Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy bubble bursting

Well many of you know that I've been pleased with DD9's academic situation and, natch, describing it because she's "not that G." Well, I'm still feel tremendously lucky that she is in a great school that differentiates with her peers but I realized very fast when there was a rumor of one of her four GT peers (in a class of 21) skipping a grade. Freak out for four -grade -skipped me. Will her support group bust up, should I skip her , too. What good will that do because we KNOW it's the rate of learning at stake rather than the content. So on and so forth...

In short, my denial was revealed to me big time! Like many here, I have a hard time internalizing the idea that 99+ percentage really means that they're different. Gee, maybe that's why most of her friends and ALL her really good friends are ID'd too.

The classroom and GT teacher just laughed at me, like, hey, you're just getting it emotionally. In "their " world those top 1% results and grade equivalents 4-5 years ahead do mean something. I can hear Kriston, Grinity and Neato chortling already.

And I'm counting my blessings that DD obviously has such support.

aline

<...stifling a chortle>

Wow! You heard me all the way over there! I do have a loud laugh, but jeepers!

<smirk>

Ah, the wonderful world of GT denial!

We all come along in our own time, in our own way, Aline. I'm glad that you and DD have such fantastic support and obviously you are doing a great job as her mom.

(pats on the back)



Neato

Yes, it's wonderful you have such support at school!

Aline - your comment about "rate of learning at stake rather than the content" rang a bell with me. That has been my feeling with DS - it's not so much the content (well math yes) but it's more so the rate of learning. It seems if the rate of learning is at issue, that is more difficult to fix.

Dazey

I think the nice thing about skipping is that at least for a year, the rate of learning is faster because the child has to catch up a little.

The potential trouble with HG+ kids is that skipping one year is not always enough. Some need two or three or more over time to stay challenged. That's perfectly fine for some kids, but can be harder for other kids, especially socially. So having true peers makes all the difference in the world!

Personally, I'd think long and hard about breaking up a peer group of 4 kids who "fit" neatly. If they're all on equal footing and one of the four is skipping a grade, I'd certainly at least be thinking about skipping mine, too. And I'd probably be talking to the other two sets of parents, too!

I agree, if you find a few kids your child is well matched with that's a great thing.
Negativity alert:
DD8 just had another achievement eval. I don't see how skipping one grade will matter when her lowest score is 3 grade levels ahead.
She has at least 3 well matched peers in class, and I like what they are doing as a small group.
DD5 hasn't had achievemet test yet, but she has brief moments of brilliance.....ON HER OWN TERMS!!!!!
She absolutely refuses to perform on command.
At the tender age of five she has learned that she doesn't have to do anything she is not interested in by smiling sweetly and saying "I can't do that".

What I have found with my dd is that every year she gets further apart from her ND age-peers and her more MG friends. The differences just seem more obvious as she gets older.

Oh Neato!
Most grade levels include children who are one or more grade levels ahead, so a single grade skip does two things -
1) there may well be other gifted, but more MG, kids in the recieving grade who score similarly to your child, so there is more incentive for the teacher to differentiate for a group than for a child - not to mention that it is more fun! This is particularly true of any gifted programs that may already exist.

2) Once the recognition factor that Dottie mentions is in, more services, such as subject accelerations, may follow.

Of course if there is a peer group in the current grade, or a flexible teacher, that counts for a lot on the other side of the equation.

I'm just trying to show the other side - NOT give advice to you in particular.

Smiles,
Grinity

Here's a blog post I wrote on the subject of pacing. Let me know if there are any holes in my logic, ok?

I notice that a lot of parents hesitate over gradeskips because a gradeskip doesn't put your child with brighter kids, just older kids, doing harder stuff at the same old slow pace. From this perspective, it wouldn't seem that gradeskips are going to help the most gifted kids at all. Yet they do help, I know about 50 kids who's lives are happy and healthy because they got some combination of whole grade and subject acceleration. How can this be?

First, some disclaimers:

1) There are kids for whom the skips don't really help, they need to be homeschooled and that is that. ((Applause)) for the sacrifices that individual families make to allow that to happen.

2) All these gradeskipped kids deserve to have the choice between the skips at their local schools and Gifted-Magnet schools. Some will need skips at their special schools as well.

