Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy A few questions....

While hibernating, I am wondering what are your thoughts are:

1. For kids who did whole grade(s) acceleration, how do you shielding them from getting exposed to "mature" cultural information too early?

2. Is it worthwhile to take the future college fund to pay for private elementary schools now?

Thanks in advance,
Mag

1 - keep an ear out for what his new peers are talking about, and be ready to listen. Make sure your child knows your views on these topics. Take lots of deep breaths.
2- If things are bad enough, then yes. How bad is 'bad enough' that's very hard to say in some cases. Visit the classrooms of the private schools to be very very sure that they are indeed a good chance of a better fit.

Mag,

You can't and this should be considered. This is true for any school due to hormonal influence. When hormones begin, students are more interested in sex.

Talk to them before they hear the mature content from somewhere else and especially if that information will be inaccurate. Better that they hear it from you first.

But this doesn't have to only be about 1 year accelerated kids. The problem is similar when there is a red-shirted kid (did I say that right?) or there are some kids in the class that watch unsupervised TV/internet and it can get bad.

Sorry, not much help here. A private school classroom isn't going to solve this problem as some of these kid discussions/talks probably do not happen in-class.

In my son's school, he is 7 1/2 and whole grade accelerated to 3rd grade. However, he is only the youngest by 4 months, based on our district's December cutoff. There is a very wide range of ages in his class from him to the oldest who will turn 10 in January (retained). I figure at best, we are encountering any social/ cultural issues 6 months ahead of his age-mates. I doubt by the time he's in middle or high school those 6 months will make much difference.

We will have to push for subject acceleration by middle school and I do worry about it then. He will likely be in a math class with kids 4-5 years older. That's a dramatic jump.

I have a 6 year-old completing 6th grade and what we do is ensure that @ home, he is allowed to be his age and we limit the "older" content accessible to him (No Nickelodeon, Disney, Power Rangers, etc ..)

Secondly, talk and talk with them, depending on the gap in ages (for our boy 4+ years from his academic peers) a lot of what is said goes over his head and the few things he does get , we talk about at home. When you do talk, talk to them as if they were that age, they can smell condescension and patronizing attitudes very quickly.

By talking to them at a level they perceive themselves at, the message you want to project will be received more positively

1) I don't, particularly. My DD is 7, accelerated to 3rd - she has an end-of-May birthday, and we have a 9/1 cutoff, so by definition at least 9 months younger, and 18 months younger than most of her friends. She complains that the other girls like iCarly and Hannah Montana (while DD likes Battle Force 5 and Pokemon) - but that was an issue last year, when she was with age peers, too. For most of the other stuff, she just doesn't "get" it, and ignores it.

I don't consider sex / violence / language to be the same kind of thing, in that she watches movies with all of those things, and has had fairly graphic "sex talks" at home.

2) Totally depends on your situation. The private schools available to us would not currently be a better fit for DD than she's getting from public school. But I anticipate she'll test well enough to get merit aid for college, and don't intend to encourage her to apply for schools that don't offer good merit aid, so I wouldn't take a worse situation now in hopes of a better situation later, either.

Thanks for all of your input!

1. Mentally, DD6 can understand the science of it. But emotionally, we don't think she is ready. We also do not allow her and her brother to watch tween TV shows yet. But over hearing some of the conversations of older kids at school just added another concern to consider if we chose grade acceleration.

2. Choosing paying for school now or later is such a difficult choice. Seeing so many college graduated are drowning in their educational debt made us want to save kiddies' educational fund for later. But if they don't have a good education now, will they get into the school of their choice in the future?

Just thinking....

Thanks again for your thoughts!
Mag

From my own experience (now 20 years in the past; man, does that make me feel old!), going to a substandard high school did not interfere with my ability to get into a good college. I didn't feel prepared to tackle lab science at the college level, but that wasn't something I enjoyed or was good at at the substandard high school level, either.

1) agree with previous posters that it is up to you to educate before the child gets information/misinformation at school.

2) Depending on the situation- absolutely. We are very lucky to live in an area with an amazing private gifted school. It is expensive but is very worth it to us and many other families. My kids are learning so many skills they will need and getting such an amazing foundation that it is well worth the money to me.