Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy First report card after skip

Yes, ice cream celebration is an excellent idea!

Special consideration provides equity for a person coming from unique circumstances, and this outreach avoids bias against them. Some may see what was suggested as a type of scaffolding, a temporary structure while one shows great gains in catching up with their new cohort. It is a form of support which in this case costs nothing to the school budget.


On the other hand, it may send a message that there are many successes and many paths to those successes... he has taken an alternative path (which was not his first choice, but was the available option) and is successfully catching up... showing notable open-mindedness, bravery, and academic efforts. Moving up a grade is not a lark. If a family wants to reinforce his new placement as a positive challenge, not an overwhelming one, celebrating and providing a certificate may create a bond, happy memories, something for the scrapbook, something to look back on.

By analogy, when a family celebrates a child's summer birthday at home, does the child get the message that this is being done because the child couldn't handle not being celebrated in school (as may be done for those children whose birthdays fall during the school year)? That probably never crosses the child's mind. The outpouring of love and encouragement from one's family may take many different forms but is usually seen as positive and rewarding, rarely seen as compensating for a deficit. A kid who receives support will likely be able to lend support to others.

Some celebration. Whatever is rewarding and appropriate to your family.

Huh? No, because a birthday would be celebrated at home anyway. If one insisted on having all one's child's classmates over just for cupcakes and the birthday song (apart from a party) and then sent them home, that would send the message that you thought he/she couldn't handle not being celebrated in school. (It would also be totally weird.)

I think ice cream for both kids sounds great, Sweetie.

... in some cultures, ethnicities, and SES. Meanwhile we've encountered many children for whom a birthday was not a family celebration... unless or until they observe the custom and their families decided to adopt that practice from the majority culture.

My response would be: "Excellent. This C says you're finally in a place where you have something to learn."

"The question going forward is, 'Are you going to rise to the challenge?'"

And, oh yeah... ice cream. Only in our case, we'd probably go out for frozen yogurt.

Except for the ice cream/yogurt part, this is basically how I responded when DD8, skipped into 4th grade + G/T class this year, brought home a writing assignment with a well-deserved F.

After two grade skips, and further subject acceleration, we finally got our daughter to experience something she had not up until then - a B in math. She was ticked, but my wife and I were happy to have finally gotten her to a place where she was challenged and couldn't just coast to an easy A.

We find it amusing how shocked some people get when we say one of our goals is to have had her fail at something before the end of high school.

Embrace the challenge your son has encountered - learning to work through it will only make him stronger.

-S.F.

Just an update...I checked the online grade book this morning (today is when they submit grades) and the C in language arts is now a B....in fact it looks like he will have As and 2 Bs....and he will get all the certificates and coupons that he enjoys earning. He isn't a perfectionist by any means but he does enjoy honor roll. We were cleaning out his backpack and the number of papers with 100 on them were amazing for post skip thrown in in the middle of the nine weeks.

Sounds great! I'm seeing first-quarter grades for DS after skipping 6th, and he's got (I think) two As, three Bs, a C and an incomplete that will be a B or A- when he gets the rest of the stuff turned in. That teacher is letting him turn things in late because it was in his backpack that he left at a cross-country meet and it took us a week to track it down and get it back. Every one of those grades is down because of missing assignments, most of which he did and never turned in. His test grades are nearly all 100%, in-class work very good, and homework miserable.

Our DD brought home her first report card post-skip: 4 As, 2 Bs.

She had this to say about the social studies and science grades: "I knew those would be As, because every paper I get back says 100%."