3) It's a great idea to get your child to expect that they must do some work that stretches them, at home or afterschool if not during school. Those of you with younger children - don't worry about seeming to be hothousing - get serious, and get busy!

OK - So why does gradeskipping work at all?



Part of the reason is the dreaded 'in-class differentiation.' I say dreaded because that's what I was promised and assured was going to help my son, and I've seen this dream sold over and over like the Brooklyn Bridge. And I resent being suckered like almost nothing else. However, we BTDT parents, have seen that most teachers, and particularly the 'right teacher' can do in-class differentiation when the child is within one or two years of their actual readiness level.

Here's an example: Take a kid who is +3 mental age (which is already PG, if the more modest end of PG.)

Give them a .5-year credit for having a summer birthday, and .5-year credit for living in a heavily red shirted community. Get a documented skip for a total of 2 years, and rely on teacher differentiation for the 3rd or 4th year, and volia! You are theoretically have a reasonable fit educational plan. KWIM?

Question:

Are gradeskips just for the highest Level of Gifted gifted kids?

Answer:

I wouldn't reserve skips for PG kids in a community which has no gifted program, or in a place where the gifted program just isn't an option, or is 2 hours a week or less - and lets face it, these are the majority of programs in the U.S. right now.

I would look at skips all along the range of Gifted, as a tool to solve problems - such as perfectionism, underachievement, social, or insulted-dignity behavior problems.

Use the Iowa Acceleration Scale Manual and Dr. Deb Ruf's Losing our Minds, Gifted Children Left Behind, and Dr. Karen Roger's Re-Forming Gifted Education for information specific to your child. For less than 100$ these three books will help you go from a pile of papers in your 'testing results' draw to a plan.
A single grade skip can make a really nice foundation for the subject accelerations, so pursue subject accelerations in at least one subject to fill that mental intensity need. Here's the big secret: Children don't have to be in a program that perfectly meets all of their needs in all of their areas in a totally tailored way. In fact, bending over backwards to get everything 'just right' can be a heavy burden for some of those little shoulders!

There comes the analogy ((drum roll please))

You could, if you had to, send your child to elementary school in a trash bag, with holes ripped out for the head and and hands. I've used this kind of makeshift raincoat at outdoor festivals, and it does keep the rain off. Sure there are going to be some social problems, and PE is going to be a drag, and I'd be cold and cranky in the winter without some clothing underneath, but if you just had to do you, you could. For my kid, keeping him in with his agemates was about like sending him to school in a big green garbage bag. Those were some hard years! He didn't want to go to school, but he and I felt that it was his duty.

Eventually I learned more, and advocated with the school, and 'in-class differentiation ' was the outcome. Things improved. Think of this as the school providing Duct tape so he could customize the bag, perhaps by cinching it around the waist, closing the leg holes, and reinforcing the neck and wrist slits. A great improvement! It really was. I say a prayer when I think back to how close we were to 'leaving it at that.'

During that time I yearned to homeschool him - think individually created clothing. Pick a material that appeals to your senses, create fastening that don't bind or irritate, actually have the clothing fit your body! No matter how many sleepless nights I spent, I just couldn't figure out how to make it work with sacrifices we were willing to make. So we took the course of a private school, which turned out to be willing to do the whole gradeskip.

There is a big range choices between individually made clothing and wearing a plastic garbage bag. Our kids need to be given something better than a plastic garbage bag, but many don't need the handmade clothing, just perhaps, to be allowed to choose ready-made clothing from other departments, previously restricted. Think of a gradeskip and subject accelerations as invitations to other parts of the clothing stores that were previously off-limits.
So that is why grade and subject skips work at all, because most of our kids don't need perfect, just better than what they have. So save those big green trash bags for garbage day, and stop sending your little dears ones out in the world wearing them, ok?


Smiles,

Grinity

I agree with you, Grinity. "Clothes" don't fit in class with age-mates. It's not a matter of whether DS's could have stayed in regular grade (aka "coping"), but thank goodness they didn't. They still float to the top of the new grade. Things still come very easily to them and I worry about development of work ethic.

