There is a correlation (not claiming it's causative) between intelligence and reading, so it's not at all surprising that your daughter does very well in school. Questions arise about how well she's doing in other aspects of development, for example prosocial skills such as empathy (defined as "voluntary behavior intended to benefit another") and, altruism (sharing/giving/generosity), and cognitive skills (e.g. creativity, problem solving, conflict resolution, etc.), communicative skills that are predictive of future peer relationships. You have told us a lot about your daughter's desire to read, but information is lacking in other areas. But there is enough to arouse some concern. (Of course, you'll list concerns. That's why you posted. But there is so much more...) The three that stopped me in my tracks were:
How does she get along with other kids at school? Is she kind? (It sounds like she might be brusk with her little sister, but you didn't say.) Does she get along with the others? Does she play at recess or sit with others on lunch break, or does she read? What do the teachers say about her social skills (as opposed to academic)? These are important questions to which we have no answers.
This is my first post.
My daughter is 8yo and is reading constantly.
She wakes up up and reads and I need to call her to breakfast 10 times (even though she herself devised a schedule for our morning routine)
she escapes from the breakfast (or lunch or dinner table) as fast as possible to get back to reading
if I don't check on her, she reads instead of getting ready for school
she comes home and wants to read
if she's upset (for the smallest of disagreements), she storms off and reads (she says she needs to calm down).
Even if her 5yo sister is around, she often prefers to sit on the sofa and read and let the little one mind her own business.
The other thing to call out is that it doesn't matter to her very much which book she is reading. She does get into a book deeply, but once it's done she immediately picks up the next. She has 10 open books scattered around the house and unless she is really stuck she'll just pick the closest one and starts reading.
This has always been like this to a degree, but I feel it's getting more pronounced.
For what it's worth, I'm erring on the side of more context in case this is useful:
a/ She's doing well at school, near the top of the class across all subjects and the teachers speak very highly of her and haven't flagged any concerns (though they have 30 children and as long as she "performs" well, they might not notice?) We do send her to extracurricular activities (maybe too many of them). For example, she fought for us to buy her violin lessons but she never practices on her own. She would rather read.
b/ I also see a lot of myself in her. I've never been diagnosed with anything, but like her I was good in school, am reasonably creative, am constantly fiddling with something, frequently touch my face, used to suck my thumb for a long time, find it hard to listen sometimes, can be self-absorbed (i.e. my needs first), need constant entertainment (phone, laptop, ipad), find it hard to fall asleep and don't usually enjoy just being with my own thoughts.
My worry is that she uses books to escape from something, as if her thoughts or emotions are threatening to overwhelm her so she needs to distract herself. And if that's the case I'm not sure whether this should be a concern or whether I should be grateful that she has a coping mechanism when things get out of hand for her.
It's not an either/or situation. She may simply prefer books to people, finding books less complicated, therefore less work. Maybe this is just another way to phrase your concern, but one may indicate a very introverted person, the other someone without a prosocial bent. There are other possibilities as well.
Should I seek professional help? What is a reasonable threshold here? I'm concerned for her longer-term mental health and resilience but I would not in any way want to reinforce any feelings of being different or not belonging to this family. I'm also worried she could lose trust in us having her best interests at heart.
Resilience can be taught; read about how to teach resilience. As to being different, we are all individuals. If you place no specific value on being like everybody else, being her own self with her own strengths and difficulties should not be a problem. And as far as trust, that's built up over days, months, and years, not single events.
