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I posted on another topic about this. I skipped one grade in elementary school and when puberty hits, there is a difference. Those older kids may not have the same interest and dating early is not necessarily a very good idea.

In high school, where I advanced another year, I was a cheerleader and way too young to be partying with the football team. Drinking (drinking age was 18 then). Luckily my mother didn't let me date until I was 16 (yes, time for college then) but I think it would have been a disaster.

I think there is just so much going on when puberty hits. But I was lucky that I had a core group of friends that also skipped.

I attended a talk by this psychologist at Harvard who talked about that people are not letting their kids stay children very long these days. They start getting manicures at 4 and where clothing that isn't appropriate way too early. Hence, why all this "friends with benefits" in middle school. And although, your daughter may think she has more in common with kids 2 years older, she is still 2 years younger than those kids. As they hang with boys, why would they want a little kid around? How far would she go to fit in?

I know you said she is 8. But she is 8 today. Gifted kids can be socially precocious and it is cute. My 5 year old daughter hangs with the young couple next door and they think she is cute and interact with her but they are a young couple indulging a little girl who is precocious and fun. But it is just indulging. And I want her to be a kid for as long as she can. We are going to Europe next week and I found another family with a 5 year old girl to tour with. Because as much as I want DD to have a taste of Europe, her first time there, I want her to have fun and play on her vacation from school.

Ren

Seriously conside moving to Reno, so she can have her accademic accomidations, and have a solid group of kids to be herself with socially without being thrown it with a bunch of hormone-crazed middle schoolers.

Short of that kind of 'ideal world' you are not going to get a perfect solution.

Here's my pitch for following her lead on that next skip. Take it for what it's worth, and Brace Yourself:

If she gets skipped again, she may be in situations she isn't ready to handle - OTOH, like her experiece of overnight camp, she may be reading some deep insight into her own readiness.

However, if she doesn't get skipped again, or accomidated with a mentor, or 'something' she may well decide that academics are a lost cause and turn all her intensity towards the social world. I count myself more in that camp of BTDT. I was early enteranced, so that's equavalent to a single skip in some ways. I was able to handle the school work and get As without a lot of bother, so everyone was happy except ME. I was left with a lot of extra energy and intensity on my hands, and when 'boy-crazyness' became an option, I went for it! (Started at age 13)

(A casual observer of these boards would probably agree that I'm rather extroverted, intense, and social by nature. I was basically shunned in later elementary school, so when my body matured, and boys were willing to put up with me, no matter what I was talking about, I had a lot of growing up to catch up on.)

Now I will say that I handled my social adventures in high school with unusual maturity - but I always had a little worry that things were somehow 'too easy,' that I was '5 steps ahead' of the boys, that I was 'shooting fish in a barrel' and that it wasn't fair to my agemates. 9th grader girls, afterall, are considered 'fair game' for 12th grade boys. But the 12 grade boys never really seemed like 'fair game' to 9th grade me.

So take a deep breath. Count on your fingers how many years you have left before she is a X year old 9th grader with access to 12th grade boys. Ask yourself if you really want academics to 'not' be a place where she can use up some of that intensity.

And some people think that 'Reno 911' is just a television show!

I'm grateful every day that the kid I have to raise who is 'just like me' in so many ways - is a boy because the social costs and risks for gradeskiped girls feel so much highter! There is no good answer for this one!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I thought that this article was interesting - a good 'warm up' for the next one.
http://www.educationaloptions.com/resources/resources_gifted_adolescents.php

http://www.stephanietolan.com/hg_adolescent.htm

and

http://www.talentdevelop.com/articles/sexhighlygftd.html

How's that for planning ahead?

((shiver))
Grinity

My son was grade-skipped from K to 2. He is now in fourth. Recently he had his 9th birthday party at a laser tag place. The place was a half hour drive from the school. I picked up my son and three other boys. Remember this is fourth grade - the boys - not my son(although he eagerly listened and asked questions) - discussed among other things - The movies "Year One", "Austin Powers" and "Spinal Tap". The discussions were all related to the sexual content in a very graphic way. I put a stop to that conversation and the new one began with which girls in their class were "hot". Naturally I put a halt on the topic. This is fourth grade! Oh and a girl in his class told him that when girls get older they "pee blood".
What happens in another two or three grades...sigh........
I am all for grade skips academically but I wish there was a solution that allowed them to be with people that were both age AND ability peers.

wow! just wow!

thank you for posting this. my ds is about to turn six. What a preview!!!

We are having the same problems, Breakaway4. Our DS is 9 (nearly 10) and in 5th grade. All of the boys in his grade play violent, first-person shooter video games that we forbid, like Call of Duty 4. They literally have no other interests beside these games. It makes it very difficult for a tiny, shrimp of a kid boy to interact with the mostly 12 year old boys in his class. He was also playing tag on the playground and grabbed a 5th grade girl's shirt on her back to tag her out. The neckline pulled over to her shoulder, and she stopped and scream that it was sexual harassment. Kids are definitely not kids anymore.

FWIW, he does significantly better with the 8th graders when he goes up to the big school for Science. His teacher even commented that he does better with the more mature 8th graders than with the less mature ones. However, I agree with Wren, in that there are times when older kids/adults tolerate the presence of a gifted kid better than kids who make an issue out of their differences. But there may not be true friendship in mere tolerance.

For us it is a hard choice. DS9 has very little in common with his agemates. He has slightly more in common with his current classmates which are 2 years older. And he interacts well during the one hour that the spend with kids 4-5 years older than him. But he is still not being academically challenged. So do we stay in the grade that he is in (one grade skip plus subject acceleration) and not be academically challenged, and suffer the social wasteland of being different. Or try to find the right academic situation (which is eluding us!) and hope that he finds friends along the way that have similar interest.

Not the best options around.

This topic makes me a little bit happy my DS7 is socially clueless. Will it last?! hahaha Nan

I wouldn't be so quick to reject the role of 'mascot' for a child who finds that they are years younger than their intellectual peers. Depending on the needs of the child, this may be a very satisfactory arrangement. Human relationships are complex, and pretty much everyone relates to everyone else in an individual, specific way. Some kids wouldn't want to be in the mascot role, but some really enjoy it.

Food for thought,
Grinity

ebeth,

I think that is true. The older kids are being more tolerant etc. but it would be hard to find a truly mutual friendship with such an age disparity. I have been looking into Sudbury Schools which are "unschool" schools and it seems that the ages mix at times of shared interest but then age peers come together for other reasons. Of course the whole academic atmosphere is different. I have to say though that in observing my own and other children I do see the most engaged learning - and real understanding - coming when the kids are doing something they are really excited about and they are leading the activity, even if it is a video game.
In essence, I am beginning to challenge the entire education system and right when I finished my Master's degree in elementary ed.!