I worry about the level of maturity of my boys. Sometimes they seem like adults with wealth of knowledge, humor, witty remarks, and then one will ask something that reminds me they're just children. One grade skip doesn't fully address their academic needs, but I want them to be able to grow up/mature, be supervised, etc. So, at least for now, we're not looking at additional skips.

This was our experience. And a whole lot of vanilla GT kids who were GT only in either math or verbal didn't really cut it for us. If that 40% indicates lots of MG-HG kids and even a sprinkling of EG & PG kids, then it could work quite nicely.

I still think the most important thing about a school is that they have the ability to recognize LOGs, however they come to that--whether because they're a GT school that specializes in GT, or because they're a "mediocre" school that can see that your child is truly different from most/all their other kids, or some other way. If the school recognizes LOGS, the staff is probably going to understand your child, and that's key. You all speak the same language, which gets everyone off on the right foot.

Ditto from me! What a relief!
Grinity

[quote=gratified3] We're moving this summer and have a magnet option, but we're trying to figure out what district we want for the home or backup school. Is a mediocre school ok or should I be looking for a school that says 40% of its students are GT? Somehow, to me, that seems pretty close to "all our kids are gifted" which generally means no learning at all for my kids. I think, especially as the kids get older, that social fit means a lot and I'm wondering if a school with 40% GT would have a better social fit, even if the academics leave something to be desired.
/quote]

Of course the school with the good leadership would be my first choice, but it's probably too early to judge that one. My idea is to pick a neighborhood were the kids will fit in, values wise - rather than learning readiness-wise. It's kind of a drag to explain over and over why you kid has rules and stuff that are so different from the neighborhood kids, if you have a choice. I'm not sure how much HG and PG kids ever feel 'at home,' but it does take a village to raise a child.

Of course I'm praying that the Magnet doesn't fall through!
Grinity

I am in agreement with everyone here in that grade skipping is multi-faceted. One issue that hasn�t been mentioned here recently is eventual college admissions. My son dreams of attending a particular one which is listed in the top ten for most selective colleges. It�s not the prestige that interests him, but rather the focus of the school. I have recently read that colleges generally do not give special consideration for high accomplishments attained before the usual age.

My gut feeling is that DS11 will be a stronger candidate if we keep him at grade level (7th next year) while moving him to a very rigorous school which only attracts and accepts high achieving students instead of accepting the offer to skip him into a regular (meaning no AP courses) high-school as a freshman next year.

Since he did not receive accelerated math as early as he needed, he has only been instructed through pre-algebra. Either school will allow him to start out with Alg1 next year, but I don�t think they would feel comfortable with him skipping it (pre-algebra would have been the one to skip). So, if he entered 9th grade, he would only have three additional years left before college to get through (honors) geometry, algebra 2 and pre-calc/trigonometry. By staying in grade at a preparatory school, he will get those plus AP statistics and AP calculus before high school graduation.

In our particular situation, an additional grade skip (or two) would have been advantageous in the earlier grades, but somewhat of a penalty if taken now.

The college decision is a hard one. Because if you have a brilliant 18 year old senior who has become angry with the system and discouraged with school, it doesn't really matter how brilliant or appropriately aged they are.

<nodding head>

I saw the same anger brewing in our DS6 that you all are describing, and that's why we pulled him out for homeschooling.

At the time, we didn't want to grade-skip because he likes to play sports and will definitely need the time for his coordination to catch up. I value the lessons that being not-bad but not a star in sports can teach a kid, I didn't want to have him miss out on that. (He's a perfectionist when it comes to sports, so a grade skip at this time would pretty much have ensured that he never played sports in school.)

But he's also well past what the schools are teaching and he's an "old soul," so keeping him in that age-level classroom was simply not an acceptable option for now. We wanted to be able to put him back at age-level (or close) in high school, when he can take more advanced coursework and even college courses for free. So for now, our "least-worst" option was obviously HSing.

Once I got him home and saw how fast he was picking things up, I understood why he was so angry and frustrated in first grade. He's making a lot more friends now than he made at public school, when he was unhappy and probably no fun to be around. (I had to call a limit on the number of kids he could invite to his birthday party this spring!) He's also got the time and energy for doing "kid stuff," whereas before we pulled him out, he was exhausted and miserable when he got home from school. He almost never wanted to play outside, and now he's outside more than he's inside. It's been very healthy for him.

