yes - considering homeschooling as well. he is very very social - and has been in a school environment or a while..so would be big change...am researching homeschooling as well. i know it will be better for him in many ways, but i also know that he would become incredibly accelerated - he learns very quickly and i am a bit worried that this 3 year gap between his age and ability will continue to expand...that next year I will have a child technically ready for 1st but on a 5th grade reading level and 3rd or 4th grade math. i never know with these kids what's right to do frankly...slow them down, work at their pace...never know what serves them best. any opinions on this. i feel with both my kids (as is the case with many of these kids) - it is like a bottomless well that needs and wants to be filled, so the compulsion is to fill it, but then they become harder to serve in the school systems. what do you think of this issue? god - its so good to have a place to discuss this...so happy i found this board!
You and me both!!
I'll tell you straight up that if I had a way to talk to the parent of my five year old child, I'd tell her in no uncertain terms to stay AWAY from schools like those you've described...
sure, give the virtual school a shot, but don't let it have your
soul.KWIM?
I'd probably have kept homeschooling, honestly. Or maybe started again in middle school, three years ago.
Like Grinity says, I don't know that I can serve as much of an example. More like a warning to others.
Your son sounds somewhat like my DD at that age. It's a tremendous
gift to kids like that to just let them BE WHO THEY ACTUALLY ARE. Will that gap continue to widen? Yes, perhaps it will.
But think about what that means in terms of a rigid, inflexible school placement, too:
every year that passes, the curriculum will fit less and less well. As that happens, the child's MG/ND peers will seem to be as happy and well-served as ever, leading a HG child to realize that there is something wrong, (it can't be the school/curriculum, since nobody else seems to have a problem with it-- so that leaves the problem being with themselves). This can give that child the sense of being trapped in a dead-end job with enthusiastic coworkers who seem to relish each day.
Please think about that. And, if you like, read my cautionary tale about perfectionism and my 11yo DD. We thought that we could "slow her down" too, and at least not continue to widen the gap. Well, it worked.
Sort of. She's now WELL beyond most high school level material in literature and the humanities... and well into high school material in the physical sciences and mathematics... and she's
never learned any study skills and thinks that she SHOULD earn 100% on every bit of graded work she completes, or she's a worthless failure, maybe even dumb. She's miserable and so are we.
Yes, this is very sad. But it isn't the point.
The point is that a GOOD FIT isn't just about how good it will be in five years. It's also about how healthy your child's self-image will be at that point. How much will he still love learning? Will he have learned that school is a place of punishment and rigid rules? Or a place of joy and learning?
If you have a way to let your son BE the very young boy that he is, and simultaneously feed his needs as a HG learner...
do it.The
one thing that we've done right for our DD is to allow her to be the asynchronous creature that she is. Childhood is too short not to enjoy being a little child. Even if you also happen to be a little child who likes advanced physics or Shakespearean sonnets. It doesn't mean you can't play light sabers with the neighbors when you're ready for some down time.
Home education (full or part-time) allows for that kind of thing in kids that are REALLY asynchronous. It's a tremendous thing to be told "She's so--
normal." when people meet your gregarious PG child for the first time.
