Hi all,

My (suspected) gifted young daughter THANKFULLY just makes the cut off date to start school - if she was five weeks younger she would have to wait another year.

Due to a weird historical hiccup/ technicality/ oversight, acceleration is possible once the child has started, but s/he cannot start early.

I think/ hope that we will be able to manage my daughter's learning needs before she starts school with a combination of daycare and homeschooling.

Because of her birthday, she will be one of the youngest (possibly the youngest) child in her cohort - this in itself does not concern me.

However, if we decide to push for acceleration once she has started, she will be almost two years younger than the oldest childred in her cohort. Again, this in itself does not bother me and if this is what we need to do to meet her needs it's what we will do, but I've recently become concerned about the flow on effects to finishing age.

Most students finishing school will be between 17.5 - 18.5 when they graduate. (Driving age is 16, drinking/ voting/ legal adult is 18.) If we skip her early into grade one, then she will be 16.5 when she finishes (assuming no further grade skips are needed later on.)

I know this question is a long way off, but is 16.5 too young to be finishing school? I know that that depends on the child and the circumstances, but is there anyone here who experienced this with your child? The idea of not being able to go to the pub with your uni friend until halfway through second year uni? I would still need to sign permission slips for her to do field experience in her third sememster of uni!

Surely this has come up for families with children who have gifted traits before - is it an issue and what did you do with your 15/ 16yo finishing school?

There is so much wisdom shared by this then-12-year-old college student, Stephen Stafford, as he speaks about his experience. His story is a remarkable inspiration, including the parental support. (Youtube link)

In my experience, finishing at 16, drinking at 14 becomes the norm if your drinking age is 18, which it was when I was in high school. So yes, it depends on the child. Is she introverted or extroverted? Can you tell how much at this age? And reading some of these suicide stories about kids, bullying, the cyberage, I think it is hard to tell how much you can protect your children. And being young for the cohort doesn't tell a lot. NYC has a year end cut off. NJ has Oct 1. And they allow red shirting so a kid in public school in NYC could be turning 5 in Dec in K while a kid in NJ could have turned 6 in Aug and enter K that fall. No acceleration but the NYC kid will be more than a year younger when they enter college. I did my own subject acceleration and let her go through without grade acceleration, though it made me nuts at time, but filled in with another language, she got Spanish at school, and Chinese on Sat. And high level of dance. The social changes in the early years, I think are significant. In my opinion, those social skills could be key to successful adaption in later years.

I had hoped for the introverted dna from her father to be dominant but my extroverted, risk taker stuff took over in her body and my fears about those high school parties are sometimes overwhelming. And I am looking at good gifted schools for high schools, with no football team.

Read up on various ways teens make use of a gap year.

But don't worry too much about issues like this if your child hasn't even started school! Revisit those thoughts once you have a clearer sense of her adjustment and fit to school.

so with you on this, Wren - like everything, it depends on the kid. i was the youngest in my grade (sadly, in a program without hope of acceleration) and my friends still turned out to be university-age when i was in high school. interestingly, they never pressured me at all - though i definitely remember pressuring THEM about voting! i'm sure my mother wasn't overly thrilled about my much older boyfriends, but they really were very decent young men and she raised me to know my boundaries.

my kid is the same - only 5, but all her true friends are older, already - so whether we'd left her with age peers in school or done our multiple homeschooling grade skip, she'd still be mainly hanging out with kids who will move on to pointe class three years before her feet will be old enough. it probably looks weird from the outside, but they're the right friends for her right now.

what goes around comes around, i guess! (shudder)

My DD14 will turn 15 within a few days of her high school graduation-- we expect that she will graduate in the top 0.1% of her graduating class.

So that's the background-- she has NOT been accelerated to her intellectual capacity by any stretch of the imagination, but she HAS been accelerated to the limits of her social skills and we've pushed the envelope HARD on executive function development.

It's really a trio of considerations that you have to consider and it shifts under you as they get older.

My DD is risk-averse and always has been. While that sounds like a good thing, and it mostly IS, it also means that she comes off socially as aloof or painfully shy. It also tends to come with perfectionism as part of the package bargain-- inwardly directed, I mean; so socially-prescribed perfectionism is a serious risk and she's fallen prey to it.

