My son is 7...about to turn 8 and is currently in 2nd grade. He is gifted and demonstrates all of the "negative" characteristics of gifted kids, especially in regard to school. He is sooooo bored and feels like school is a waste of time. He is right. The school has suggested a grade jump for next year.

My husband and I feel like it would be great for now, but are worried when we look ahead to high school and college, being so young. Also, he is very athletic, and being 6 months younger than others could cause a disadvantage?

I am looking for some advise from someone whose kid was grade jumped, or someone who chose not to and why.

Thanks!

Welcome!

For the past decade or more the gold standard in grade skipping has been the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS). Info here - http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10053.aspxm I'm familiar with up to 4 years of successful grade acceleration.

Some positive grade skip stories here: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10651.aspx

Genius Denied here - http://www.geniusdenied.com/

Have you talked to your son about the grade skip?

There are several recent threads on acceleration, including http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/171927/1.html

There are also threads especially about boys skipping a grade, including
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/137899/1.html

Personally, I couldn't imagine sports as even a factor to consider; so, with that limitation... My eight year old son skipped 2nd grade because of his passion to learn and his needs not being met at his grade level and also because it put him into a full gifted program hat started in third. He's caught up and is surpassing the class now. He's happy and adjusted socially.

I think there are many negative mindsets that can develop from the stifling boredom of showing up to a place that claims to be a place of learning and never learnng anythng new. However, it seems the the majority of gifted kids aren't too impacted. But the further out their giftedness is, the harder it can become.

The sports thing depends on the sport and his relative size. But it depends what you consider the primary reason for school is. Also sometimes people undo skips when the child is older and perhaps other options become available.

With a sporty boy, though, I can see it being an argument for subject acceleration instead.

Sports is certainly not a deciding factor, however I want my son to be a happy kid�all around. While he is academically gifted, he still wants to be normal socially, and sports are very important to his identity. I am not hoping my kid is some major jock in high school, nor do I plan on him playing in college at all, but I want his childhood to be as normal as possible, which for my son, who loves sports, includes playing sports.

Thank you for the articles. I will check them out.

One of my nephews who was accelerated two years is very athletic. The acceleration was at the instigation of the private elementary school and was a really good thing even through public middle school. By public high school, it became a bad thing due partly to the sports piece. He is very athletic but relatively small even for his age. While he still held his own with boys 2 years older and much bigger, he was no longer competitive enough to get a spot on the school team. Without the two year age difference, getting a spot should not have been a problem. I believe he would have prefered to do sports than start college at 16. So the question has to be what you think matters more to your DS as well as whether other accomodations short of grade skipping is possible.

Or get him involved in sports where they are grouped by age or age isn't that important.

I know this is a bit trite, but I'm sending my DD13 to school to get an education, not play sports. Even though she is a quasi-sporty kid, that was not at all a consideration in either of her grade skips.

That being said, my daughter did enjoy being a ten-year-old seventh grader swimming on the middle school varsity team with mostly eighth graders. And she does a good job of keeping track of relative victories - e.g. being the top IMer on the HS JV team as a twelve-year-old is quite an accomplishment, even if she is not likely to make varsity until she's a junior.

Being competitive at sports is fun, but unless your kid is in the top 1% in ability, he'll likely be earning a living using his brain, not his athletic skill.

--S.F.

Organized sports are usually age-grouped until at least 7th-8th grade, so it won't be a problem until then.

In my neck of the woods, there's a mix of middle schools (6-8th) and junior highs (7-9th) that play in the same league, so there's an age cap on competition to keep things fair. In such an arrangement, your accelerated DS could be the only 9th grader still eligible to play.

When is your son's birthday? Is he old or young for his current class? If he's old for his current class, the gap will be less with his newclassmates than it would be if he was young.

My grade-skipped daughter is 9 with an end-August birthday. She's tall and keeps up with her classmates during PE and she enjoyed being on the elementary school soccer team last year. She won a prize in a school-wide 3K footrace last year at 8 (4th out of 20 or 30 kids who chose to race). So she's fine.

A couple kids in her class are 2 years older than her because of the birthday thing. I see some social maturity differences, but she gets along very well with her classmates overall and is happy socially.

My double-skipped son has an April birthday. The age difference was most difficult for him in 8th grade (homeschooled in 9th; back in school now), but seems to be less bad now in 10th, presumably because he's maturing in a way he wasn't two years ago. He's strongly considering taking an extra year to finish high school (via a middle college program). It'll allow him to do a lot of college courses in high school and will let him be 17 when he applies to colleges. FWIW, I don't see a year as being a much of a gap after 17 or 18 or so. DS also seemed to keep up with other kids in PE when he was 12 and they were 14, and always placed with older kids in swimming class (always kept up with the group during laps; sometimes was first to finish). He didn't join any teams then and hasn't now, but I suspect he'd do well in any individual-based sport.

So, my anecdotal evidence says, "It depends." When I was in high school, there were always lots of 8th - 10th graders on the track and ski teams who were as good as the juniors and seniors. There were also (fewer) younger kids on the varsity sides of team sports, too. I was on a lot of teams (3 per year), and used to see the same kind of thing on teams from other schools. So this is somewhat better than anecdotal evidence.

Overall, it just depends on ability. If the goal is fitting in rather than getting an athletic scholarship, fitting in will be a lot easier.