I am wondering how others have found their children progress academically and otherwise after a grade skip. Do they float to back to near the top of the class by the end of the first year after the skip?



I think that this depends on a LOT of different factors.

  • child's physical size relative to new peers

  • child's relative cognitive development relative to new peers

  • child's level of giftedness

  • as MoN noted, external factors like supportive/hostile teachers/others


Because of having DD in a virtual environment, but having her in face-to-face extracurriculars like 4-H, we've seen that our (probably PG) DD has not needed much time for the academics to catch up-- a matter of months, usually, on each new "load" demand. Honestly, until the skip from 9th to 11th grade, I never even noticed that there WAS an adjustment period. I suspect, though, that this depends on how close you are getting to the child's actual proximal zone of learning. I think that we finally got kind of close when we placed our 13yo DD into a pair of killer AP classes. Previously, when we skipped her into 3rd grade (from K/1 homeschool), we noted no real adjustment period... similarly from 4th to 6th. The adjustments were entirely social.

Adjustment to new DEMAND, though-- that we have some experience with. I think that depends-- profoundly-- on the child's personality and previous experiences. Our DD was underchallenged (significantly) for far too many years, and she freaked out at 11yo when she encountered geometry which made her think and actually, you know-- LEARN. She had concluded long since that school wasn't about learning, it was about showing what you already knew. Actually not already knowing the material signaled to her that something was horribly wrong.

Physical/social... I think it depends (again) on the child, but I'm not sure that most kids who are minus two or more years ever actually get to parity here. They find their own niche, certainly, and much depends upon their social intelligence, for lack of a better term. My DD has had no problems with other children as a result of acceleration... however, she still feels somewhat intimidated by her peers in competitive settings, and it's due to the age difference. Please note, however, that this is a 3-5y age gap in her case. A single year, I do not think she would feel this way about. Oddly, non-PHYSICAL competitive activities, she is completely sanguine about the age difference, and I have no idea why that should be so different for her.




Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.