Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion grade accelerated, physically small; need advice

There might be a better forum for this or maybe there's a post related to this already (please redirect me if so). DS7 is gifted and entered K a year early so he's in 2nd grade now. He is doing great academically. However, he is physically very small even for his own age (5th %tile), so when he is with his classmates, he looks ridiculously tiny. He is starting to realize during PE and recess that he is not good at sports compared to his classmates. He is not particularly athletic but he is not NOT-athletic either. He would do fine if he were with his age peers. We should've thought of this sooner, but we're starting to worry that his self-esteem might suffer, especially as he gets older. When his classmates all hit puberty, he is going to feel left behind. So now we're thinking, instead of waiting for that crisis, maybe we should have him repeat 2nd grade. Any advice?

Well if he's doing great academically you'll likely create more problems by having him repeat a grade. I wonder if he can "unskip" just for PE?

I've taught kids arriving or not arriving at puberty (grades 5-7) for several years. I can tell you that there are always a few kids who are physically behind the other kids, who hit puberty a couple of years later than their same age peers. That can be a big deal to the kid and his parents for a couple of months, maybe. At that age, any number of things can be an intense big deal at the time. In terms of long-term effects on ability to maintain relationships and hold down a job, not that big a deal.

Retaining him for a grade where he has already performed well academically would be the worst kind of punishment. If you want him to be convinced early on that there is no meaningful connection between his effort and achievement and his future, making him repeat second grade would be an effective way to do that.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was in mixed-age classes at a rural elementary school as a PG child. There was some discussion of skipping me from second grade to third, but because I could not catch a ball, I was not skipped. I took ballet and weight-training for PE credit in college as part of my lifelong plan to avoid projectiles, and I grew up to be a Profound Underachiever. So I've always believed the team made the wrong call when they decided not to skip me.

Seems like good advice.

I'd second Beckee's point of view. If self esteem is meant to be wrapped up in physical activities, then choose an outside school one for him to participate in; possibly gymnastics where small size is an advantage?

Thanks for your advice. I agree with all of you for the most part, but I'm still not 100% convinced. I have an older child who grade accelerated and is doing great because he is tall for his age, does not care about what other kids think, and he hates sports. He's a perfect nerd and proud of it. DS7, on the other hand, wants more than anything to play basketball and football (of all things! lol!) with his best friends who are literally a foot taller than him! His friends are nice enough about it, but as a mother, it is painful to watch because it really means a lot to him to get his friends approval in that way. He is a different kid when he is at home and is reading Harry Potter books (he's reading the 4th book right now, which of course none of his friends are doing) or making amazing comic books by himself. He looks so comfortable and confident when he's by himself. I wish all of his self-esteem was wrapped up in things like that, but for some reason, he seems to care more about physical prowess right now. Of course that may very well change over time. I was thinking that maybe what I should do is have him repeat 2nd grade but ask the teachers if he could take academic classes with 3rd/4th graders. Taking only PE with age peers and/or doing sports outside of school are good options I should look into. I don't know... I will just have to think more about this.

There seem to be two issues here: 1) He's small 2) He's not extremely athletic.

He could be average-sized and still not all that athletic due to the skip. Or he could be small and athletic. (DD has a male friend who fits this description. It's very possible.)

He will be small no matter what, sounds like. So, is this year difference in athleticism worthy of holding him back?

It sounds like socially, he's doing great. Academically, he's doing great. If you remove his unusual age from the equation, you have an extremely small 2nd grader, likely to hit puberty on the late side, who is otherwise happy and successful. If he were not young, but his doctor gave him a diagnosis amounting to this, would you hold him back?

We look for a solution that works one kid at a time, one year at a time. It is very hard to know if the solution you think of today will actually work tomorrow. By middle school, he might need another skip to be comfortable socially, or he might have other issues that mean a change in school, or... At the beginning of 2nd grade, we had a pretty happy kid. By the end of 3rd, she was badly anxious, depressed, unwilling to dress herself or walk to the classroom, and we pulled her out to another environment. I certainly don't think everyone has this experience, but giving up today to plan for tomorrow with an unusual child (or any child, for that matter) has its drawbacks.

For this year, would it solve the problem for him to have outside athletics with other kids his own age? If you hold him back he will need to make new friends to do sports with anyway. If you ask for the school to help, would it make more sense for him to do PE with younger kids rather than all his academics with older ones? What age are his friends - in a mixed-age group, does he gravitate toward 7-year-olds, or 2nd graders?

yes to this.

My DS8 is grade-skipped and also fairly small for his age anyway, but he has some good company in his class with some other kids the same size who are just naturally smaller. But some of his best friends are at least a foot taller. He leans toward being nonathletic, but really he's probably OK but just extremely cautious. He has not been eager to play team sports, ever, but he really enjoys fencing, for which age/size doesn't matter so much. Around here, many sports activities that are outside of school are based on age, not grade (hockey, soccer, etc). You could see if he's interested in individual sports too, where age doesn't really matter.

I personally would not recommend undoing a grade skip in elementary school for this reason alone. From your post, it sounds like he wants to play with his friends, not necessarily his agemates. His friends will then be a grade ahead of him, so he will lose out on that if he repeats a grade.

Elementary school is so circular and repetitive (usually), that I imagine it would be pretty awful for a kid who already does well with agemates to go down a grade. If going down a grade for PE is an option, and your kiddo wants to try that, it can't hurt to ask.