I'm going to jump from what Dude says above (insightful as always)-- and add--
even for girls, college at such a young age is no picnic. I don't
know if it was different back in the day, as I was a bit older (2y) when I went-- but my DD15 has experienced negative stuff socially as a result of her age.
She can't go to a place that serves liquor at all because of her age-- and she's
the only one. Her peers are mostly 20-23yo.
That age difference and the current sexual assault/consent climate surrounding colleges, + our state's age of consent being 18y, means that the only guys who WILL date her are the ones that are super immature/icky for some reason of their own, or those who are, um-- oblivious-- about the law and their own futures. Both things indicate not-great family backgrounds or values, I'd say. The intelligent and conscientious ones are thinking "jail bait-- BIG time."
Yes, there are those who want to
save her for later, (like, when she's of age), but that tends to result in a dynamic which is patronizing and DD hates being the "kid sister" to anyone. I can't really blame her for that, given that she is in many ways MUCH older than her 18-19yo freshmen classmates in terms of her responsibility and decision-making. She counsels THEM-- and they listen, quite frankly, because she is perceptive and has great judgment.
Is it
better than being with agemates? Well, yeah-- it is. It's just not
awesome. It might be on a campus with a specialty in young matriculants. That isn't the case where she is attending Uni-- she is one of perhaps a dozen kids under 16, spread out over a campus of 30K students, and with no particular supports or mentoring for them.
I'll also say that you and your spouse sound much like a more extreme version of the same push-pull attitudes and experiences that my own spouse and I have over academics, push-parenting, opportunity, and what constitutes "too much" or "not enough" for our daughter.
Our situation is this:
our daughter was accelerated a lot (like you)-- but it still was
nothing like enough academically-- she is NOW learning that
learning is work. This is something that most children learn when they are under 10 years old, and she
refused to learn it then, because teachers (and everyone but us) were too busy handing out gold stars and certificates and accolades to her
just for showing up and breathing. Well-- or so it seemed to us (and her).
That went on and on-- all through high school, in fact, and resulted in a stellar resume in spite of her age, in fact, a #1 class rank, even. And now, she's in real trouble because she has NO idea how to study. She has no idea how to fight for understanding. She has no idea (not really) how to adequately
budget time to get a lot done. She has never needed to do any of that.
So I say that to note that I completely understand where your spouse may be coming from.
Much depends on your children and their actual needs.
I hope that you don't take this the wrong way-- but--
it's not about you. It's not about your spouse, either. It's about your children and what they NEED. (Not what they
want, but what "responsive and loving parenting" needs to be for them as individuals).
My DH and I didn't do so great at giving our DD what she needed-- and while we can make excuses about how we tried, I'm kicking myself now for not having tried a lot HARDER to get it to her, even though she would not have been happy about it at the time. We failed in part because
like you-- we were too often NOT IN THE SAME MINDSET ABOUT THOSE GOALS. <-- please, please, please address that.
We did force her to stick with some things which were good for her-- but they were all extracurriculars, and frankly she was awfully talented at most of those things, too, so looking back, they still came far too easily to her.
