Evemomma, anticipation *is* really tough. My advice is to try to not worry about it yet. You're aware of what might happen, so you can keep your ears and eyes open for challenges and address them as they arise. I think it's great to talk to the teacher informally first just to let her know where your ds is at, but otoh, just fwiw, my experience in early elementary, particularly K-1st grade, was that so many of the moms I knew were convinced there kids were gifted and just about 100% of the moms in our school were urging the teacher to give their children challenging work. That doesn't mean your ds isn't gifted and doesn't need challenging work, but it does mean that his teacher may be used to hearing the same thing from lots of parents and is going to filter out what you're saying until she really has had a chance to get to know your ds.
I also don't know if it will ultimately work out this way for your ds, but my ds12 was also just short of making the age cutoff for kindergarten, and our district is also adamant about no early entry. I was very disappointed that he wasn't able to start k when he was almost 5, and worried that he'd be beyond bored - yet kindergarten worked out a-ok for him, his kindergarten classroom was about much more than learning letters and phonics - it included lots of fun projects, group activities, field trips, and time just to hang out and be with the other kids building friendships, and that was all good for him. Later on in upper elementary, I was glad we hadn't forced the issue and demanded he be accelerated in grade level, because socially he really does fit in well with the age group he's in school with. Chances are he would have done a-ok with the slightly older kids too, but it hasn't held him back in any way that I can see socially. Intellectually, boredom hit him pretty hard by the time he was in upper elementary, but middle school has been much easier because he's had opportunities now finally to be intellectually challenged. I'm not sure that starting him out one year ahead of age-schedule in a regular elementary classroom would have really helped all that much with intellectual challenge because he would still have been an intellectual outlier in his classroom.
polarbear
