Dear Parents,

My DC5 is around 4-6 years ahead of his current grade level in math and reading respectively. This is an approximation based on a combination of achievement tests, school assessments, and reading and math that he does for recreation.

I'm wondering if there are any parents who dealt with a similar curricular gap and chose not to accelerate. If so, how has your experience been? Was your child happy?

I understand there is a lot of research on acceleration and good tools for decision-making. I am just wondering if down the line, acceleration eventually becomes inevitable for kids who maintain and then widen the gap between themselves and their age peers; or whether there are any families who managed to keep their kid with age peers--and for how long?

I'm not completely against acceleration. I am trying to make sense of advice I was given for years that emphasized the importance of kids staying with their age peers in school no matter what. Why do some early childhood educators believe this? Is there any basis for this strong bias toward age-grouping regardless of outlier ability levels? We've seen the gap between my child and his age peers widen dramatically over time. Did his preschool teachers believe that the gap would get smaller? I feel a strong need to debrief from a few traumatic years at a preschool and would like to gain some seasoned advice about what we may have to come to terms with over the next few years (grade skipping?).
Thank you

I tried to not accelerate - and so did the school. Social problems got worse and worse until he was getting beat up on the playground weekly (in 1st grade). Came home with headaches and vomiting **every day** after school. He would cry and beg to "stay home and do workbooks". He went from the popular kid in preschool and 4K to a social outcast by 1st grade.

In 1st grade, he was doing 4th grade work (as tested by the school) and neuropsychologist said he may or may not regress to the mean over time, but it was unlikely given how far ahead he was then.

I enrolled him in a public virtual charter school where continuous progress acceleration is their norm. That's when things got crazy with acceleration. In math, my son skipped 2nd, 3rd, most of 4th, did 5th grade in 2 months, refused to do 6th grade and skipped to Algebra 1. In english, he skipped 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 8th. He did not regress to the mean! LOL

I found radical acceleration to be inevitable and necessary. Observe your child. When the cons of staying with agemates outweighs the pros, it's time.

If you prefer to avoid or delay acceleration, I think the most effective action a parent can do is to resist the desire to "afterschool" supplement a bored child with academics. Rather, supplement with non-academic but intellectual activities, like music lessons, animal training, computer programming, etc.

The answers to the rest of your questions are best answered by the book "A Nation Deceived" which is available free online in PDF format.

I'd like to underscore what spaghetti wrote. I was actively denied any academic match. I barely lived through high school, much less graduated. I was a teacher's nightmare, my goal was to distract the teacher so that the lesson would not be fully taught and then I would break the curve without doing homework. Or maybe get a D- when that plan didn't work. I gave up on school the first day of high school when the english teacher started teaching.... parts of speech. So very elementary school. I quit. I quit on school, relationship, and nearly on life. I was suicidal throughout high school.

I developed several psychiatric disorders during my childhood from the academic and social mismatch. I'm still struggling as an adult. No college degree, I've taken a few semesters here and there that don't amount to much. My parents 1) didn't want to push me and 2) my dad has weird anxiety about acceleration and 3) they actively prohibited me from doing anything my 3 older siblings had done because I would surpass them. (My dad is neurotically anxious about sibling rivalry, to the point he has limited/strained relationships with all of his children and grandchildren). What he thought was protecting us severely scarred all of us.

What burns the most is a classmate and I were equal in musical ability in elementary. My parents (both musicians) picked a terrible teacher for me and then cut me off after a few years of lessons. My classmates parents were supportive of him. He ended up with full ride scholarship and is a professional musician. I tried to keep up with him into high school and ended up with multiple hand injuries that have been plaguing me ever since. Physical therapy doesn't help. My striking talents both depend upon my hands - talents I could make a living off of... if I hadn't ruined my hands from not having music lessons.

Perhaps TMI, but hopefully building the case that refusing academic match is harmful and neglectful, with lifelong negative impact for the child.