I think a grade skip would have solved much of that problem for us, too, but at the time, for us, HSing seemed a better fit. I do know that we had to do something. What was happening to our bright, happy, fun kid was not acceptable. The light inside him was dying. It's back now.

FWIW...

What a great thread! Such good info. in here! We're currently in the process of choosing a school (likely bypassing K) for DSalmost5, and what has been both interesting/funny/extremely frustrating is that DS seems to "like" or "dislike" the schools that he has gotten to "try" (and yes, we are insisting that they let him come spend time in the classroom!) based on the other kids in the room, and, more specifically, whether he has found another dinosaur-obsessed child (and his bar is high - you can't just like 'em, you have to LOVE them and be able to debate about them!). It gives me hope that he will find peers who like his "big" interest at least enough that he can pull them along with him in his dino learning. But, I'm worried that I'm going to get "lazy" and miss other signs if he's seemingly happy at school because he can talk dinos in his "off" times there. Or, if he's happy, I guess I should assume the rest is good...or not...keep the thoughts coming...this is a really great thread!

Yes, but how do you KNOW if he's happy or not? I need a checklist - mine is "happy" in that school is "good" or "fine" but the exciting and fun times are recess, PE, Art, Music. He can't (won't talk about, does't understand,didn't learn anything, learned too much?? ) tell me what he learned - it's "I don't know". Specific questions get me nowhere. I asked what he'd like to see changed in school and I got "I wish it started later", "I wish there were more games and toys to choose when I finish my work", and "I'd like to brush my teeth after lunch". Is this normal for a 6 YO boy? Who knows! I can't decide if he is happy or not, it's a nightmare merry-go-round (or maybe it's one of those rides where the bottom drops out and you're stuck to the wall by centrifugal force?). Is he/isn't he? Maybe I need a daisy! Frustration reigns supreme here.

I think it depends on the kid.

Mine left us NO DOUBT that he was unhappy in 1st grade, though he appeared quite satisfied with his not-very-academic half-day K program with some in-class differentiation. At the time I (wrongly) assumed that he was MG instead of HG+, so I assumed that his relative satisfaction meant he was well-placed in K. I wonder a bit now, but at least I know that when the fit was REALLY bad--as it was in 1st grade--he is the sort of kid who would let us know that something was wrong.

Some kids just won't let you know that school is way off for them. If they're chameleons who are able to get along well with others their own age and are people-pleasers who like to stay on the teacher's "good kid" list, they may adapt rather than showing that there's a problem. Especially if they don't know that there's any other way for school to be, they may not say, "Mom, I'm bored and underchallenged at school."

I think distinguishing between the child who is truly well-placed and the one who is suffering in silence (maybe without his/her even realizing that being underchallenged is the reason for the dissatisfaction) is one of the most important tasks for the parents of a GT child.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was the chameleon who suffered in silence. One of my biggest worries before this school year began was that DS6 would be, too. I was actually kind of relieved when he started acting out in 1st grade because it meant I wasn't going to have to try to figure out if he was really happy or if he was miserable and just going along. I think making that call can be really hard!

I think I posted this before, but in case I hadn't, here it is:

When my dd was 5 1/2 I enrolled her in Kinder. She attended for less than a week. On the fourth or fifth day she very seriously informed me that if I made her go she would "scream as lound and as long as it took for them to call me and ask me to take her back"

She never had to go to K again...

LOL, bianca!

DS6 came home on the first day of 1st grade, threw down his backpack and said in a serious voice, "I'm NOT going back...and if you MAKE me go back, there's no WAY I'm going to 2nd grade because it will be even LONGER and MORE BORING!"

This from the kid who had enjoyed all 3 years of pre-K and K...We pulled him out for emergency homeschooling before the end of September.

Sometimes they make it VERY clear that it's not working!

