One of my kids was a 12-year-old 9th grader and I know 3 others who were in the situation or a similar one. One was fine. The others weren’t. It wasn’t easy for my son. After some suffering, he opted to spend an extra year in HS and things were better after that. The first year of college was much easier on him socially than it would have been otherwise, because he was close in age to other students and 17-year-old freshman aren’t all that uncommon. There was a very young member of his class, and he honestly didn’t fit in. I met them. His mother kept humble bragging about how young her son was. It was honestly nauseating. I met another similar family at a tour. Same thing. Both kids seemed awkward and out of place.
I advise being extremely careful about a skip of more than one year. This board is very pro-skip and it’s easy to get caught up in the emotion of it all. That’s unfortunate. I’ve heard stories about being essentially an outcast in high from people who had multiple skips.
Your child will too young to be a peer in the eyes of a great many of his classmates and will be viewed as an oddity by many of them. They may be polite, but not accept him --- because they won’t know how. You and/or your child can decide that these kids are peers, but being a peer is a two-way street.
At this point, the counterargument will be "But it works for some!" Fine. But it can be very difficult for some, which is why it's important to think about it
very carefully.
I’m painting a grim picture, but it’s deliberate because I think that this board overall, including the wishful fantasy thinking below, is dangerous in its rosy view of grade skipping.
...being an HG preteen in the teen world of high school can allow an individual to observe the adolescent social-emotional maturation process (Mating Rituals of the American Teenager, among other things) somewhat more objectively, prior to personally experiencing hormone-driven emotional volatility, and while still slightly outside of the stream.
This would be amusing if the consequences weren’t so potentially serious. Though not amusing in a nice way; it's very arrogant and superior-sounding.
I know a former 12-year-old who watched this stuff and it brought him to tears. No, not my grade skipped son. He was just confused while knowing he was too young for that. It was another kid who was reduced to sobbing by typical adolescent-type stuff (nothing serious or criminal — normal behavior). It was a big source of stress for him because he was “afraid he was destined to end up acting like that.” The thing is that he was still a young kid and lacked the experience to understand that he might not become like that, and it sat with him for a while.
(This is a kid whose analytical abilities and sensitivity passed those of most very intelligent adults even at that age, so he may be an outlier even here.)
Very smart kids are still kids. Being smart doesn’t give you experiences you haven’t had or physical development you haven’t had. It just gives you cognitive ability.
