Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Stanford-Binet L-M, and school enrichment question

Again, Dottie, Good luck, have a great meeting.

Thanks for all the personal viewpoints on skipping. Sharing your viewpoints and feelings on the experience is very helpful to others struggling with the decision. I know I've found it helpful.
I'm one who wished I had been skipped. I guess I actually had a self-induced skip when I refused to go to high school for a year, but still graduated on time!
DD7 is clearly mis-placed in second grade, but she is adamant that she doesn't want to go up a grade. This is based mostly on not wanting to leave her friends. The interesting thing is she admits she is very frustrated with how easy the work is, mainly she seems to have trouble with the repetiveness of the stuff she already knows.
For a second we thought we'd pursue the skip anyway, I mean, she'd probably eat Hershey bars for breakfast, lunch and dinner if we let her make all her own decisions.
However, we decided it wouldn't work out well. After reading the posts I feel better about this decision, for now.
We'll see what happens going forward.

No, I did not feel guilt then and I don't now. Most of my life, I just "knew" in a gut-feeling way, that skipping had been a bad thing for me. It was only when confronted in the last few years with the data that skipping was "good" that I came up with the best-friend theory to make sense of why my experience deviated from the data. But the BF theory makes sense and I do now feel sorry for my friend.

She never articulated the resentment per se. She also never clearly articulated the "rule": we could be friends at home, but I was not to hang with her and her friends at school. It became clear, though, that that was The Rule and I respected it. We remained friends at home until middle school and I have many fond memories of playing in the woods, riding bikes, baking in the easy-bake oven, swimming and practicing cheer-leading moves with her (I even have a permanent scar from one of the moves!).

This is a very interesting discussion! I certainly value the opinions of everyone and please don't think I'm discounting your thoughts. :-)

I wonder if the other thing that may have made a difference for my skip situation was moving. We moved frequently when I was a small child; I was in one school for K, another school (and state) for first and third, a new school (and state) for 4-8, and a new school for high school. I wonder if watching all your "old" friends from K-1 made you realize more what you were missing -- or feel like you were missing something? That "what might have been" feeling.

So that's one thing -- there's no way B will be in this school district past, say, third grade. Probably we'll be moving next year, possibly the year after, but it *will* happen, and soon. So at that point, it'll be less of a "discussion point" for kids around him -- they probably won't even realize for a while (unless ds opens his big mouth, which he probably will). And he won't have to watch all of his K friends get buddy-buddy for long. Plus, he doesn't have many close friends at his school; there are maybe one or two kids he'll miss, but not for long. Quite honestly, they're very replaceable for him right now. And he has older friends from his after-school program that he attends 2-3 days a week. So that's on our side.

*And* he's asking about being in third grade -- a good sign he'd be receptive to a move, though probably disappointed it wouldn't be to third! :-)

I guess my feeling is that he's *so* far ahead of his class now, he's receptive to the idea -- enthusiastic, even -- and I do believe that he'll need it in the long run. I'd rather start the process sooner rather than later, because it's clear that he's not going to learn anything in K or even first grade. Moving him will get him closer to where he's at.

As parents, we have to make the decisions that seem right to us at the time, after examining all the angles and weighing the pros and cons. No doubt you're parents weren't out to ruin your school experience! Certainly my parents made decisions that I wouldn't/won't make. My skip, luckily, was not one of those decisions -- I'm thankful they did it and I'd certainly do it again in a heartbeat. And yes, that does affect the decisions that I make on behalf of ds, though it's in no way the *only* affecting factor in this situation.

Oh good, I'm glad I made someone feel better. LOL!

Dottie--thanks for your support! It was actually hard to dredge up some of those yucky feelings. My hope is that it is helpful to some and not too troublesome to others.

I had originally vowed not to even mention my feelings about my own skip on a gifted board. I can see how much everyone agonizes over the decisions they make for their kids and I didn't want anyone who had skipped their child to worry any more than they already had.



Anyway, I think the social stuff is big, especially for girls. It is not about being teased; it was about losing key relationships that mean a lot to girls that age. If you don't have those key relationships in the grade you are leaving, then it's easier to imagine it will go well.

