- With regard to age and teen romance, it's important to note that the experience is quite different between boys and girls. Your acceleration, as a boy, made things difficult for you. Your daughters are unlikely to face the same problem. Girls typically want to date older boys (and gifted girls in particular, since an intellectual/emotional equal is likely to be older than they are), boys don't mind younger girls, and your DDs would be presented with a larger selection than most. They could still find themselves excluded due to other reasons, but their age should be no issue.
They could have other issues, because they're around older, and therefore more physically mature, boys, so they're more vulnerable than most. If they're running with a gifted cohort, those boys are often of advanced social/emotional maturity themselves, but you'd still want to pay close attention to who they're hanging out with.
- You have characterized your DW's math lessons as "spot helicoptering," and your DD's experience of it as "torture." If these characterizations are correct, then I agree, that's a bad thing. Good reasons for accelerating a student three years in math would be that the child is actively pushing for more, acting out in outrage over the school's curriculum because it's too easy/boring, and because children need something in their lives which is challenging so they learn how to overcome adversity, and build resilience... for most kids in school, math satisfies that.
So, how are those conditions met in your house? Is your DD pushing for it? Is your DD complaining about school, and math in particular? Is her boredom/frustration in school bleeding over into social/emotional problems? My own DD10 checked all three questions next to the box marked "yes" to these questions.
And finally, but most important... is there anything else she could be doing in which she learns to overcome challenges through persistence and practice, apart from math? Given the choice between alternative activities and math, would she choose math?
My DD has expressed interest all over the board, and has tried, at various times:
- Dance
- Gymnastics
- Soccer
- Guitar
- Drama
- Robotics
- Choir
- Flute
All of these are activities in which nobody is born ready to do, they all take time, patience, and repetition to hone, so they'll all do as substitutes for math in teaching practice, perseverance, and overcoming challenges. She likes them all to different degrees, but the one that absolutely captures her passion is gymnastics. The probability that she translates this passion into a college scholarship or a spot on the Olympic training team is very low, but since that's not why we're doing it, DW and I are pleased to help DD push herself just as far as she can.
So, our DD does have a one-year math acceleration, and she is complaining about it, but we're not pushing the school any harder, because, as you said, she's got plenty of time to learn it, and in the meantime, her needs are being met outside of math.