Unfortunately this is common, and there is an expert article, "What kids don't learn" which is useful when advocating, as it can be important to reference an expert source, so that what is being said is not dismissed as the opinion of uninformed and unnecessarily concerned parents.
Yes.

I was under engaged. I thought it would be better at highschool: but it wasn't so I quit. I did get a degree but I have never had the confidence in myself to use it. I can't say my depression is caused by a poor academic fit but never fitting in was stressful.

That said my kids aren't accelerated. Ds9 is the youngest in his year and feels it. He has just been put up 2 classes for maths though. Ds7 is old for year but had a very rough year last year when he was a class up. This year he is much more settled in the middle of the class so I think it will be a hard sell to get him put up. At this point I am not concerned as he is happy.

In the big picture, it is important to realize that, for the kind of children we are discussing, there will be asynchrony somewhere--it's just a matter of how, where, when, and to what degree. Keeping them with chronological and physical peers may result in intellectual/academic mismatch. Radical acceleration to approach academic compatibility may create social, physical, and/or developmental mismatches. The appropriate balance will be different for each child and family system, but know that, no matter what choices are made, something will be out of sync, because conventional educational institutions are not designed around these children.

And, as always, one cannot plan too far ahead, as needs and resources change constantly. What is unimaginable today may suddenly become the obvious only solution tomorrow.

It's been helpful for me to understand that very few educators have training or knowledge of gifted/high ability learners and what's best for them. The majority of U.S. teachers have no actual knowledge in this area AT ALL. So, many are operating with myths and tribal beliefs. If you start there, it becomes much easier to understand why they might balk at changes from the norm.

I'm curious about an aspect of acceleration. Neither of my children skipped a grade; my HG didn't actually read until mid-first grade, though he was subject accelerated to 4th grade math with a small cohort of classmates. The benefit of his situation was that the math teacher supported the kids in the reading aspect of the class, as they ranged from basic to chapter book readers. Starting in third grade, their math class was a separate, replacement class every day. One thing all the gifted teachers have said is that gifted children learn very differently from NTs, and they can teach more advanced material, more quickly, and more deeply/expanded. If a child is accelerated to the next grade or two up, but the classmates are neuro typical (or not, as the class can include a wide range of abilities) and the pace and depth are as dictated by the curriculum, is the child accommodated?

Thank you so much for sharing your very thought-provoking stories and for opening your hearts up on this forum.

I wasn't allowed to skip 5th grade when I was identified as a candidate for acceleration because that would have put me in the same grade as my older sibling. They were only going to let me skip if she skipped too, but she didn't want to because she actually had friends. I remember always wanting to move at a faster pace. By senior year of high school, I was pretty much done--I barely attended school. My principal would have failed me, but I had one of the highest SAT scores in the school and pretty good grades despite not being physically in class, so I was allowed to graduate even though I only consistently participated in one of my classes throughout the year. Looking back, I was lucky they didn't put my parents in jail for my truancy (!).

I went on to college and double-majored and graduated (when I was still 20) in 3 years, and ended up with a PhD (but took a long-ish time to finish at an Ivy). I know people who are very successful and extremely intelligent who didn't accelerate, and so I know that it's possible. One of my best childhood friends (from 5th grade--so lucky I didn't skip for this reason) is most likely PG--she is astoundingly smart and accomplished (speaks 5 languages, M.D./Ph.D, dermatology, medical school faculty and researcher), and she was one of the oldest in our grade (much taller, born in Jan, shortly after the cut off). She was my only real best friend in elementary school.

Thank you so much for the reference to "What Kids Don't Learn"--this is so important to consider.

I don't think DC's school offers single subject acceleration, but this sounds like the ideal arrangement. I'll have to push for this and see what happens year to year. Thank you all for taking the time to help me think this through!

Looking back, I do feel I made a mistake in putting DC in a preschool environment that was inappropriate for more than half of his lifetime. I was advised that things would get better, but this turned out not to be true. His self-esteem took a beating. By the third year, the other kids got the idea that he was a pariah (in part due to his record of acting out). Sadly, even when he was acting appropriately, they would point and whisper, or actively "tell on" him. Being around kids DC couldn't have a real conversation with for more than half his life and being consistently on the margins still affects him. One major lesson I've gained is to listen to my child's cues over the recommendations of educators who feel they have seen everything and know what's best.

