Originally Posted by polarbear
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.

Granted, my DD is only 8, but we've already had this conversation a few times, as her existential angst progressed to separation from her parents due to college and career.

Yes, she has been skipped a grade, but we don't consider this to be any kind of loss of childhood, primarily because we don't consider graduation from high school to be a necessary time of separation. DD is encouraged to live at home while she attends college for a number of reasons... comfort, familiarity, family support, and yes, reduced debt. She likes the idea very much... for now.

Even completing college is not necessarily seen as a time when she needs to leave the nest. Staying at home would provide further advantages... give her time to find the right opportunity, rather than grabbing the first one, give her an opportunity to pay down college debt and/or save towards a house, etc.

She'll leave whenever she decides she's ready, naturally, and possibly sooner than later, but being grade-skipped need not be a part of the process.