him so oddly, was so open with her emotions and had taught him to be the same, that he immediately irritated every more mainstream kid he encountered, including the bullies. I spent the whole movie going “Oy, what that mother is doing to that child!”
Your daughter’s got at least twelve years to go before she is an adult in any sense. She’s going to need some mainstream social skills and mannerisms if those twelve years aren’t going to scar her for life. (Think of your own childhoods - best bet is that almost every one of you was an outcast in school - I was! Enjoy it much?) I agree with turner - keep what you’re doing, but for heaven’s sake, make sure she doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb from the mainstream kids - especially in how you dress her!
Just wanted to point out that one of the cool things about “wierd” precocious kids is that you may not have to worry overmuch about tailoring the material to their youth. Instead, you can present them with the source material, and they make their own judgments.
For my kids it was a breath of fresh air when we read literal versions of the Bros. Grimm and they learned that, instead of everybody living happily ever after, some folks get put into barrels with spikes driven into the inside, and are then bounced down the hill into the river.
Good clean fun. 
Shit, I wish my wedding had been that much fun.
I think the hamsters ate my reply.
Thanks to all for their advice.
Yes, MilliCal is an only child, so she’ll have to get her inoculations against easy bruising from friends.
We’ve enrolled her in a number of extracurricular activities to help her socialize – she’s done gymnasticsm cooking, and now she’s taking acting classes.My mother can’t understand this – she thinks MilliCal is already enough of a con, and that she could probabvly teach.
My current sig is from Lord of the Rings by way of the Rankin-Bass TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I thought it interesting that both Gandalf and Yukon Cornelius both went over the edge of the precipice with their much larger antagonists, and both survived. Since Rudloph was just on the other night, and LOTR is back in theaters now in Boston (with the third part set to open), I thought I’d revive this old sig. Maybe, in a more benign universe, the Balrog of Morgoth is helping put the star atop the Christmas Tree at the North Pole.
Damn! She IS wierd!