Hey, gang. I feel it's time to post as "me , the really weird kid" vs. DD9's mom again. Confession time so that there's an example of the (completely strange but toothsome ) PG kid. I admit now, that that's who I was. I did skip four grades, went to university classes at eleven, " ahem" went from "I know it's how it's done but REALLY there must be a better way" to having sex with 30-year -old -men at 13 to graduating high -school but my parents deciding I was to young for college but letting me go to Europe for four years alone, during which I ahd international reviews performing, went to University in France(both fancy and un-) and studied with very fancy folk, worked as a call girl in London then returned to the US, hung out in various ways, decided to go to graduate school so I'd better pick up a BA. (And a major international scholar on the way who let me ride along as cute young thing as he was doing the world scholar routine} did that in 2 years, got a full ride to an Ivy League Graduate school... and at 35 realized I needed a life (hence marriage, child, and so on).

As a brilliant therapist-astrologer said to me at (? 13?) "You'll always be weird, so get used to it!"

As I rant, what I really want to get across is: your kids will always be weird, so help them be who they are!"
Aline

Aline-

I see you are putting your life story out there with a chuckle, but it's really a very sad tale. I feel for the little girl who had so little guidance and support. What a tough way to grow up! I hope that you've found your niche with the family you've made.

best wishes-

Watching DD3 this past year, a couple of observations and I would appreciate any experience and comments.

As mentioned, she is in a good Montessori and I am pleased. As a September 3 year old, she is one of the younger and made friends with 3s, as the "older" girls had relationships from last year and were cliquish. She seems to have dropped her 3 year old peers and is playing with the 4s. All of those she plays with now are moving on to K this fall. There will be 3 older kids left next year, 2 European and 1 Japanese, whose parents are keeping them there rather than putting them in K here and moving back and K again.

Many people have posted about peer relationships and sorry, I read but didn't make a solid file. Did you see behavioral issues escalate as desire for older playmates increase combined with availability restrictions?

Perhaps I should have posted a new topic but I thought it combined the above, sort of.

Ren

Yes, though I think our bigger problem was that the decrease in the number of true peers in the age-based 1st grade class coincided with the complete lack of challenging schoolwork.

Unhappy kids have trouble fitting in. Kids don't usually like to be friends with a child who's in trouble a lot. It all kind of comes together as a package deal of negativity a lot of the time, I think.

Lorel,

Thanks for your post. I wasn't trying to "woe is me" at all, rather to come clean a bit about the actual social challenges some of these kids face. My best advocacy line for why Gifted Ed is necessary (here in NM it's under Special Ed) is that one isn't worried about whether or not the child will go to Harvard but rather about whether or not they will become the Unabomber. Somewhere in this thread there was a reference to the same thing. The asynchronous development issue can really blow up during adolescence. I know many (relatively) people -- especially girls who have a similar developmental history. As a Mom, I really do hope guidance makes a difference! My family was under tremendous emotional stress but apart from that they were highly conscious of education, very cosmo, very smart, had tremendous access and enough money.

aline

I agree with this statement wholeheartedly. My son was well liked by his teachers and peers when he entered his 3-5 year old preschool/daycare class. As he become more and more frustrated with the school situation, his social relationships quickly become non-existent.

Interesting question. We are going to be in the exact position next year with DD3.5 at preschool. She definitely gravitates toward the kids 1 to almost 2 years older than her in this environment, all who are going off to kindergarten. Her preschool teacher last week told me she is ready for K except for her RE (rampant emotionalism) issues and newly found perfectionism. She is still very much a mama's girl.

I'm hoping she'll be ok since she has a summer birthday and will still kind of be in the middle of the group. And this year has been all about the social for her - she absolutely LOVES the older girls. I am hoping she'll dig in more to learning opportunities. This preschool is very small, flexible, open ended, and I know a number of HG+ kids who've gone through there.

Anyway - I guess we'll watch and wait!

Aline-

I've always been full of regret for my own turbulent adolescence. But my life appears as dull and squeaky clean as Leave it to Beaver next to yours!

