Originally Posted by CFK
When DS12 was old enough to not feel like a little kid anymore and started to understand what the other kids were talking about, but not quite at the puberty stage himself. And all of the other kids were already there. That only lasted about a year, though. Now that he's reached that "magical time", the age differences seemed to have faded away again. I think the same difficulties could occur with any regular aged "late bloomer" though.

Speaking as a late bloomer who didn't skip a grade, I can attest to that. I felt so physically behind everyone else when I was in 7th grade, it wasn't funny. Then, as if by magic, it all changed without me even noticing in 8th grade. I only became aware that I had changed when external confirmations started happening (went from being the last one picked for the team to the first one, etc.).

Val