Did anyone have cold feet before a grade skip?
These are big decisions and some people may be prone to a certain amount of second-guessing. With gifted kids, no placement is likely to be ideal, and changes in learning environments may occur... for some kids, annually... depending upon what options are available and what is the best (or least-worst) fit at a given point in time.
My DD will be skipping from private K into the second grade (public gifted program) this upcoming school year at a new school where she will not know anyone.
Hopefully you took
advice from this forum to...
... work at home as a family to:
- read threads and have family discussion regarding acceleration PROs and CONs
- make your own lists of potential PROs and CONs of available options, assign weight to factors
- get your daughter's input
- agree on your decision
... partner with school to:
- provide child with a school visit
- provide child with opportunity to shadow with kids she'll be in classes with
- assess her placement and "fit"
- consider the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS)
- enroll her in activities to meet the kids ahead of time
Every time i come across threads on redshirting, i become very anxious and second guess the decision we have made to skip her. "My kid is smart, but holding him back 1 year was the best decision i made." ... This is when i start panicking and wonder if I'm going to mess her up socially.
Does your child have an identified issue or potential issue:
- making new friends,
- being flexible,
- adjusting to new schedules, routines, surroundings,
- exhibiting maturity typical for a child her age?
While some families/schools address such issues with redshirting, essentially giving a child an extra year to develop to grade-level expectations... often a child may need or benefit from
direct teaching in an area of slow growth (not just an extra year), in order to catch up to same-age peers.
Apart from the learning environment's likelihood to be suitable for your child, I believe you were facing a long commute? Possibly the impacts (or potential impacts) of this on your family dynamic need to be re-considered and/or weighed differently as a factor in your decision?
There is no shame in any family taking certain options off the table... for example:
- a long commute does not work logistically for our family
- a public school does not work ideologically for our family
- etc
However it is healthy for a family to internally acknowledge the true reason (or combination of factors) influencing their decision (although of course they do not need to share their reasons with the world at large).