Thank you all for being a constructive sounding board.

Don't beat yourself up too much about the past. We make decisions based on the best information available to us at the time. The key is working to change things once you realize and accept that the current situation is no longer a good fit. Even if you find something that is a good fit, our kids change so quickly that it may only be a good fit for a year or two.

Also, my totally unscientific observation on the acceleration issue, people often have strong feelings based on their personal experiences as a child. If someone had a good experience with acceleration or was not allowed to accelerate but wanted/needed to, they tend to be stronger advocates for acceleration with their own kids. If someone had a bad experience with acceleration or was content with their lack of acceleration, they tend to be in the "don't accelerate" camp.

I just wanted to say - don't beat yourself up for what has happened in the past. You did the best you could with what you knew at the time. Educators/books/experts/etc generally don't speak to the experiences of extreme outliers and often recommend things that might be fantastic for 99%+ of the population. As parents, it is very challenging to 1) realize what you're not part of that 99% 2) navigate the less traveled path that goes with that and 3) separate our own experience/baggage from what our child is currently dealing with (especially challenging when they are young and you are making choices on their behalf).

Are there things that I would have done differently if I'd known then what I know now? Probably, but all of my experience and my DC's experiences got us to where we are now and the best we can do is to learn from our mistakes and make the best choices we can going forward. We will inevitably make more mistakes but we're all just fumbling along.

edited - Doh - someone is faster than I am so you get the same advice x2

I don't want you to walk away thinking you have to grade skip your DC5. Some if us have chosen to decline an offer to grade skip. Like some posters have already mentioned, so much depends on your specific child (level and areas of high cognitive ability, EQ, social maturity and savvy, physical development, teachers, administrators, GT curriculum, school, district, family dynamics and past experience of both the child and family members, etc.)

Grade skipping was brought up by DS13's first and second grade teachers. That would have been much easier for the school then SSA in math, which ultimately happened in 2nd grade. So DS was SSA into 3rd grade GT Math (compacted 3rd + 4th grade plus with more depth) when he was 7 and then Pre-Algebra when he was 9. He tested higher both times and could legitimately (without accomodations for writing and explaining work) have accelerated more both times but we all (DS, parent and school) chose not to maximize the accelerations after balancing all the other considerations. With every passing year, I am increasingly happier with our decision to not grade skip DS.

Some random considerations that I actually did not fully comprehend six years ago. There is an immense divide between garden variety gifted and extreme ability, particularly if your child has any interest in pursuing national competitions in math or science or even the arts. Many opportunites are by grade so you can potentially accelerate your child out of the interactions with intellectual peers. There are quite a few extremely high ability kids who do not grade skip. DS has had the good fortune to compete on math teams with and against some of them. I am talking about middle schoolers who are USAJMO or 9th graders who are already USAMO. DS is not at that level. However, there are many more kids around his less exalted level - for example, at his chapter mathcounts, easily half (more?) the kids qualifying for the Countdown round, including DS, were Part of JHU SET ( at least 700 SAT by 12). DS has perfect math scores and 99 percentile reading scores from the SAT a year ago and ACT earlier this year but he would not be competitive with his true intellectual peers if he were accelerated four years (to high school senior).

Speaking of SATs (or ACTs), I think it would be pretty easy for gifted kids to test college "ready" years early, especially if you ignore actual writing achievements. For example, DS easily scored well above average (unofficially and for curiosity) on both math and verbal (CR) on the SAT the first time he tried it at age nine. However, he clearly did not belong on a college campus for a variety of reasons.

We faced this. The school decided it was not a big deal if we made sure the kids were in separate classes so DD was moved up mid-year. However, my older one occasionally gets asked if her younger sister is “smarter” than her. That bothers her. Younger one though is benefiting - she has ADHD, and when she forgets her math homework she can get the sheet from her sister. All in all it has not been that big of deal. They have separate social lives.

