Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Sports and full grade accelloration

I'm just contenplating here. We are really not ready to grade accellorate. I would like to hear others opinion.

My son could use grade accelloration but the sports are very important to our family. There are some very good athlelets in our family. My husband even held records for many years at his highschool. Some have received Sport college scholarships.

My son does well. Not a superstar. He is one of the smaller kids but not smallest. If he moved up in school then he would have a disadvantage. I feel like sports are a big link with him and the kids in his grade. There are a few boys that are excelling in the sports that are also smart. I'm not sure if they are where my son is. Intellectually I think he feels a little outside with his peers but ok.

This year he just started basketball. I'm so excited for him playing with all his teammates from school. This feels very different from his community sports. Even after 3 years, of the same soccer team we feel a little outside because the boys go to public school together. He could keep in his age with the community sports and miss the school sports but that would be sad.

That is one of the area the Iowa Acceleration Manual looks at. I answered in your other post too. If sports are a big part of your lives, I could definitely see where grade acceleration would be difficult especially if the sports were largely size driven, football, basketball etc. Now maybe swimming, tennis, golf, etc. wouldn't have such a large impact. There still would be earlier muscle development though. It's hard to say though as there are family tendencies towards earlier or later puberty. Where we lived in TX though red-shirting was so popular for boys to give them an edge on getting a starting position, accelerating there would really place them two years behind most boys in their class. Of course as you mentioned there is always community sports and I know our community has very competitive traveling sports for kids.

When is your son's birthday?

He has a summer birthday. So he is among the older boy in his grade. We held him back for maturity and size. Not academics. We did not realize his abilities/situation would be so bad when he started 1st grade. We thought they have a gifted program so that might be good. We thought 2nd grade would be better but it felt like being hit with a reality brick. I wish I could just feel comfortable like so many here that would just put their kids ahead. I just have to know more rather than making so many changes which are hard for him.

In Georgia at least, summer swim teams are age-based and have no connection to your child's academic grade placement. Seems like the kids compete against age mates in a 2 year window (like 7-8, 9-10). In that situation, your child's summer birthday can be an advantage :-) My younger one (now 5) has a late June bday - at the end of the season- so in a few summers he could swim in the 6 Unders despite turning 7 a week before the season ends. We like swimming because it is the kid against the clock. and everyone gets to swim, at least on the local team, nobody gets left on the sidelines. It has been a HUGE confidence booster for DS8.

We will, I think, be in the same situation you are. DS5 will be starting K late... we set that in motion before we figured out what was going on with older brother (8 on Monday). Now we are thinking about asking for acceleration for DS8 and realizing DS5 might actually be as bright as older brother. So... do we skip him to First? Enrich after school? Ask for placement in the so-so gifted program? (portfolio based in K, based on Cogats and ITBS's only afterwards) Just dunno.

This may sound harsh, but for every adult that people can actually name as being 'harmed' by acceleration, I can name 2 adults who were redshirted for athletics and their world fell apart when they realized that high school athletics was the best it would ever be for them.

The private school where DS attended K wanted to accelerate him one year, but we knew that eventually DS would want to play school sports so that was one of the (lesser) considerations in declining the skip. We have since learned that there are 2 public schools in the metropolitan area with HG programs which have the children working 2+ grade levels ahead. We plan to put DS into one of those programs next fall for 2nd. Are there possibly any small programs like this in your area which you don't yet know about?

We did not hold him back because of college scholarship. Sports at his age is very important socially. We did not do this for scholarship. He was initially held back for maturity, not to stand out as the best. I would like him to feel more average is some ways. I'm not to worried about his world falling apart by sports maxing out in HS. I think it great he is hanging with the better team mates and that gives him confidence and freindships.

My son did not want to grade skip because he is so passionate about sport (he is subject accelerated). It had nothing to do with scholarships as we don't have the same system in Australia. It has given him wonderful age mates that have no issue in accepting him for who he is, in fact they embrace his giftedness. I found this pathway the best for our son due to the fact that most of the gifted extracurricular programs here were of no interest to him and he didn't seem to 'fit' there either.
Is it more unusual to be gifted and your main interest (outside of academics) to be sport???

This is just our personal experience.

I think athletics are one factor. They should not be the most important factor.

More important, I think, is this sentence:

This seems to really be the issue. It sounds to me as if sports are just one more reason that supports your gut reaction. (Though I could always be wrong...)

There are plenty of solutions besides acceleration if you think it's not the right solution for your particular child. Are there other solutions that might work better? Acceleration isn't necessarily right for all HG+ kids.

Even so, I'd suggest considering why you think acceleration is not right for your child. Maybe make out a pros and cons list and weigh the relative importance of each pro and con.

I'm also wondering, if your son is decent-but-not-amazing at sports, is he even likely to make the school teams if he doesn't skip? If he did make them, would he ride the bench? Would *he* care if he missed that, or is it your DH or you who would miss it?

I was a good-but-not amazing athlete myself. I was sometimes a starter, sometimes a sub, sometimes a bench-warmer. Bench-warming is not worth staying in a poor academic fit for, IMHO. It does nothing for one's confidence. The friendships with teammates are good, and it's good for a GT child to have a challenge in life. But bench-warming typically doesn't do much for a person socially, especially not an HG+ kid. Athletes know the "brains" from the "jocks," even when the "brains" also play sports.

I guess I'm saying that I'd recommend thinking over the pros you've listed here re: sports and be sure your child would actually reap those benefits if he didn't skip.

Also, I'd defnitely second the idea of looking at the Iowa Acceleration Scale. It helps with weighing pros and cons.

Also, you should talk with your DYS family consultant about these sorts of issues. They're very good about helping you figure things out, asking useful questions, supplying info for decision-making, etc.

HTH!