If your child has skipped a grade, how do you deal with questions about why they were skipped, or comments that they "belong" in the lower grade instead.

My child is dealing with these comments at school and I have had a few questions from parents as well, and anticipate more at the beginning of the year parent meetings and so on.

I try to change the subject if possible.

Thanks so much in advance.

I've never found a particularly "good" way of dealing with this-- and it never really seems to go away, honestly. The thing that I've learned about this over the years, though, is that Haters Gonna Hate. What I mean is that there IS no convincing some people, and it's a whole lot more about their baggage than about anything regarding you or your child.

It's taken a long time, but DD15 realizes that now. She has come to view this as a rather convenient litmus test for "people that I might want to be friends with" and she runs everyone through it. If they can't handle the fact that, yeah, she really IS "like that" then she and they probably don't have a lot of common ground.


As for fending off questions, I've found that a simple statement of grade (if it's a classmate expectation) or of age (if it's an agemate expectation)-- never BOTH-- is usually sufficient, and for those who are nosier than that, I turn it around;

Why do you ask?

I'm polite enough, of course-- but genuinely puzzled as to why my child's academics (or birth date, for that matter) are so fascinating to someone who barely knows us.

DD was accelerated one grade and I always found it strange how no one seemed all that interested (as in, the other parents). Maybe because she was in kindergarten when we did it and she didn't have really good friends/connections at that point anyway (or at least, I didn't have them with the other parents, she had just been to random birthday parties). The people in the next higher grade probably thought she came in from a different school. I really don't know. She looks roughly like the grade she is in, she's not THAT far off in terms of age. It's not like she's 8 in 7th grade, she's 8 and in 4th grade. Some of the smaller 4th graders are the same size. Now that she DOES have friendships/connections, I still don't think most people know she was accelerated. They probably wish her a happy birthday and think she's a year older than she is.

We do what HK suggests. DADT.

One thing to keep in mind, too, is that this is really a temporary situation. Once your child hits puberty, it becomes much less noticeable, hence fewer questions about age-grade match. Of course, you then have to deal with the developmentally-inappropriate social encounters...

The one big complication is that one of the teachers must have done some whole class activity that involved their birth dates, so the whole class knows who is the youngest and we can't skirt the question that way.

"Why do you ask?" is so much nicer than what I want to say.

Thanks for the ideas.

We somehow don't seem able to avoid it. Adults seem to think it's the go-to conversation starter with a six-year-old.

It makes my kid uncomfortable. I have said to say, "I'd rather not talk about it." to aduts that pry.

"He's nuts about math."
and
"The sooner he gets rich, the sooner I can retire."
and
"I'm not sure, but it has something do with his plans to take over the world."

But we've never really encountered nosy doubters. I'm pretty sure if I do, the first reaction will be to stare intently at them like antennae have sprouted from their head.

I have told my daughter that when an adult asks, "What grade are you in?" it's really a more polite way of asking "How old are you?" In her case, it was to explain that this question really doesn't require, "I'm in 5th grade in the GESP program, so I'm doing 6th grade work," as an answer - just "5th grade" is fine, unless they are actually talking about school. If the question is asked in response to her talking about a school project or something, then she can explain, but otherwise, she doesn't need to.

In the case of your six-year-old, you can ask him to do it like this:
Adult: What grade are you in?
Child: 2nd grade, but I'm six.
Adult: Wow, really? Why are you so young for your grade?
Child: I dunno, my parents thought it was a good idea. We have a pet frog in my classroom! (or any subject change he wants, really)

He answers the part the adult actually was probably asking, deflects the nosy question to you, and changes the subject. If the adult drops him and starts asking you about it, you can either talk about acceleration, or glance meaningfully at your son and pointedly change the subject.

You may wish to provide (and enlist the aid of the classroom teacher in also providing) a simple and straightforward response about the right fit, similar to what is described in this article "The Right Fit" by Tamara Fisher, author of Unwrapping the Gifted, blog for Education Week, two years ago today on September 6, 2012: Emphasis added.

We most often find the curiosity we encounter to be a healthy curiosity.

Some inquiries may arise from families having encountered roadblocks or suffering from a dirth of information, possibly leading to a lack of opportunity, such as experiencing withholding of services, mentioned in this article from the same blog "What It Really Boils Down To". Questions which seem to be of this nature may be well addressed by deflecting with a truism that each child is unique, and mentioning a helpful resource such as Davidson Institute for Talent Development (including this forum), Hoagies' Gifted Education Page, Iowa Acceleration Scale, SENG, Great Potential Press, Prufrock Press.

My DD13 and her Biology teacher unintentionally learned a lesson about de-anonymization of data. Two years ago, when my (twice skipped) DD was in 8th grade, she was part of a pilot program where 8th graders could take a handful of HS courses. The HS biology teacher thought it would be helpful (and it was) to plot birth year and grade for all of his classes to show that the 8th graders were succeeding. Way off to the left of the chart is a lonely data point for DD. Oops. Luckily she had a fairly high grade, so it was less embarrassing than it could have been. And what was even cooler is the biology teacher did not know he had an accelerated kid in his class until then.

As for the age/grade questions - we always seem to get them in pairs. As in, "Your daughter is how old?" ... "So that would put her in X grade?" Urgh. Just ask one question or the other and we can sneak by... We have various go to answers: she went to a great private school, she is a fast learner, look over there - an eagle!