And this:

(ALL) we can do is to learn from our mistakes and make the best choices we can going forward. We will inevitably make more mistakes but we're all just fumbling along.

Absolutely. Sometimes the “what ifs” really plague me, but we have always tried to make the decision with all the best information we had. I will say I wish I had begun homeschooling years ago. It would have been the best situation. DD will not leave school now even though she is not happy there. We are allowing her, as a 7th grader, to make this choice. We are looking at other options for next year.
I asked DD today if acceleration was a good idea. She said “maybe”. I asked if she felt that the kids she was with now learned slowly like they did when she was in her age grade (her reality). She complained “There are a lot of stupid kids at school.” She is not known for tact for sure, but what it points out is that just because one moves up a grade doesn’t mean that the pace is any quicker.

Agreed! The grade-skip is about placement; Pacing is a separate issue. Other types of acceleration, such as curriculum compacting, may be used to create more appropriate pacing.

Probably because it works well enough for enough kids.

And some socialization theory.

Plus, you have certain developmental experiences that all kids go through at the elementary school level that are a function of basic development.

And it makes sense intuitively. It does work well for most kids, and tolerably well for most of the rest. But for some it just doesn't.

I'm a long way away from being able to constructively join this conversation, but when DD4 gets older if she needs acceleration in school (which doesn't even exist here, but let's pretend) we'll just make sure she sticks with her sports and theatre classes, and whatever other interests she picks up along the way, for socialisation with same-aged kids. That, plus hanging out with cousins, children of family friends, etc.

Making and maintaining friendships and enjoying fun times with friends is usually called "socializing", whereas "socialization" is more about training in following social norms... which many kids may pick up on by casual observation while others may need or benefit from direct teaching, remediation and support in developing flexibility, following instructions and rules (plus understanding when to bend rules and when not to), developing the executive function skills to cope with tasks you don't want to do, avoid crying publicly when frustrated or disappointed, etc.

There is a common belief that kids even out by 3rd grade. While this is a myth, it may fed by facts such as:
- IQ scores being more stable at about 8 years old than they tend to be at younger ages...
- Some gifted kids may begin to zone out and underachieve if they've not had their learning needs met (have not been appropriately challenged)...
- More gifted kids may "dumb down" in order to blend in with same-age peers...
- Other gifted kids may have difficulty compensating for undiagnosed learning disabilities as academics become more demanding...
- Some pushed, hot-housed, or tiger-parented children may no longer exhibit relatively higher achievement as compared with same-age peers, once these peers become exposed to academics which allow them to achieve at the same high level.

This article by Carol Bainbridge discusses various facets of whether kids even out by 3rd grade.

It is so important to be supportive as each family makes the thoughtful decisions that make the most sense for their particular situation and children. No one who cares about their child is going to deliberately put them in a position to suffer. I have my biases on approaches to educating GT children, and I'm certainly not shy about voicing them, when appropriate, but it's not my place to judge another parent's loving choices.

Our twins, now 17yo and in ps 11th grade, have had subject acceleration (most consistently in math), but we never pursued grade skips. In hindsight, for our more gifted child (it would have taken multiple skips in elementary for him to be working at grade level), it seems that a grade skip may have helped in some ways but not skipping has also had benefits. This kid has been through some really difficult times in middle school (*maybe* a skip would have helped?) but being in high school with a loving and supportive group of really close friends has been a plus. These are age peers and true friends (and intellectual peers, at least in some academic subjects) accumulated over the years at camps and extra-curricular activities, and in school together for the first time in high school.

He, however, decided on his own to complete hs graduation requirements a year early and applied this year to college for next year. He is still waiting to hear (from a very selective school), and to be honest, I won't mind if he doesn't get in and proceeds with plan B - one more year of high school. He's already taken third semester Calc at the nearby state flagship U and will take both math and honors physics there (through the state dual-enrollment policy) next year in addition to hs classes. He is also learning a ton of electronics and computer programming through an extracurricular team project, and would continue that if he stays in hs next year. (His dad is an expert in electronics and a fantastic teacher, another benefit to being at home.)

