Amen, and Hallelujah!
I'm so glad everyone is here and this forum is so active. Finding this site was such a relief to me!
Back to the topic at hand...
Sports are my biggest reason for not wanting to push for grade skipping (which our school system frowns upon anyway). I think he'd be fine socially, and while my mother worries about DS6 driving later than everyone else because he's such a car fanatic, that doesn't trouble me much. (It *is* 10 years away...) But the sports issue is significant in our case because while DS enjoys sports, he's no better than average at them, at least not so far. He improves significantly over the course of a season, so I think he needs time if he's going to get all the good stuff--hard work, team work, being a gracious loser/winner, patience, practice makes perfect, confidence, etc.--that sports can teach. And since I lettered in two sports in high school, I do think that stuff is important.
For now he's getting his sports through pee-wee football and YMCA classes, and that's working. As he gets older, we'll have to decide where our values lie and what needs should take precedence. I think Trinity has the values thing exactly right.
My other worry for grade skipping is the calculus trap thing. I'd prefer that we "go deep" with DS rather than that we "go fast." I think that's hard to get at a school that doesn't have IEP-style plans for gifted kids...and maybe even at schools that do! It's what I try to do with our home school lessons. DS6still wants to go faster than I do, but at least he's doing more complex problem solving with me than he would do at a "regular" school. He's being challenged, and he's getting the (really) hard ones wrong sometimes. That's all good for his development, I think.
<shrug> All we can do is the best we can do and adjust as we need to, right? I'm trying not to worry too much about it, since kids are really very adaptable, and at least trying different things for them shows that we're paying attention to their needs and trying to meet them. What more can any child reasonably expect?
Oh, and I wanted to second what Trinity said about kids learning the social stuff if you teach it to them. Every social situation doesn't have to be ideal for the kids to learn something from it. I think having the academics fit pretty well allows GT kids to do that social growth, regardless of whether they're grade skipped or not. They may have to catch up a bit, but if they're happy, they'll make friends. And since true peers are often older for HG+, I think better social fit can actually be a reason TO grade skip, not a strike against grade skipping!
K-
