I just had a discussion over this with my sister recently. I graduated high school 30 years ago and she is older than me to give you an idea as to how long this has bothered us. You see, we both attended public school in the 70's where we were allowed to go at our own pace at the grade school levels. She entered 7th grade a year early and I was already up by a grade and likely to skip another grade before 7th. My family moved. At the new school district, they convinced my parents that being grade skipped was horrible and we both needed to be put back to our age grade. They claimed "socialization" was very important. (aka only popular kids should be allowed, which also means, only popular kids had a right to an education). It felt like a huge punishment to be forced to repeat 4th grade. I begged my mom to let me have books to learn from and she refused. The school had expressed concern that I was not popular and I spent too much time reading. WELL, I HAD friends when I was allowed to be with my academic peers. But I was basically a 5th/6th grader shoved back in to the 4th grade. To make matters worse, at this new school, the rule was when a student completed school work early, they had to put their head on the desk. We were punished for finishing early. Many of the students were just complete goof offs as a result. In 5th grade I was bullied a lot. Then, when I was 13 yrs old, my mom had a brain aneurysm so the remainder of my school years were without her. I ended up seeing a psychologist when I was 16 yrs old. My IQ was 160+. The psychologist said I had the highest IQ he had ever measured in his career. We talked about my frustration with basically being told that I was a defect for not being popular and academics were withheld in the name of trying to force me to be popular. He agreed that no child suddenly became popular because they were forced in with a group of younger children and had learning withheld. I had wanted to be a doctor. But by the time my parents allowed me to go to college, I was tired of school. I had spent so many years sitting in a classroom trying to not think about anything and not learning anything. I developed a lot of anxiety about being in the classroom. I also never established good classroom habits because I had not been in a classroom with a teacher teaching me all those years. I was in the classrooms for the purpose of making friends, not learning. AND, even when I did try to become a cheerleader, I was not coordinated enough. So much for my parents dream of a popular child and not accepting me as I was.
All I am saying is, I doubt anyone who has allowed their child to advance grades regrets it, but there are many of us who experienced cognitive abuse and have been left resentful for not being allowed to flourish and learn in an environment appropriate to us. If your child wants to go up a grade level, then let your child. If your child is not allowed to go to the grade appropriate to her level, then she is the one who will have to live with the emotional baggage and pain.