DS, who is in 6th and goes to algebra with advanced 8th, told me last night from a social perspective that he would rather be with the 6th graders who both tease him AND enjoy him than be with the eighth graders who do neither. He feels like he is a real part of his 6th grade class and just tolerated in the 8th class. He's fine with being with them one class a day, but he would not want to be there all day. He and I had not talked about my skip much before, but I really thought his perspective on a potential skip for him (he's been offered one)summed up my feelings about my own skip.

Hi Mia,
It looks like our posts crossed. I completely agree that our circumstances are/were different in many ways. It sounds like he's a better candidate for a skip than I was.

acs -- No, it's really helpful to read your experiences! Do keep sharing, because it ensures that parents examine all angles.

As for your ds ... I wonder if his perspective comes *from* being "just subject accelerated" as opposed to full skipped? I know that I, for one, never felt like a younger kid with older kids; I was one of my class, and that was that. I honestly felt more "out of place" as a subject-accelerated first grader than I did as a third grader. I didn't think of it in terms of, "I should be in second grade" ... I was in third grade, I was a third grader, and that was that. My closest friend was a girl who was in third grade already when I was skipped, though we were in different classes; we didn't have the same issues you and your friend did, likely because we *weren't* in the same class.

So much of the skip equation is personal to each child and each situation. That's why it's so hard to make these decisions -- you never know how it will turn out for your individual child! I think that my positive skip experience and that of two of my sisters (my youngest sister skipped 8th grade) has certainly made me more open to skipping than your average person-on-the-street, even if that person has a gifted child. It takes a lot of the mystery out of the equation for me, since I've gone through it and have experienced first-hand the goods and the bads. Luckily for me, my experience was, overall, very positive.

I'm sorry that your skip was not so positive ... that really stinks, since it is completely an elective decision in most cases. It's hard to feel like you don't fit in, especially as a child. I certainly still did not "fit in" in grade school, for a number of other reasons, after we moved when I was in fourth grade ... that was due to a number of other issues. But I still know the feeling, and it's not a good time. I'm truly am sorry you went through that.

Agree agree agree!!!!!!

Thanks for both of your viewpoints. In some ways I experience mom guilt because I am not pushing for the skip. On paper, aptitude and skill are reasons that just beg to skip. My gut is telling me it's not right for this girl right now.

I do indeed! Good on ya'!


I would agree with you wholeheartedly that this is very probably the root of the problem with your skip. I would never support a skip for the sake of a teacher's convenience! Oh my!

My point is that if you can see that a *child* is going to have a bad fit, I don't think you have to wait until behavioral problems occur before you do something. (And I'm not suggesting that a grade skip is the only something that can/should be done.) We do this all the time as parents, don't we? We try to arrange to have our children's needs met so that there are no problems. We try to get him in the classroom of the teacher who will be best for him. We try to get her in that summer enrichment program so she's not bored all summer. Why should other interventions (including but not limited to grade-skipping) necessarily be any different?

I was subject-accelerated two grades from the start of K. There was no time for boredom on my part to become behavioral or emotional problems. I walked across the playground into the main school building for 2nd grade reading on the first day of K. In arranging this intervention for me, my parents didn't wait for trouble, they prevented it. The writing was on the wall for me: I'd been reading books for roughly half my life at that point. Going back to learning letters would have made me miserable. My parents knew me and respected my needs enough to take preemptive action, and it worked in my case. In fact, I think their action probably made it so that a full grade skip was not strictly necessary, though I sometimes wonder if it would have been better for me (much as you wonder if it would have been better not to have been skipped, acs). Socially I was always much more comfortable with older kids.

But I digress...

I think that if Mia--and anyone else--can see that her child is likely to have problems in a regular class, then it's perfectly responsible to take action to prevent those problems.

My caveat that I'll add again is that with these kids it is always necessary to be flexible, but it is especially important to be flexible with a preemptive intervention. If it doesn't work as planned, then you have to find a way to fix it.

Since we're talking about it, I'm curious, acs...

May I ask: how do your parents remember those years? What do they have to say about their choice to grade-skip you? Why didn't they try something else with you when it became clear that you were unhappy? Did they not know how hard it was on you?