She is introverted but HIGHLY socially skilled, so she gets on just fine with people of all ages, and is highly adaptable.

She will start Uni at 15yo as a regular admit next fall. What she will NOT be doing is living in the dorms. She will also be housed in an "honors college" (we hope, anyway-- still waiting on admission info for early decision).

This means two things-- she can still live at "home" with a parent for a few more years, and she will have a peer cohort which is mostly the goody-two-shoes kids who are not as prone to hard-core partying, or socializing that revolves around drugs or alcohol.

Those things WILL be present in a collegiate environment. My DD has grown up in a college town, so she's not unaware of what that is, and how to remain a bit distanced from it. She mostly makes friends with the goody-goody nerdy kids anyway.

Does any of that help?

I'm taking notes. We're in the same boat, here -- DS11 will be 15-turning-16 when he starts his senior year, assuming no more skipping. His birthday was six days past the cutoff when we skipped him over kindergarten and into 1st grade, and he just skipped 6th grade, too.

We're just starting to get close to the muddy waters, so I can't tell you how it's likely to pan out.

Great idea! The Davidson Database offers a variety of excellent guidebooks for parents, including a guidebook for investigating gap year opportunities (link)

My neice who was grade skipped 2 years in elementary school went to a college where they offer a "Gap year program" which allowed her to continue academics at the college level in areas where she did not have time to focus on as well as do some group traveling etc as part of the program. This Fall she will start university (different one to where she is now) to pursue her degree in Economics.
The important thing about this experience for her - the Gap year program she pursued had mostly 15-16 year olds. Her interests and career goals changed during that year - due to peer influence or more exposure to the world or more maturity? - she wanted to pursue International Business all through her teens and now she figured out that she loves Economics more.
So, just let your child lead the way for now. Because it is way too early to worry about what the future brings when the child is not even in K yet (I am like you and worry a lot about such things too and I am told this by too many people too many times!).
Good luck.

My DD12 is in eighth grade and is with her social peers. She will graduate from high school and start college at 16 and the idea that she wouldn't continue with these same peers into college is something she says she would never consider. These are her friends and, with guidance from us as necessary (although, at this point it still hasn't become necessary since we've run into no age-based issues thus far), I am confident that she will continue to do well as a part of this same social group. Our plan is to continue to have thoughtful conversations with her about all kinds of growing-up issues and then just trust (as all parents do) that she is equipped to deal with things that come her way, with our support.

On another note, I was never grade accelerated, mostly because I had a twin who wouldn't have done well with it, and all my best friends throughout high school were at least two years older than me. I did hate that my friends and I were separated in grade-based activities when these people were my true peers, and it was lonely when all my friends graduated and went to college before me when I knew that I was just as ready as they were.

So, any decision you make can go any way, and so much depends on the individual. I agree with the other posters, though, that while it is good to consider the ramifications of a skip, for now you just need to follow the needs of your child. And remember, almost any decision can be reversed if necessary.

I agree with others that this depends on the kid. FWIW, I was always the youngest in my grade, and I finished all my high school classes at age 16 and started at our local university at age just-turned 17. Granted, I was still technically a high school student, but I was in college full-time through PSEO. One of the highlights was a spring trip with the University French Club to Paris, a high school graduation present from my parents. The drinking age was lower there... I never had any issues with being younger. Most of my friends throughout high school were older than me and in higher grades anyway.

To counter this we are planning to do some international travel for 2 years or so when our oldest gets to an age of completing his school leaving. Although he is only *almost* 7 now, he has chosen to do the Cambridge (UK) school leaving certification for various reasons.

If we use this as the standard for our family (most likely of all scenarios) it means the younger two boys can write exams in over 160 countries as we travel.

But my main point is that the gap year (or 2) really appeals to us - especially because I feel so overwhelmed at the thought of my younger teenager being in a Uni situation.

Having said that I need to agree with many of the replies in this thread and say try not to worry about so far down the line. Things really do have a way of working themselves out as long as you keep your eye on your child in the here and now; ensure she gets what she needs now - focus on one year at a time (with planning for one year ahead that is flexible and ready to change as and when needs be).

And remember that no single decision in terms of schooling is forever - you can always change it up and mix it up as you need to! It's not a forever answer.

