Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy small boy grade skipping

I may just be in a contrary mood this morning, but for what it's worth, I would try to get my advice from someone with the same sex child, and also someone who's child is older...well into high school and beyond if possible. You can't get the big picture from someone who's child is in the throws of middle school, or hasn't reached puberty yet. Not that their points aren't valid, but that it's not the big picture.

Ouch! While I've said that I don't have boys and I'm sure that the puberty issues do impact them differently, my skipped child is going to be a high school sophomore in August so I'd feel comfortable with saying that, four years post skip, it was a good choice.

Unfortunately for this conversation, my family has a lot of females, but I do have older family members who skipped up to two grades combined with early entry (again female, though) and for whom it also worked out well academically and socially.

I'm not trying to convince the OP that skipping is universally the answer or right for all HG kids. I do also have a HG kid who isn't skipped. I'm just trying to provide perspective on two things:

* Genetically small people are going to be small people forever. You can't make educational decisions based on placing smaller people with their size peers or they'd never get past middle school.

and, in regard to my last post

* A skip needs to be well planned meaning it needs to look at all of the factors in the IAS (age, size, maturity, desire for the skip, academics, ability...). I wonder in the case of an elementary that skipped one or two kids every year, whether they had considered all of those pieces, and if that might account for the poor outcomes.

Unfortunately, when kids are skipped willy nilly b/c they are high achieving, the outcomes aren't as likely to be good and it creates those situations that are problematic for all of our kids who really need and want the skip. Parents and educators alike are left with anecdotes of how badly all of the skips they've heard about worked out.

Research shows that the net effects of acceleration are positive, for both sexes. That's the big picture. Individual stories add useful detail for the OP and future readers, though no two situations will match exactly.

We do to an extent. My dd11 is HG and 2e. Dd13 is HG and, although slower in processing speed, not really 2e the way her sister is. Both started as the youngest in grade and dd13 is skipped. Dd11 is not and has the traditional younger sibling in the shadow issues.

The way we've dealt with it has been multifaceted. For one, we have dd11 at a different middle school than her older sister attended so she isn't being compared by peers or teachers (they don't know her sister). Dd11 is also doing some programs and extracurriculars that her sister did not. She is getting very good at cello (her sister does not play an instrument) and has won some contests such as a regional writing contest recently. While dd13 could probably benefit from things like Yunasa, we're only sending dd11 b/c dd13 has other summer programs that cater to her interests and we can't afford it for both of them.

Ultimately, it was hard on dd11's ego immediately post skip b/c they had been @ the same school and she got a lot of "oh, you're [dd13]'s sister" from other kids. However, I couldn't do wrong by dd13 in order to assuage dd11's feelings. Instead, we had to find a way for dd11 to have her own areas to shine. She has blossomed more academically over the past year or two as well and is subject accelerating in math, so that has probably helped too.

The real irony is that I have some guilt about feeling like I threw DS under the bus to accommodate his sister--we gave up his guaranteed spot at a charter (not...great, but it was a spot for K and 1) so she could go to this gifted magnet.

We'll see, but I'm pushing a skip closer to the front burner for DS. However, the emotional pitch for DD is so high at home already. There really is some intense jealousy of her brother going on. Fortunately, we do have at least a year to get things sorted. I am also slightly considering keeping him home for K and putting him into a sort of loose homeschool coop situation that seems to be cropping up. He is just going to be an easier child to accommodate in a lot of ways in that he does not have the intensity issues that DD does and is a lot more flexible. He's also extremely well-rounded--no overexcitabilities to speak of, good fine motor skills, and socioemotionally he's probably a bit advanced, although it could be that I am just comparing him to his sister at this age. However, it's true that I have yet to see how he does in a really structured environment.

I wanted to add something about the sibling rivalry... We have DD9 who was identified *not* to be eligible for gifted services and DS7 who is Gifted (2e).

DD9 knows DS7 has skipped a grade that "he should be in 1st grade". She also knows that he can do 7th grade math and she can't.

I think no matter what, there will be sibling rivalry. DS7 wants to be "older", he often says he wishes he was born first.

I don't think (IMO), in our situation, that grade skipping and sibling rivalry have anything to do with each other. They're going to find something to be jealous of no matter what.

HA! Sounds like my son!!!

The school my kids attend now is a multi-age setting. This year they're both in a 2/3 class and they could have been placed together, however, I did not want that. Now reading your response, maybe I'll try that in 2 years when they'll both be in a 4/5 class...

How interesting. DS is definitely a "youngest child" personality and DD owns the oldest child persona, so we aren't like that here. I guess part of my uneasiness is that I suspect some of the recent surge in issues with DD stems from the fact that she feels threatened by DS, who is four years younger but who does certainly try pretty hard to keep up with her. I think it bugs her that he can read. In fact, today she was reading aloud to her and started yelling at him because he was reading ahead to himself/under his breath and ignoring her. (You can see how it would gall you if you were an 8yo who has always been a superstar reader and that was your pesky 4yo brother, whom you thought you were humoring by reading to him from one of his many somewhat boring ocean books.) They used to get along a lot better, back when the gulf between them was wider and he was more obviously a "little" brother. Now he sometimes beats her at games. Not often. But sometimes.

My DD really should have been a younger - I joke that the ideal situation for her would be for a 6-years-older brother to have sprung into being at her birth.

That's exactly what happened at our house when DS started reading and getting "smarter". DD gets bugged, bad. Especially when he beats her in a game. Heck, he kicks most adults tails in chess, she can't get too upset. LOL