I have been following this thread with interest. Like HK, I was absent a lot of the time in high school and developed a really negative attitude toward formal education during the process. I was near the top of my class and in the national honor society despite my absences and it gave me a lack of respect for the educational process that regrettably continued into college. I did fine in college as well, but could have taken much more from my education if I had been more engaged prior to graduate school.
My daughter has been accelerated one grade and has a spring birthday, so she is quite young for her class. Her psychologist suggested another skip, but she doesn't want one. She loves being one grade higher, but feels that a larger skip would be too much. Her school is somewhat flexible (it is a charter school and kids work at their own pace, plus she goes to the middle school classes as needed). It really isn't ideal, though, and we are starting up tutoring to try to keep her engaged. The expense really adds up; tutoring costs more than when she was in private school for a couple of years at this point.
I don't know what we will do for high school because she is so out of sync at this point. We will look at early college entrance, but I also don't want her going away before she is ready. People argued against the single grade skip saying, "do you really want your child to go to college a year early?" I responded that she could always stay home or travel for a year; she didn't have to go to college. The problem is becoming more pressing now that it's clear the acceleration wasn't enough.
I agree with polarbear. I think there are multiple options that can be made to work. You can always do an acceleration and then reverse it, as awkward as that may be. The decisions aren't irreversible and situations can change. I just try to do the best I can.