I think that the risks of not accelerating and becoming alienated from the 'schooling process' also need to be considered. There is a lot of drug taking among the nerdy slackers too - it isn't just about the 'Cheerleaders' and the 'jocks' when it comes to drinking, drugs and sexual experimentation, at all.

I, personally, wouldn't even consider 16.5 that young.. I was barely 17 when I graduated, and never skipped. I wasn't the youngest in my grade, either. I had one friend who had skipped (like 1st grade maybe?) and was barely 16 when she graduated.

I think it definitely does depend on the child, but I've seen some definite drawbacks to graduating at a younger age. We had one graduate at 16 and one at 17 (the 17-year old then graduated college early at 20). Both felt that there were some practical drawbacks in terms of little things - work meetings at bars (maybe she was just unlucky, but this seems to happen a lot), leasing an apartment, even being able to pay into her work retirement system - that turned into a convoluted mess where she was required to participate, but also required to be 21. And yes, it seems like it would be simple to fix, but it's been a hassle!
OTOH, would I do anything differently? I don't know... certainly neither child was pressed to her intellectual capacity (one is PG, the other is untested, but certainly very gifted). They've always gotten on better with older kids, at least until college age, but honestly, there ARE some issues. I always hear parents on this board saying that their 8 year olds hang with 12-year olds, or their 14-year olds hang with 18-year olds, but I don't think that's ideal and I can't imagine it always works (it didn't work all the time for us). With my two younger kids, I've tried to keep them with their same-age peers, but worked much harder to find other outlets for their intelligence, creativity, etc... They're both in relatively demanding gifted programs, and they also have a lot of outside stuff going on. So, maybe school isn't always super challenging, but they find other ways to stretch themselves.
I'm not at ALL criticizing kids who skip (obviously, since mine did) but I think sometimes it should be acknowledged that neither option is ideal. Most of us don't have the option of having peers who are the same age, same intellectual capacity, etc... so we make do with the best solution, but it's rare that either holding back or advancing is ideal.
As your daughter advances, I'm sure it will become more obvious what is the right-even if not perfect-solution for her. Just keep in mind that the most frustrating part of schooling for gifted kids, IMHO, is usually grade school. With all of my kids, the older they got, the easier it was to find the appropriate education (maybe once the teachers got past the "it will all level out by third grade" nonsense :))

College kids still have access to alcohol before they're 21 through their friends. A lot more drinking happens at parties than at the pub. It's the combination of underage access and the lack of supervision (because at the pub, the staff can cut off your access) that leads to the kinds of situations you read about later in the news.

So I wouldn't worry so much about your DD being excluded. I'd focus the worries on how well she can handle the situations that can arise from participating.

I can say that when I was in the military, nearly all my friends were 3-5 years older, and it was a bummer when they went downtown to the clubs and I had to stay behind, but overall, it wasn't a big deal.

I haven't been posting in a bit (or on this board in some time), but I'll chime in briefly because the situation you describe is very close to my dd15's situation. Her bd made our fall K cut off by two weeks and it is very, very common where I live to hold kids whose bds are in the summer and fall out an extra year. She was the youngest in her grade by a good bit before skipping as a result. I'd say that, on average, 1/4 of her class was 10-18 months older than she before she skipped.

She skipped the last year of elementary (5th) grade and is now 12-30 months younger than her grade peers. She is also now an 11th grader so we're getting close to the end of this K-12 journey. It was absolutely the right decision for her. A good majority of the people who she considers close friends graduated high school last year and are now college freshmen (18-19 years old and 3-4 years older than she).

Socially it worked; academically it worked better than the alternative. The only time I can recall her being in a spot where her age was an issue was last summer. She was 14 and out with her friends who had just graduated high school. They were all 18 and they were going out to a movie. The movie was R rated although something I was fine with her seeing. The person who was taking the tickets was in one of her classes at school and knew that she wasn't 18 and refused to let her in. Her friends all exchanged tickets too, though, and they all went to see something like World War Z (definitely not their first choice) so she wouldn't be left out.

She is pretty centered, though, and not one who is prone to caving to peer pressure or hanging out with kids who would pressure her to drink, for instance. Her friends are all pretty good kids who get together and go to poetry slams or take bike rides or go to swing dancing classes at a yoga studio at night, for instance.