I've seen many examples of very capable students flailing in college for various reasons (I am a university professor). Overall, I think my own kids have benefited in several ways from the extra time before college due to not skipping, giving me confidence they will be well-equipped to thrive in college.

Here's an interesting and resource-y article on redshirting: Kingergarten Redshirting: How Kids Feel About It Later In Life (Cult of Pedagogy, April 24, 2016, Jennifer Gonzalez). Four resources which it links to:
1) delay their child's entrance into kindergarten: "Academic Redshirting" in Kindergarten: Prevelance, Patterns, and Implications (Bassock/Reardon) September 2013
2) overview of the research on redshirting: Investigating the Prevalence of Academic Redshirting Using Population-Level Data (June 2015)
3) Academic Redshirting: Perceived Life Satisfaction for Adolescent Males (dissertation of Suzanne Stateler-Jones, Texas A&M, 2012)
4) Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS)

One aspect of this research may apply also to gifted kids, to the degree a gifted child may be redshirted (or not accelerated) due to undiagnosed disability:

Well said. There is good and bad in everything. As John Wooden, Coach, said: “Things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out.”

Two years ago (with our then DS6 who is HG+), we were facing a choice between advocating heavily for a grade skip in his then current school (which was shaping up to be a battle) vs. changing to a different school which specialized in gifted kids (but without the grade skip). We opted for the latter, and I think it's worked out pretty well. He's one of the older kids in his class and probably could benefit from some additional challenge, but overall it's good enough for now. We recognize that there really isn't going to be a perfect situation for him, and I think (for a variety of reasons) he's better where he is now than where he was.

My younger started school past the cut off date (NZ) which means he will spend 11 months more at school than my older if not skipped. Being 18 for most of his last year at school concerns me. I would like him to skip later on though not now. We have a lot of composite classed so there is no real reason he can't start a year 6/7 class as a year 6 and finish it as a year 7. At the moment we are working on confidence, risk taking, self advocacy plus extended maths. He is HG and has a less spiky profile than his HG+ brother so it is a bit easier.

So, my experience is that preschool is hard. Don't beat yourself up. We skipped DS ahead at 2.5 a year and it was a mistake, for him. The social and emotional misfit was brutal. I decided to keep DD with same aged peers until K. Well, DD is more typical so I can't say but it seems "better".

Our hope is that for DS subject acceleration in math with be enough. K was hard for him, but 1st has gone well. He does AoPS math outside of school and that plus extracurriculars seems to meet his need for a challenge. I agree with the learning how to learn and study concern...

I have a 5 year old in kindergarten who is in pretty much the same situation. We purposely selected a school where academics aren't the primary focus. He attends a magnet school for the performing arts that places greater emphasis on developing leadership skills, communication, and character. We are not blind to the idea that he may need acceleration eventually, but we hope he can grow into a more well rounded kid before the gaps get too big. I still shudder when I see homework that he could have easily done when he was 2, but I try to keep anchoring myself to the idea of growing his character.
This board has served as a wonderful resource as I plan for anticipated difficulties in the coming years. My personal feeling is that it is most important to find a teacher that enjoys the challenges and rewards of teaching these types of students.

In case it's helpful to hear from someone who was accelerated, here's my $0.02.

I skipped first, about 40 yrs ago, then moved and spent the rest of my years in a district that didn't do acceleration at all (though they didn't move me down a year); while I could've used the challenge of further acceleration, it wasn't an option, so I can only speak to a one-year skip.

I would say it was the best option for me *under the circumstances*, but still deeply suboptimal. It was the better of two bad options. (The best, but not at all available where I lived, would have been to be grouped with a cohort of intellectual and age peers in a gifted-ed setting.)

School was easy, even with skipping. I could pretty much coast and get As. It was better than being in my age-cohort class would've been, but still not a challenge. I still lack good study habits.