I've been wondering about that, since I think virtually all parents--certainly you, me, and everyone on this forum!--would advocate for a change if our kids were unhappy with an intervention. I find your parents' lack of action to be confusing, particularly since it comes on the heels of a grade-skip, the action biggie! Clearly your parents weren't uninvolved in your education. I guess I feel like I don't understand their part of the story.

I don't mean to pry, and I'm not judging. I just wonder about this every time it comes up in conversation, and I thought I should finally ask. I hope I don't offend by asking!

I'm not totally sure what happened on their side either, but I have some ideas.

I remember deciding that I did not want them to know I was having problems. I remember my mother asking me how it was going and me just blowing her question off. Six-year-olds are not entirely rational creatures and I don't really remember why I didn't want her involved but I do know I didn't. This may be what was happening in my mind: I wanted to handle it on my own; I didn't want my mom to feel bad; I didn't want to make a big deal of it; I didn't want to attract more attention than I already had; I liked my new teacher (more than the old one). In retrospect, I can say that I did not really want to go back to first, I just never wanted to have left it. Going back would have not been any better than staying in second; the damage was already done. How embarrassing to fail at a skip, especially after causing all that commotion by skipping!

The big question is how could my parents have missed the signs of my distress. Remember the biggest issue was my best friend. But she was still my home best friend so my mother would have seen us playing happily at our house most days after school. So there would have been no reason to suspect she wasn't the same at school; I'm sure I did not tell my mother about that problem. Also, I was alway high strung, perfectionistic, and cried a lot (even when I was happy in K). There may have been an increase in these symptoms, but I don't know how much more it would take to register. I know that my parents talked about my stress level with the 3rd grade teacher. Their conclusion was that I put a lot of pressure on myself, that it was intrinsic in my personality and that there was not much to be done except support and reassurance (which I think is true at least to a point).

Finally, remember that my parents were themselves blindsided by the skip. The teacher called my mother out of the blue and told her to get my eyes checked so they could go ahead with the skip. She was stunned; no one had mentioned a skip before that call. I think I was skipped within a week--the school did not want to wait at all. There was not plan B in place if the skip did not work out--no exit strategy. I have two older PG sibs who were not happy in school and I suspect my parents hoped that the skip would head off some of the problems they had had with them. (I think it is reasonable to consider the possibility that the skip did head off problems; I cannot be my own control group and we don't know what would have happened if I hadn't been skipped. All we know is that I did not like it and that it could have been handled more smoothely).

My mother and I have always been very close and I have rarely kept secrets from her, but I know I kept this from her as best a could. My mother is articulate and feisty. She lets no injustice go unconfronted. She was a regular fixture at the school, keeping teachings, administrators, etc in line. So I really think that had she known there was a problem and believed that there was even a slight hope of correcting the problem, she would have been all over it. So either she must not have known, not believed there was help, or respected that I wanted to handle on my own (and believed I could). More than 3 decades later she claims to have not felt the problem was very big--certainly that is what I wanted her to believe.

Makes perfect sense. Thanks for sharing that with me. I feel like I understand what happened in your case much better. I thought your parents were more involved in the skip than they were. I assumed teacher-initiated but parent-desired. Nope! (And I hope you didn't get the sense that I thought badly of your parents or something. I never did. You never seemed to blame them for your experience, so it was clear that they didn't "do this to you" in some way.)

I'm not sure what I would do if the school wanted a skip that I didn't advocate for! I've never imagined such a thing!

Anyway, now it all makes more sense to me. Hopefully I can learn from your experience and do better for my kids. Thank you for your story.

Truth be told, it's just the kind of thing I worry about with my kids (albeit without the unrequested grade-skip...). My children both like to please, and I worry that they might think they have to keep their unhappiness from me. I was actually kind of glad when DS6 acted out a bit in school when he was underchallenged, since it meant that he would not simply die a little inside every day without my knowing.

I'm so sorry you went through all that. And thanks for sharing it with all of us. I appreciate your input probably more than you realize..and I *adore* your willingness to keep the forum lively by debating with me from time-to-time!