Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Subject acceleration and social issues

After a lot of debate last spring we decided to go ahead and accelerate DD9 two levels for math. She’s in 3rd this fall but goes to the 5th grade math class in the same elementary school building. Thank you to everyone on this board for helping us with the decision. Academically, it’s been great. The class is still easy for her so homework and tests are a breeze and she does not feel stressed out as I had feared.

She’s also doing great interacting with the older students in class.The thing I didn’t think about back then but am curious about now is whether kids that do SSA tend to become friends with any of their classmates in the higher level class.

DD says she likes everyone but they don’t have a lot in common due to the age gap. I’m not sure she’s given anyone a chance as she doesn’t have a lot of opportunities to talk to these other kids outside of class. If your child was accelerated only for one subject did you encourage friendships with the older students? Even if we wanted to encourage the friendships how could we do it? Are 5th graders too old for playdates?

DD has a lot of same-age friends, but she’ll have to go to the middle school for math alone in a few years and it would be nice if she had some actual friends there too.

While forms of entertainment may vary locally, at around that age girls may be socializing by practicing a sport or taking an extracurricular together... soccer, swim team, dance class (jazz, tap, ballet), children's choir, tae kwan do, lego, robotics, scouts, 4-H, math camp, Destination Imagination, Odyssey of the Mind, are just a few ways to get to know older classmates. Does your school or community offer these or other similar activities? A parent could offer to carpool or take turns driving children. Meanwhile invitations to birthday parties and sleepovers or slumber parties are for a child's close circle of friends, and may eventually be a way to include friends from both grades (some of whom may have siblings in the other grade).

Indigo gave a lot of good advice above. My DD7 is SSA in math, but only one year. Her math teacher told me that the first day that she came into their classroom, several kids cheerfully called out her name as soon as they saw her at the door. Apparently they remembered her from the previous year and were happy to see her back. I found that to be very encouraging. At least one of the girls from the older class is also in her new Girl Scout troop. We will be inviting one of the other girls to her birthday party, as she rides the same bus and lives in the neighborhood.

I can see how it would be more difficult with a 2-yr gap. And I'm not sure that DD's friendliness with any of the students will ever go beyond surface-level, but I just wanted to chime in with some positive social experience from SSA.

My son is a bit older. He is 11 and in 9th grade English (all 9th graders and him) and algebra (mostly 9th graders, some eighth graders, some tenth graders, and him).

He is taller than some 9th graders so unless he tells them he isn't in 9th grade then they don't know. Well today when he misses school for a seventh grade field trip they might have a clue. (His school is 6-12 so subject acceleration is easily facilitated and they are always willing to try. They have a "let's give it a shot" attitude. )

I think his best friends are in band and some are younger, same age and a grade older. I think it has to do with common interest. He just joined a book club so I bet he'll make some friends there who are passionate about reading.

He hasn't mentioned the older kids at all. So I take it as they are friendly, but not friends. Which is okay.

My children have been subject-accelerated, socially they had good experiences (as in nothing negative), but their friends were friends in their regular grade-level class. From my perspective friendships had little to do with age or subject acceleration, but proximity - they were closest with the kids they spent most of the day with.

One of my children is a competitive athlete and works out with a multi-age team for a significant portion (days and hours) of the week. She's in a multi-mix age of kids every day of the week, has been for several years, and has friends who are both older and younger (although mostly older, as she's on the younger end of the age range for her competitive level). The kids do have one big thing in common (the love of their sport) but they also have a lot of other things in common - music they like, eating pizza, watching videos, playing other sports, crafting, slumber parties, driving their parents nuts etc. Finding common ground wasn't difficult, but it happened among themselves, spending time together. I think it would be tough to try to push or create a friendship scenario (which I realize isn't what you're thinking of doing)... I'd just let whatever happens happens. If your dd and a friend from her SA class wanted to hang out together, yes, 5th graders "hang out" (that's what my kids start calling playdates once they'd reached the age they primarily chose their friends vs parents arranging playdates based on what was easy for parents). The two reasons I think it's not something that will work well for a parent to encourage with a 5th grader and on up is that by 5th grade, most kids typically choose their friends, and the kids in that one class probably have a set of friends and possibly busy after-school schedules. They're in the class for math, not hanging out in the one class all day naturally forming friendships. It doesn't mean they aren't great kids and that your dd won't find a friend there or that a friendship won't work, it's just highly unlikely that it's worth the effort to try to create a way to facilitate a friendship - if it happens, that's great, but if not, I wouldn't worry about it.

Re preparing for middle school, that's still two years off and the kids who aren't subject accelerated are going to be hitting puberty around that time. That was a time of huge social stuff in my kids lives... lots of friendships changed up, social groups moved around etc... so if a friendship did form this year, I wouldn't count on it to be stable through the start of middle school.

Hope that didn't sound negative - it wasn't meant to be.

Best wishes,

polarbear

DS is accelerated from 5th to 7th in math and literature, has been in that pattern for two years now. He gets along really well with the older classmates, they will say hi to him and chat with him at school events, teacher says they treat him like one of them, etc. His buddies are in 5th, though. In fact, that's part of the reason he's not been whole-grade accelerated. He seems to like having age mate friends (but is also very comfortable with older kids, seems a good mix).