Being a year young and in the wrong setting (only ~10% of my class went on to 4yr college) definitely harmed my social and emotional development.

I'm tall, so I didn't stick out in that respect, but I believed I was bad at sports (nope, just a year younger than everyone), not cool (nope, turns out I was once I got to college), and had no social skills (nope - again, just a year younger than everyone and didn't really have any shared interests; turns out, I had plenty of friends once I got to college).

I'm now a successful professional but I still can't shake those negative self-perceptions and self-doubts, even with a college varsity letter and plenty of experiences showing objectively that I'm *not* awkward and I *can* make friends.

I finally found my people when I got to college, and it was AMAZING. I've always envied the people who had intellectual peers the whole way through.

TL; DR: I can't say you should always or never skip, because it really depends on the circumstances. If possible, get your child in a setting where they have intellectual peers who are also age peers.

We accelerated our DD from 2 -> 4 - she is now in 7th grade.

We have decided not to do any more full skips but she is further 'skipped' 2 grades for Maths into Honours Geometry at the local regional high school.

We have decided to do no more full skips - DD has inherited her parents' lack of vertical advantage (and has not hit puberty) and she is at an age/phase where she is extremely conscious of and adverse to 'standing out'. Going to the HS alone involved a major adjustment period - she no longer speaks up in class because she wants to disappear into the background. She is barely 12 so I am not too worried - yet (I am a natural worrier/over thinker).

DD could do the HS next year academically but she does not want to do it - we are respecting her wishes as a are not in a frantic hurry to pick her off to college.

Homeschooling is the ultimate - skipping is, at the end of the day, a compromise.

Leaving DD in her 'age grade' adverts a tragedy but pushing her into an alien environment - small child among adult sized peers also could have tragic consequences too.

Sorry for the ramble - in the road this week and got up an hour earlier than I should have LOL.

PS

One advantage that homeschooling gets you is that you can accelerate but still claim to be 'age grade' - the ultimate Talent Search tactic that I would call 'blue shirting'. I have seen this with my own eyes. Whereas a B&M schooled kid, even if skipped is hamstrung by the combination of their school grade and the standard (core) curriculum's way of releasing concepts as slowly as a wizened and arthritic miser giving alms.

Depending on how tigerish you are as a parent this may or may not be important.

We got a blue shirt effect just by not accelerating, even though our child was in a regular public school. Our dc got a bronze medal from NUMATS for his Explore score in 4th grade, competing against other 4th graders. The kid was a learning machine - the school curriculum was kind of irrelevant.

Yep - this sounds like our DD11. Stuck with all these tall 13 year olds in 7th grade. Never mind that girls and boys are starting to "like" each other (as it's called here). Very confusing to DD. As stated elsewhere she creates graphs of all the romantic relationships as she tries to figure out how love works. Luckily the math program in DD's middle school goes up to geometry so the kids don't get shipped off to another school.




I don't think I fully appreciated this information before the grade skip. But, would it make me want to roll back the skip? She was really really unhappy back then vs. just unhappy now with bits of happiness sprinkled in (band and art).

Well said!
Research supports this:
1 - http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....icle_about_poor_school_f.html#Post229604,
2 - http://www.casenex.com/casenet/pages/virtualLibrary/gridlock/groupmyths.html,
3 - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.540.8046&rep=rep1&type=pdf
(or do a web search on Gentry Total School Cluster Grouping TSCG),
4 - http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.3102/0034654316675417.

We aren't too tigerish here so we wouldn't change anything either. Just sharing here for full disclosure.

Of course, one may tack on additional study hours after school - after hours have already been needlessly burned learning nothing during the school day - but homeschooling is a much more efficient means of achieving the same end.

MVM, reflecting on one of your original questions regarding the educational cultural bias toward chronological age-uniformity: for some educators, I think it is closely associated with a value for equity, which they confound with equality. It may also be a reaction, especially in early childhood educators, to the pressure to raise test scores, which they perceive (with some accuracy) as distorting the value of whole-child development. Grade skipping represents something dangerous to many conventional educators, which provokes an emotional response incompatible with the more nuanced discussion in which we are currently engaged.

