Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Making decisions

Biting the bullet here and asking for input after reading back thru archives. It looks like DD9 will be approved to move into the next grade, and it's up to us and him. Academically, he'll likely be still near/at the top, socially he's doing well, emotionally, he's in a good place; the school is offering support.

He does have some anxiety, so that is my concern. He's intrigued by the move, but apprehensive -- he'd be anxious no matter what with a big transition. But the timing is right in several ways, and research says it would be smoother to move now rather than promoting to another building in the fall (he'd at minimum have to do that for SSA math). I am not looking to push him strongly, but he has a prior history of not wanting to do something/go somewhere because he's not sure what to expect, and then enjoying himself greatly and not regretting doing it. He tends to need a little nudge and reassurance, though he's miles ahead of where he was a few years ago. Also, he doesn't easily talk about feelings.

Would a pro/con list help him as it does me, or would that get him thinking about all the minutia too much? It can be hard to focus a list, but a good exercise in analyzing. Do you just lay out what the day will look like, full-on prepared awareness? Do you even mention what comes in the fall, when thinking about this month, or focus on the present?

He responds well to framing the good in a situation. What kind of items would you list in the delivery of benefits to him, as a 9yo? I have a few things, but wonder what I might be leaving out, from a gifted kid's perspective. Are there articles from kids geared toward kids about making such transitions?

A few quick thoughts (and our son is the same age with the same trait as far as resisting then embracing change once it happens, btw!):

-I wouldn't necessarily do pros-cons as in my experience focusing on the benefits works best with our kid (not hiding the cons but simply mentioning them then moving on)
-Would the school agree to a "trial run" of say a month or six weeks? That can take some of the pressure off the decision.
-Perhaps looking with him at the more advanced curriculum vs. the rest of this year's will help. That really got our son excited, to see that he would be learning some new things.
-It helped our son to hear about other kids who were also accelerated. We had two examples from the school that, ironically, we had to pull him from... but at any rate, they were boys he admired and that helped. My mother was also double-accelerated so sharing her story made it seem more normal. His father and I shared our stories of not being accelerated and being bored...
-We talk about developing learning habits and that staying in classes where you already know the subject matter well doesn't build those... and that waiting until college to build those muscles is tougher.

These are all great ideas, thanks. Will see what I can find out! He doesn't actually know anyone who's skipped (it doesn't happen often in elementary here), so I think meeting someone new just to discuss that might backfire.

We've been encouraged to just pick one or the other regarding whole grade vs SSA, but I kind of think SSA with a later transition to whole-grade, along with the trial period, might be good. He's fixating on the things he'd be giving up rather than gaining what he can't picture.

And even though the research strongly supports it, I've read comments from folks who said it trades one set of problems for another, and they still have to learn at the same pace as the norm until high school -- but that would apply no matter what, so why not at least eliminate a year of repetition?

Then I consider home school and think he'd currently not prefer that, due to social reasons, yet I'm intrigued by the idea of focusing on learning and mastery by interest, over the standards achievement-level measurement of public school. I really wish there were a FT GT program in our area. Barring that, it sure is hard to work within the current age-based system and be confident of the future.