We decided against having our now DS12 skip 4th grade and go directly into a gifted program starting in 5th. The fact that he said he did not want to because he wanted to stay with his friends was a major reason, but not the only reason - we the parents agreed that he shouldn’t.
The tester recommended it and the scores would have made it a no brainer. Everyone else who knew him in „real life“ was against. He was already accelerated (entered early into K) and the first acceleration had been the perfect „everyone on board“ kind. Even his preschool teachers, who as a rule firmly came down on the side of redshirting for every child they had ever seen, agreed he needed to go to school. This time, his teachers were adamantly against, because he had just about found his feet socially in his current class and they were worried he’d struggle even harder being so much younger. For him, friends aren’t people who come and go, but people he has struggled hard in his life to acquire and keeps struggling to keep. Not making this bit even harder for him was a rational decision on his side at the age of 8, that we supported. (There were more reasons I am not going to write out because they are not relevant to your question, but you can check back on a recent post of mine if you want).
Knowing that he’d only have to sit through elementary school academics for another year (and that was bad enough - we had weeks with crying jags every morning) and would then be able to continue in a gifted classroom helped. That one hasn’t been all roses either, and I am very glad he is at least in the middle of the age group there and not one of the youngest (the youngest struggles badly). Dear me, the socially astute gifties in a classroom can be brutal!
On the other hand, a friends kid refused for almost two years to be accelerated because she had seen her accelerated older brother struggle with being bullied and rejected throughout his elementary years. The teachers had basically wanted her to skip within days of starting school. Tall, bright, socially astute, but never really part of the class, her best friend my DD who was at this point two grades ahead, everyone agreed she needed to skip. This spring, the parents and teachers agreed to simply force the issue. They put the kid into third and told her to stick it out for two weeks and if she hated it, she could go back. Needless to say, she relaxed within days and is so much happier - and middle school, with its tracking options, is one year closer.
While I am all for letting kids choose, and choose more freely the older they are, they must choose between options thay the grown ups find acceptable. When our oldest had to pick a middle school track for fifth grade, we vetted the options and let him pick between the gifted track at one school and a high achievers track at another, both of which we thought could work academically, socially and logistically. If we felt an option could not work, we would have vetoed it.
Funny story about schools flexible about year groups: I recently asked about a new kid that had started 7th grade with them, and DS12 laughed and said she’d been gone for months. Always keeping an ear out for social issues in the program, I asked what had happened. Nothing, he said, but it was decided within a few weeks that she should skip into 9th (middle and high schools are one program where we live). Turned out within another few weeks that 9th grade was too hard after all, so she dropped down to 8th, which, apparently, is just right for now.
In your shoes, I’d decide on a good time for the skip together with the teacher, tell him to try it out full time for four weeks and see whether the issue even comes up after.
Last edited by Tigerle; 04/26/19 01:27 AM.