--S.F.

My current go-to answer is: "Because DD was reading to the class for story time in pre-K. She didn't have anything to learn in kindergarten, so we skipped her." It's an easily-digested reason which has the benefit of being true, though it lacks nuance and skips over a whole lot of strife between K and skip.

DD is large-ish for her age and in an age-sorted soccer league, so it's important for us to be able to explain that, although she's in 5th grade, that doesn't mean we're cheating the system, she really does belong on a U10 team. There are three other kids on her team who go to her school, and two have been in gifted classes with her, so there's no keeping it a secret.

We experienced quite a bit of this, as DD was in kindergarten at the time and acceleration within the year rarely happens in our school district in kinder or even 1st grade. In fact, the principal and teacher in their combined 50 years of experience have never done it. Since she started attending 1st grade after the kinder class ended for the day and was standing in line to go to the 1st grade class along with the other 1st graders in the kinder/1st combo class next door, it was patently obvious to other parents. She also had a 2nd grade pullout too, so DD and I had to field a lot of questions from classmates and other parents.

In all honesty, it was hard to redirect or change the subject so I pretty much just said that the teachers and principal decided that she was better placed in those classes. That worked really well for me as many of the parents weren't too surprised anyway, as Kinder parents tend to volunteer and they had already noticed her and had made comments to that effect. I did have to mention that she was given end of year assessments because some of these parents wanted to approach the teacher after that. The difficulty was dealing with the parents from her 2nd grade class. It was really awkward, but the upside from the experience was that I made some great friendships with parents who were encouraging and supportive. I also realized who weren't likely to be people I wanted to hang around with as they avoided my company after quizzing me on "how I did it" or what special program I used to accelerate. One of them who happens to live down the street.

HAHA I really laughed out loud at these thank you!!

Back on topic - we have taught Aiden (7) to say "I'm homeschooled so I don't really have a specific grade" If they ask further he says "I work on different levels for different subjects"
If they ask further he directs them to me with a polite "My mom is there, you are welcome to chat to her if you need further clarity". If it's a child still asking he will drag them to me, introduce them and then walk off.

We had to work together he and I to come up with these answer strategies. He was getting stressed out with people not believing him, calling him a liar etc. And it's bizzarre for him because we don't do a set curriculum. He takes his "grade" cues from his Dreambox dashboard, the literacy workbook he is doing at the time or if he finds a series of something to study online they usually have a grade attached.

Now he is very careful of what he says to whom. And when they ask for specifics of what he is learning he finds it easier to say something non-academic, eg "tying my shoelaces, or to knit, to iron my own clothes, keep my room tidy etc.

Madoosa, those are elegant answers. I'm tucking them away.

If anyone asks us anything like this we just tell them. It's never been a problem.

Most people asking what grade your child is in are just kindly adults using it as a conversational gambit, like Elizabeth said. You could answer with "I'm seven" and it would suffice.

My kids know that "grade levels" on ixl or khan or math textbooks are just a guide for a certain collection of stuff, not an indicator of what grade the person using/doing them is in. You could tell your son this, that everyone does what's appropriate for them in each subject at any given time, but that second grade is just another way of saying seven years old to strangers.

Nothing wrong with acceleration/being too young in the class. Both of my DDs skipped to 1st. They never had problems and we will answer as a matter of factly. We really did not need to explain a lot.

This year, DD 10 is doing Algebra I and some of her older sister's friends are in the same class. They told my older daughter about her younger sister being smart and that's about it. It helps that it was not unprecedented.

Lisa Yee's book "Milicent Min-Girl Genius" is a good book about dealing with Muggles/nongifties It is a fun book to read as well for your DC.

We are in the comfortable situation that DS is "merely" entered early, so while a daring move in the eyes of many parents, not as outrageous as a grade skip, and he is very tall for his age. As long as the size and all around appearance fits the grade,the age mismatch doesn't people bother as much I've noticed. It rarely comes up, really only when he he is the last kid in class to turn 8 or whatever. When people did ask ("how could you? I'd never do that! I was so glad I could redshirt mine!" I answered, truthfully, that the preschool teachers recommended it and after trial day, the school teachers concurred. Not that we weren't determined to do it anyway, but I liked blaming it All on the professionals.
You could say "it's where the school placed him after testing" and leave it at that.

I occasionally get the odd passive aggressive response when my own grade skip, hardly ever these days, comes up "oh, I/ our child could have skipped a grade but my parents/ we weren't that ambitious/pushy etc. ". I usually go all gushy "oh but you should have, or seriously considered it, weren't you bored/not challenged/did you ever have to study, did you have test scores etc..." A few times, the person in question started to seriously discuss a gifted kids acceleration options, but most of the times it's pure fiction and people start mumbling and excuse themselves.

These age and grade questions come up no matter what. One of my kids, very asynchronous in his development, has a summer birthday, and benefited from a later start to Kindergarten. He eventually had a lot of subject acceleration, but we never regretted the additional Lego-playing, fort-building time he got.

Anyway, he often got questions about why he got "held back." He would just tell them that's what his parents decided, or that he wanted more play time. Either way, people are going to ask and make judgments, and it's often HOW you react more than what you tell them. Good luck