I didn't see you looking for pity, but I feel for your inner child anyway. Where were the adults in your life while that 30 year old was committing statutory rape?

hugs-

I think a super smart kid with a certain kind of personality can get away with a whole lot even if the parent is paying attention.
I was immature and determined to do whatever the h@#$ I wanted to do and smart enough to fool ALL the adults involved. My parents weren't the greatest, but certainly not neglectful. They did the best with what skills they had.
I just read a book that I heard about at OGTOC. It's called Help is on the Way by Jenna Forrest. She basically tells her life story growing up and it focuses alot on extreme sensivities. It's an interest read especially if you want to understand someone who suffers from RE!- hee hee hee.
Seriously, though, there was a part of the book where she was like 9 or 10 and she walked right up to her teacher and told her that her mom was picking her up for a doctor's appointment and was going to be waiting outside. The teacher told her to go ahead. She just walked out of school, went home, her mom was at work so she just let herself in with her key and hung out...AT NINE!
In the book she eventually gets caught, but I did that stuff all the time and I never got caught! In fact, at the end of 8th grade the vice principal came up and said what a model citizen I was. You would die if I told you what all I was up to that year!
I never got caught so the behavior escalated. I kept upping the anty and I think there was a small part of me that wanted to get caught. It never happened.
That's too much heady power for a little kid.
Which brings me back to wanting to make sure really smart kids are engaged at school. Like my eight year old says, six and a half hours is a really long time to be sitting around doing nothing. Mix that with a certain personality and you could have some really regretful results. It especially upsets me because it's really not that hard to fend that off by keeping the child engaged during the day.

As I rant, what I really want to get across is: your kids will always be weird, so help them be who they are!"
Aline [/quote]


How do I help my almost ten year old be who he is? How do I make sure he continues to feel good about himself when kids are starting to call him "gay" or "geek" in our sports obsessed small town. I thought I could shield him from some of this by homeschooling.

Hugs, Lori! You are already doing what you need to do. The acceptance of one's family is worth way more than that of some high school jocks.

A couple of things resonated with me, that a few people said, in response to aline's story. When you are at the top of the class, the "grown-ups" (having a preschooler keeps me in terms like these) around you expect you to behave well, good student is suppose to equate to good kid somehow.

I remember a friend told me that when her mother asked where and who she was going, that there was always lots of questions when it was another friend, but if she said "Ren" then there were no more questions. And she once told her mother that it was me who thought up all the crazy, stupid things they did.

Even the cops that raided my annual birthday party, just started coming by and said happy birthday while 300 underage drunk kids were partying. Drinking age was 18 back then...

But the theme is there, good student, good kid. I will not be so stupid with my child. Guidance, schymdance, -- two words: convent, Spain.

Ren

Gee Wren, even my anti-clerical grandmother encouraged the convent notion! Literary note: Hypocrite in a Poufy White Dress. And it's an NYC story -- every too-smart once a teenaged -girl should read it.
I've given up real sentences for the day -- don't tell the kids.

aline

I talked to my son about it. He says that it did bother him a little at first because he knows that it isn't just one or two kids that have this attitude toward smart, different kids like him and his friends. He says he thinks it is more like the whole town feels this way and he is probably right.

Right after he heard the comment, my son started talking about needing to finish middle school math and pre-algebra so he could start algebra. I wondered why he was talking about math when he doesn't like math as much as most other subjects. I think he was trying to show the kid that made the comment that it doesn't bother him when people say this kind of thing and that he is not going to hide his intelligence because he is proud to be a geek and he doesn't care what they think. But he knows that math ability is more respected than other academic subjects and that is why he wanted to talk about math, so that tells me that he does care a little about what people think.

I just worry about the future. I know that my daughter seemed more sensitive to what other people said about her when she started middle school and she fit in a lot better than my son would. She was a cheerleader. Also, one of my son's best friends who is four years older and gifted was verbally abused in middle school and once even physically attacked on a school bus.

My son does seem to have a lot of confidence most of the time but I worry that this might change over the next several years.

And yes, it probably does bother me more than it bothers him. But he does talk a lot about moving away to some place with more people like him and I wish I could do something to help him feel like he belongs here.

Lori H.

I'm so sorry that your son is going through this! YuK!!! My only, completely anecdotal, personal, response is to try to get him to understand that people only do that sort of thing when they are scared or threatened.

My other response -- and I've dragged kids into the hallways of public schools and spaces for this one, is that using geek or gay as an epithet rather than a simple descriptor or compliment is like swearing. It's done only because the person doesn't know how to express themselves well or accurately. Followed by a Q & A about what those terms actually mean.

As a kid, of course, I got beat up in the lunch line for the previous interventions.

It IS snotty and elitist, but it is the responsibility of folks like your child who actually CAN think these things through!