My apologies if this came across as condescending. It would not, however, be fair to describe this as purely wishful fantasy, as it does describe the lived experience of myself and others I know well. I actually found the experience fascinating (probably as a foreshadowing of my future profession), and personally helpful as a preteen, as it allowed me to separate somewhat the cognitive piece of navigating early/mid teen social-emotional questions from the experience of learning how to apply social cognition in live situations while in the midst of adolescence proper. In general, I view access to vicarious learning as a plus. And I am not alone among multiple grade accelerators who look back on our adolescence as being no more difficult (though perhaps in different ways) than those of our non-grade-skipped peers.
But I mentioned that others have found it to be a negative because, as you say, there can be high stakes, and different individuals will have differing outcomes, based on where they are developmentally, and the nature of the exact setting into which they are placed, including their social support networks. And I know some of those individuals, too.
I could equally describe people who could have, but did not, grade accelerate, and their poor outcomes.
There are, naturally, persons in every combination of grade-skip/no grade-skip and outcome out there, which returns us to the individual nature of the decision.
Being a peer is absolutely a two-way street, but that applies equally to age-peers who are not academic/cognitive peers as it does to the reverse. There are (as we so often observe here) trade-offs whatever path you choose.
I would agree with you that any decision of this sort (to advocate for, accept, or refuse one or more grade-skips) should be examined very carefully, with an eye principally to the overall health, happiness, and development of the child. Perhaps we differ in the extent to which we view remaining in conventional grade placements as a neutral action.
EDIT: I'll also add that a grade-skip one year doesn't mean that you can't reverse it in a subsequent year, if that is in the best interest of the child. Sometimes it's the right decision for that time, but not for a later time. One of our children was effectively two grades accelerated before high school, but then decided to spend an extra year in high school--which then turned into full-time dual enrollment by the time the additional school year started, with a net acceleration of nominally one year, but effectively back to two years by the time full-time college coursework commenced. (This isn't one-to-one comparable to the OP, as we home schooled for many of those years, but my point is the ability to change educational decisions from year to year, mid-year, or over the course of the summer.)
Last edited by aeh; 10/06/18 08:21 PM.
