If your child has skipped a grade, how do you deal with questions about why they were skipped, or comments that they "belong" in the lower grade instead.
My child is dealing with these comments at school and I have had a few questions from parents as well, and anticipate more at the beginning of the year parent meetings and so on.
You may wish to provide (and enlist the aid of the classroom teacher in also providing) a simple and straightforward response about the right fit, similar to what is described in this article "
The Right Fit" by Tamara Fisher, author of Unwrapping the Gifted, blog for Education Week, two years ago today on September 6, 2012:
... she had overheard some of the 5th graders making comments as they entered the room about "what are 4th graders doing here?" (I had warned the boys that this might happen and told them the novelty of their presence would wear off after a week or two and to just shrug off those comments matter-of-factly in the meantime.) The teacher said she told the whole class, "They are exactly the same as you mathematically. This is where they need to be, just as this is where you need to be. End of story." And it was.
We most often find the curiosity we encounter to be a healthy curiosity.
Some inquiries may arise from families having encountered roadblocks or suffering from a dirth of information, possibly leading to a lack of opportunity, such as experiencing withholding of services,
mentioned in this article from the same blog "
What It Really Boils Down To". Questions which seem to be of this nature may be well addressed by deflecting with a truism that each child is unique, and mentioning a helpful resource such as Davidson Institute for Talent Development (including this forum), Hoagies' Gifted Education Page, Iowa Acceleration Scale, SENG, Great Potential Press, Prufrock Press.
