I have another question related to this topic:

Tonight I was talking with a friend about my concern that DS has a rather high opinion of himself. I don't want him to be ashamed of being smart, but I don't want him to be rude, either. My friend advised me to talk to him and tell him that it is rude to talk about being smart. She says I will be doing him a favor, that it will help him be well-liked. I see her point, and in some ways I agree with her. But I am afraid that the nuances of this may be lost on a five year old. I don't want him to hide his intelligence so as not to be rude. But I don't want him to be too braggy, either. It seems like a delicate balance and I'm not sure how to communicate that to him.

He has really begun to notice just how far ahead of the others he is. I want him to feel proud of his accomplishments but also to have a realistic self concept. I don't really want him to define himself as "smarter than everyone else" because ultimately he will discover that isn't the case.

Any advice on how to find a balance with this issue would be welcome

I've read that 5 is when kids start noticing other children and how they fit in. And in my work with disabled children, I believe that's true. However, at 5, kids aren't putting others down or seeing that they are superior, though they may imitate the "language" of put downs. They are just trying to see how they are the same and different. So, I'd go at it that ds is different in many ways and the same in many ways. Ask him to tell you how he is different and the same. You'll find out a lot about his attitudes about the other kids and himself, and then you can figure out how to approach this.
It might help to point out that little johnny feels bad when he is trying to figure out a word and ds says "that's easy", or "that's baby stuff". Give him concrete examples based on how he interacts. Tell him how he can help the children learn and share his joy in learning. (not by being a teacher or bossy, but by listening and contributing to the class) That sort of thing, of course put into concrete chld language.

For our dc, I've had to intervene on two areas:
First, when listening to your sibling, parent, friend, teacher, etc., listen for what you can learn, not for where they are making errors. And if there is an error, don't correct it unless you are asking for clarification of something you don't understand. The important thing is to understand the other person and listen to their ideas.

The other area we work on is: no comments on how easy or hard anyone else's homework, school work, or anything is. We try to add in that something easy for you may not be for someone else, but still at 6 and 8, it's not there. They think anything obvious to them is obvious to everyone else.

Another thing I've tried to do with my dc is keeping my hands off their social life until they ask for help. They are all figuring it out together and will find their own unique way. For some groups, one thing may be "bragging" but for others, it may not. Depends on the climate of the classroom, activity, neighborhood, etc. I'd let your ds feel his way, and offer advice when he needs it, rather than telling him what to do ahead of time to be popular. Unless he's running for office or something.

Well since he's 5 and very intelligent I think you have a good chance of helping him understand this without hurting his wee little pride.
I would suggest you wait until he is playing with some other five year olds and pay attention to when one of the others does something totally obnoxious, including, but not limited to bragging. Since they are five, you shouldn't have to wait too long.
Then just unassumingly pull him aside and quietly talk about what the other child did and ask him how he felt about it. Especially if DS concurs that this child was not nice and he didn't like it, wholeheartedly agree with him.
Then kind of casually pipe in about bragging(not just about being smart, it could be bragging about anything) and remind him that he doesn't like hearing it from other children, so they probably feel the same way if he were to brag about (insert recent example.)
Gently. This way you can use a normal 5 year old scenario as a learning example, but the finger is pointed at another child so it's less ego-defeating.
The key is to make sure it's done very quietly and to the side, so none of the children become to embarrassed.
I've found with DD5 that I need to repeat this excercise many times, but with DD8 she's usually good with only one attempt.
I hope this is helpful.

Thanks, MoN and Incog. Here's an example of what goes on:

We were at the orthodontist yesterday and DD9 had Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with her. DD was talking to the assistant and asked her what kind of books she enjoyed. The assistant said she liked mysteries and DD replied that she could probably tell that DD is a Harry Potter fan. The assistant was impressed. DS was not to be outdone <eyeroll> so he chimes in with "I'm 5 and I can read Secrets of Droon!"

I flashed back to his optometrist appointment two weeks ago where the physician's assistant went gaga over him and asked him about all the stuff he could do. He had gotten lots of positive attention there.

I think he receives mixed messages--some adults are curious about him and want to find out about his abilities and others are not interested. I can see that DD has learned to be more subtle; to find out what kind of person she is talking to. He doesn't do that yet. Also, there's the competitive component. He always wants to compete with DD. <sigh> My mom assures me that's normal...

We've been having similar conversations in my house this week and I do think the mixed messages are very difficult. If they are happy and proud about something, they want to share and it's hard teaching what's appropriate and what's not when *adults* send the wrong messages at times. Yesterday at basketball camp, a coach told my son he shouldn't be wasting his time playing, but rather go find a cure for cancer. What is a poor 7 yo supposed to say back to that? How do you role play appropriate responses? And the coach was trying to be nice -- was a high school kid amused at my kid and not at all trying to make him uncomfortable.

We try to tell our kids that they require more humility because of their abilities. We use things in their world as examples. There was a kid in their school amazingly gifted athletically. We would ask them how they'd feel if he told them every day how much better at soccer he was than them. Then we ask whether they would feel even worse because it was obviously true, and they said yes. They knew he was gifted and there was no point having him rub their faces in it. They could relate to that as an analogy and I could use it to tell them there's no point telling people what they can do academically . . . cause it's pretty obvious to anyone who knows them. Basketball coach only had them for three days before that comment occurred!

We try sometimes to role play to see what could be said instead. We try to focus on "I really like to play chess" as opposed to "I'm really good at chess." No one can argue with enthusiasm for something and it certainly goes over better socially.

Interesting that you say your DD is better at this. Do you think it's an age or gender difference? My DD picks up on social cues that my DSs miss completely.

I'm sure age is a big part of it, but DD has always been very perceptive about social cues. You're right, she managed to talk about her Harry Potter book by making it a conversation about interests. I hope some of her techniques rub off on DS

I'm probably not the best one to help him...I was a social dunce as a kid and, while I do ok now, I'm still a bit on the awkward side.

Well the mixed messages are a problem. I see your point, especially because he's getting such a desirable reaction from some adults. He'll probably realize he doesn't get the same reaction from kids as he gets older.

We have tried a couple of things with DS5, one was that only give help to other students when asked. Let others participate, and we used the comparason of children that can run faster then he can, and how would he want to be treated. Also there is to be no bragging at school, however at home with mom and dad it's ok. He is competative, but is learning not to blurt out that he can do what his older cousins can do. In September he will be going to a school with children with equal or more ability then himself. It will be a little shock for him, we are trying to prepare him.