Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Advice needed... profoundly gifted 1st grader

mommajay, we did not skip our EG ds and it's worked out ok. I hesitated to reply at first because most on here will know that my ds is 2e, and has quite a challenge with his e. That doesn't outweigh, imo, the intellectual strengths he has, and what we've seen with his challenge is that it's more easily coped with when he's given intellectually challenging material. I only point that out because I wanted you to know, if you have read enough and remember my ds is 2e, that the 2e piece didn't weigh into any decision to forego skips.

We have had challenges with boredom - especially during elementary. That's the downside. However, we did find ways to get intellectual challenge for our ds. The first thing we did was look for non-traditional schools in our area. Not all school districts have options, but ours does and we found that was helpful. We also afterschooled in math when our school refused to differentiate - that worked for our ds simply because he likes math. Had he not wanted to work ahead in math at home, we wouldn't have pushed it. We took advantage of camps and afterschool activities in areas of ds' interests. I think the key, for us, all along, has been to focus on ds' interests, rather than having a mindset of "what grade level" is he working at etc. Again, he was bored in school in his areas of his intellectual strengths. That's the downside.

The upside, for our ds, was staying with his age mates and not being forced to tackle things like middle-school level organizational demands, increasing amount of homework demands etc when he wasn't developmentally there yet. It's also clearer now that he's older that he is not going to want to go to college early (at this point, he's skeptical that he even wants to do any type of dual-enrollment option at our local university during high school - not because he isn't ready to do that academically, but because it's simply not what he wants). The other thing we found was that, once he did get to middle school, it was a *lot* easier to find intellectually challenging opportunities and opportunities to work ahead.

One last thing I'll mentioned, that has happened with close friends who did grade skip their dd (same age as my ds) - they were all excited about it in elementary school but have had nothing but complaints in middle school - not about the academics but about the social environment being in with students who leave toys behind and are in the midst of puberty and thinking about the opposite sex etc. This isn't a reason I would have held my ds back (or my dds), but I think that had I skipped my ds, this would have been a difficult time for him socially because of not being in-step developmentally.


I'll toss something else out here, realizing I'm most likely in the minority on this forum. A large part of my being satisfied with not having grade-skipped my ds is simply that - not wanting to rush childhood. For *me* as much as for him. That may sound horribly selfish (and possibly misguided to some), but childhood flies by so quickly. If a parents *only* reason for not skipping is that they want their kids home for those first full 17 years, I think that's ok! I really don't want to have my kids take off for college early, and I want them to enjoy their childhood. I think we've been able to do both. If there has been any "challenge" to my ds' enjoying his childhood, it hasn't come from the lack of challenge academically, it's come from his 2e challenge. I read a lot about adults saying that there are risks in not having challenge in academics along the way, but honestly, school was so danged easy for me until college, and I managed to turn into a successful adult in spite of not having grade-skipped

I am not saying that parents who's kids grade skip are doing something I don't believe in - I think it's a good option for *some* kids. Just wanted to point out that yes, there are those of us out here who chose not to grade skip and yes, it's worked out a-ok for our kids.

So back to the original question, what did we do instead of grade skip? Look for non-traditional school options (charters, etc), take advantage of fun/intellectually stimulating activities outside of school (and at home), give our ds anything and everything he wanted to read (he was reading college level books in early elementary), talk to him, listen to all his cool out-there ideas, visit musuems, music lessons, art, volunteer, go on short (and long) trips, and have a lot of fun as a family

Hope that helps a little bit

polarbear