Actually, we did not actively afterschool, just fed his bliss by providing library books, conversation and activities aligned to his interests. Our kids always loved the schoolness of school as well, which worked well for us because dh and I both work during the school day.

@amylou,

Not arguing with you :-)

merely sharing our (when you've one gifted kid you've seen one gifted kid), thoughts and experiences with the OP.

I am sure that if you have a kid who is placed well below his actual functioning grade he will 'blue shirt'.

It gets more difficult to do after MS because the busywork stuff begins to kick in - in our experience, at least. And busywork take more time out of each evening itself.

I just want to add that the pressure to grade skip is most intense during elementary and progressively alleviates during middle and high school. Keep in mind that the elementary curriculum is too easy for a large portion of the population and that the span from the average to the top five percent widens over the years. At the same time, increasingly achievement, independence, creativity and passion overshadow cognitive potential as the relevant measure. There are certainly aspects of middle school that can be limiting for any student with high cognitive potential but there are numerous opportunities, particularly in language arts, history and foreign languages, for students to work "to their potential" if they so choose. That was seldom the case in elementary school except perhaps sometimes for writing in language arts. For my 8th graders, the sky is the limit and there is nothing stopping them from producing high school worthy essays, research papers, websites and documentaries throughout the school year in many of their classes. The biggest problem remains math although science can be lacking lab-wise. DD is in Geometry (standard GT) and DS in Pre-calculus (two years accelerated) but the slow pacing and lack of depth remain problematic; however, online resources and competition math opportunities help.

What she ^^^^ said.

Been there, done that, currently doing it, sort of.
Disclaimer: I am not in the US, so navigating a rather different school system, but it has been my experience that the needs of gifted kids and the inability of educators to recognize and meet them are pretty much the same the (Western) world over. YMMV.

DS10, probably PG, currently a fifth grader, has been what one might call mildly accelerated. He was born just after the cutoff and was entered early into elementary school after a tolerable, but not terrific time in the local preschool. His preschool teachers were kind and accepting and he was never a total outcast, but no one really "got" him either, and he did not really have friends.

We decided against the local public elementary and enrolled him in a catholic school which stressed both community and rigour and happens to draw from a high SES demographic and it has sort of worked alright without further acceleration. He was the youngest in his grade though not by much, since there did not happen to be redshirted kids in his class. Socially, it worked alright, not really popular, but not an outcast and he did have friends, though I did a lot of behind the scenes work arranging play dates! It was never smooth sailing. Academically, by third grade the mismatch became rather glaring, he had meltdowns in the mornings because of the slow pace and the amount of repetition and a further grade skip was mooted (and discussed on this forum) but we decided against it.

The most important con in our case was that HE decided he didn't want to - he had worked hard making friends and didn't want to lose them before he had to, ie before having to transition to middle school where kids from his elementary tend to disperse all over town again,
For us the main reason against it was that he would have been an 8 yo in middle school (starting in fifth grade) and the one school with a gifted program is on the other side of town and huge. He simply wouldn't have been ready to cope with the EF requirements, he is having a hard time now as it is (we have been told he easily qualifies for an ADHD diagnosis if we wanted or needed it, but it hasn't been necessary or helpful so far). Also, he never liked being the youngest and enjoys that in the gifted classroom, with so many accelerated kids, he is smack bang in the middle if the age group. I feel that the maturity gained in four years of elementary helps him navigate the social minefield of middle school now. He enjoys doing grade based academic competitions and is proud of no how well he is doing.

However.
He did have to suck it up in fourth grade - even though the standards in that elementary are truly and certifiably high and he did improve in writing and LA and the benefit is noticeable in comparison to his classmates now (a number of which have skipped fourth in order to directly enter into the gifted program) and he did enjoy a lot of last year lets do fun stuff before you all leave, he was still bored out of his mind most of the time. And he did mention how glad he was to be finally done with elementary school and how much better he likes it now in the gifted classroom. I did not realize quite how unhappy he was - well I did, he actually had to go to therapy for suicidal ideation, but I did not think it had to do so much with the school - still do not know now, to be honest, but I think it is easy to overlook just how much harm not acceleration can potentially do, even if it looks like the least worst option at the time.

