Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy help me be ok with a grade skip

You have a problem now. Don't let future hypothetical problems cloud your judgement. If your child is not flourishing in school, please do your best to fix the problem for him, now.

You say that he did well on the IOWA scale test. I am sure that you have your answer right there!

I am an adult who skipped 2 grades in elementary school. That turned out to be the best thing that happened to me.
But, my nephew who is now in 8th grade, having skipped 2 grades is having a big problem where sports are concerned. He is pretty involved in atheletics and finds that he is unable to compete with kids in his grade who are far more physically developed due to the 2 year age gap. So, you might have a problem where sports are concerned, but certainly not where academics are concerned.
Hard to tell, right now!

If your child vocalizes the wish that he wanted to be in an environment that challenges him, then he is ready for the skip. I would suggest that you do a single level skip now and then reevaluate your options later - that way, your son might be closer in age to the late birthday kids in the next grade and may not find the change difficult socially.

Y'all are so awesome! Really, I don't know what I would do without this space, because as many of you are aware, there are not many places where one can speak of such topics openly without all sorts of misplaced reactions.

I always like to jump back to one of my first lessons in working with children in foster care: always do what is in the best interests of the child. My son has worked in many environments with older children and he THRIVES. He is very much an alpha dog in almost any group (last year I recall picking him up from his accelerated computer class and he had the kids who were 3 years older than him cleaning up his mess).

Here is our family baggage which clouds things (though I may pretend that it doesn't): I wasn't skipped (I should have been), DH was skipped 4 (4!) years and it still wasn't enough. He was valedictorian in HS and college. I don't want my DS to be on the 4 year acceleration plan.

But I do need to meet him where he is at and do what's in the best interest in the child.

Keep the great advice and perspective coming. It means so much to me.

Ah. Yeah, so what we want and what our kids need - not always the same thing. How many folks on this board, with both parents gifted, are dealing with kids who are not at least equal to at least one of the parents (where there is no 2e)? On the other hand making a 1 yr skip is not an automatic commitment to a double skip, let alone a quad skip :-). One bridge at a time. Least-worst for right now...

Few, if any, parents will ever be faced with the decision to skip their child ahead 4 years in a single shot. So, rest assured! While you might ultimately reach that need, it probably won't happen in one fell swoop. This whole parenting journey is really just real-time Newton's Method, focusing on decisions on the margin. Stay at the margin, focus on positive incremental change, and you'll be doing as well as anyone could in your shoes.

Right. If we had a nickel for every time one of us has thought "But-- this isn't what I signed on for!!" as a parent...


well, our retirement savings would look a lot more, er, robust than it currently does, let's just say, and we wouldn't be worried about paying for college.

None of us gets the kids we thought we wanted... and only the very luckiest among us get the parents we need.

I stopped worrying so much about the former and focused on mitigating the latter.

My deepest fear has always been I'd have a normal kid and have no idea how to relate to them. My mom says if she'd had me first she wouldn't have had another kid. "Becuase you got it right the first time, Mom?" "No, that's not it."

ROFL.

Er--- heyyyyyy...

I'm an only child.

We've joked with DD over the years that she is enough trouble/fun/entertainment/enjoyment for THREE kids... no need for more than her. Not the whole truth, of course, which is complicated and has little to do with her at all (and she knows that), but it's funny.