I guess that it will vary from child to child and will depend on a whole host of circumstances. I wouldn't rule out a skip later, though, if the child seems very advanced in all subjects.
I agree. I think as the child's LOG increases, it's fine to break the IAS 'rules.' My son has a high enough LOG to be a Young Scholar, but he was also severely underachieving and has ADD. He also jumped from a public school to a private school which prided itself of training the kids to be used to a big level of self-responsibility and lots of multi-month projects. When my son transfered back to a very well thought of public school in 8th grade, I asked, at a teacher's conference: "Does he bring his own pencil to class? The private school was very concerned that he wasn't bringing his own pencil consistently."
The teachers all rolled their eyes and said: "of course he doesn't always remember to bring his pencil - none of the kids do!"
Interestingly enough, at the 'welcome to school speech' for parents of 6th graders, the principal told all of us parents that we should be prepared to play the role of the student's 'frontal lobes' - as if we were their fancy executive secretaries. That's exactly what I ended up doing - and we reversed lots and lots of DS13's underachievement. If I knew then what I knew now, I probably would have tried harder to get a gradeskip earlier, but if I hadn't been able to, I would have done what we did.
We'll be changing his school again this year, and reversing the skip, again because of maturity issues. I can't tell if he can't or won't follow directions to the letter, but all the smartness in the world doesn't replace attention to detail and work ethic. DS13 know this intellectually, but can't quite put it into action yet. He's young, so I'm hoping next year will be better.
I think will many of our kids, a bit of 'trial and error' is needed. Mine anyway! Flexibility is key!
Love and More Love,
Grinity