I'd also like to point out that while it is true that one ought to plan for a year at a time and try not to stress about potential problems down the road, I believe it is crucial to research what options there are AFTER elementary school for your giftie and how the skip can affect those options. In our case, I feel that not accelerating further has set DS10 up to be successful in gifted track middle school, but it appears to have been a narrower escape than I thought.

On to DD6, who is an even murkier case.

DD6 has a birthday just before the cutoff, so was entered at the regular age. Still young for grade and the youngest in her classroom. She is not as "pointy" as DS10, socially more astute and not quite as anxious, but still rather reserved and rigid compared to her age group.
In her case, the school was forced, due to a sudden teacher shortage, to enter a number of first graders into the two second grade classrooms, so she is part of a group of five first graders (three of which, all girls, happen to be redshirted) in a classroom with 24 second graders.
The teacher came up with the grade skip first, and I am again the one who balked. Probably projecting my own traumatizing experience with a grade skip that was, academically, a bill, and socially an unmitigated disaster.

Right now, DD6 is part of this cozy little quartet of first grade girls, and getting more confident in the classroom, and I'd hate to disturb this - but the teacher tells me that with the exception of writing, she could work right along the second graders right now, but is seeing issues with task initiation and completion! Sloppy work and inability to hand I completed work, which I actually think is rather a reason to skip than not, but oh for that crystal ball! The teacher has already started giving her and another girl second grade work, and I have begged her to please do it unobtrusively and to keep sending her to pullout a with the other first graders, at least until the end of the year.

The teacher wants to continue with the split grade classroom next year, so the situation could in theory remain unresolved for a while longer, but does not know whether this will work out, depending on stuff which is out of her hands, like the staff situation next year and what the principal, who is new this year, will decide to do.

If it boils down to a choice between going on into third grade or putting her into a regular second grade classroom come September, we will probably bite the bullet and put her in third.

so, middle school implications? DD6 would be a just turned 9 yo fifth grader. She has expressed a wish to continue at the public college prep school her father teaches at which is right next door to her elementary, and with the acceleration it might work. Alternatively, she follow her brother to the gifted program across towns which would not be as much of a step as it was for him, since we will have moved closer to the school by that time. I do believe it is somewhat easier for a girl than for a boy to rather younger.

Got this from the DYS newsletter - sharing here for the benefit of all:-

pro skip report

This is significant, as in Illinois, gifted programs are not mandated and no gifted funding is available.

I am relieved to see other parents being apprehensive about this as well!! I didn't accelerate either of my children, against the school's recommendation. For my 8-year old, he was emotionally immature, and can be a follower, so we opted to have him stay with kids his age and it has worked out wonderfully. I have a 5-year old who the school tried to do early admission last year, and I think in the short-term, it would have been better. She is currently so far ahead of other kids, and is not connecting with them socially, whereas she has always connected well with older kids. We chose not to accelerate her though because while every elementary school teacher we talked to recommended it, ALL middle school/high school teachers stated that it was detrimental socially at that age. So we are still not sure how it is working out for her. Her teacher also does not differentiate her work, whereas my son's does.

Some teachers make acceleration socially awkward by practices such as having students line up by birthdate (not just birthday MM/DD... but birthdate MM/DD/YY)... unnecessarily pointing out both younger students and older students, aka "redshirts".

Why ask only teachers about acceleration...? Did you also ask parents, accelerated students, etc, to share their experiences?

While anecdotes may be valuable, empirical evidence (based on research) may be even more insightful. That said, what types of social difficulties did the middle school and high school teachers relate being familiar with, as a result of acceleration?

This old post contains a roundup of discussion threads on acceleration (both PROs and CONs) as well as a list of resources (including research).

Beware the buzzwords... including "differentiation".