I know that IAS says accelerating into a siblings grade is a no no, but I was wondering if anyone had successfully done it anyway. We ar looking into acceleration options for DD. Whole grade would put her in third with her brother. They are very close and we've always called them our "twins". I realize there would be possible social implications, but right now they are both ok with the idea. I doubt it will happen but am curious if it has worked for anyone.

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While the IAS lists having an older sibling in the receiving grade as a no-go for acceleration of the younger sibling, at the same time it acknowledges successful occurrences of acceleration under this circumstance.

This post is part of a thread about a year ago in which a family on this forum was weighing pros and cons of just such a grade skip.

Acceleration success!!! is a recent update from that member.

I've always thought that that part of the IAS is a bit unfair to the younger sibling in need of acceleration. Still, the IAS is based on research.

On the more anecdotal side, one of my family members was accelerated into the grade of a sibling. It did not cause any problems whatsoever, but has lead to some VERY funny family stories that those siblings still love to share.

That's us! The family that successfully got a grade skip for younger DD into big sister's grade. Some quick thoughts:
A)I found a copy of the Iowa Acceleration Scale online so I knew what I was up against concerning the school. I knew IAS warned against a child accelerating into a sibling's grade. I ignored that and adding all the points, DD (then 9), scored very high for a successful grade skip.
B)We had a psychologist who recommended the grade skip. DD(now 10) was very unhappy in 4th. We had the psychologist go to all the school meetings as support and "authority figure".
C)Had all the testing done privately except for out of level testing which was done by the school (ITBS).
D)Found that the principal, asst. principal, and district AIG specialist were helpful! Very surprising. And when the "BIG MEETING" occurred (10 or so people?), the school district pooh poohed the idea that you don't accelerate a kid just because his/her sibling is in the receiving grade. I was pretty shocked, but happy.
So we have a little over 2 months of 5th grade under our belts. DD10 is happier. I think part of that is getting away from the 4th grade teacher, part is the realization that mom and dad went to bat for her, and part is she found it's not nearly as boring as 4th because she has separate math, language arts, and science teachers so she can actually get a bit of differentiation. She and DD11 still fight like cats and dogs sometimes, but that happened before the skip. Plus they work on homework together. DD11 couldn't do a math problem today, and DD10 exclaimed, "Oh, I can help you with that!" and did! That made my heart warm.
Weird stuff - social. I am not always sure who is getting the Evite for birthdays! Mom's are getting better at specifying who is invited or just inviting both, like twins.
Emotional business: Most of the time DD acts like a 5th grader yet at home and elsewhere she jumps into my arms like a little one. Also, since the skip she has wandered into our bed in the middle of the night quite a bit so she's feeling a bit anxious. We have a "how's it going" meeting soon so I asked if DD was doing ok with the grade skip. I told her if it wasn't going well she could go back to 4th. She was horrified, and said she wanted to go to middle school next year!!
Hmmm, the only other thing I can think of is that DD went through her closet tonight. She dumped some things because they are not middle school-worthy. DD is the size of a peanut, so she can wear little kid clothes, but she is determined to be a real, cool, middle schooler.
Oh, another point. I don't think DD has learned that much more, or she's just absorbing everything like a sponge because she sure isn't struggling! She (and big sister) will be in a compacted math class next year and is supposed to be in an advanced LA class as well.
Oops! This was not quick! I hope it was helpful though!

I think it is unfair to the younger child too. I would definitely fear a glass ceiling whether it is real or perceived.

If they're so close they feel like twins, and they both feel okay about the proposed situation, I'd go for it. If they're going to disagree and fight it'll always be something if not the skip, so I wouldn't worry about problems between the two of them. If they're a girl and a boy that helps too -- they'll be less likely to end up competing against each other socially. Just make sure they know that if one is skipped and one isn't, that doesn't mean anything, and even though they are siblings, they are people independently of the other and should support one another instead of being jealous of friends/grades/attention/the last cookie/etc.

As the younger who skipped, I did not know the impact on my older brother until we were adults. It affected him greatly, self esteem etc. He set the bar lower for himself, lower than he had to. But as I said, it was long after that I realized. Nothing that would be noticeable at the time.

Wren, I don't know your family, but I'm not sure that skipping into the same grade was what impacted your brother. I was 11 months older than my brother and skipped so that I was two years ahead of him. He too set a lower bar for himself--I was the smart one; he was the athlete.

However, I also think that we were who we were, and that I would have been the smart one and he would have been the athlete, regardless of who was older or younger, and whether I'd skipped or not. I think that would have been true even if we'd each been only children.

I think you have to do the right thing for the individual child.

That happens among siblings all the time, regardless of whether there was a skip involved. Siblings often seek to differentiate themselves with some sort of specialty in order to carve out an identity and earn parental approval. Once one of the kids locks down the "smart one" role, the others tend to look around for something else.

This tends to play out in other domains, too, as kids may become "the athlete," "the funny one," "the popular one," "the leader," "the artist/musician/actor," etc. A sibling with a similar talent may hold themselves back/out of such activities simply because they think they'll never be as good as their sibling, so what's the point?

Or, as in one family I know, one of the siblings chose not to pursue an area of significant talent because filling that role was too important to the other sibling's self-image to jeopardize with perceived competition.

Yep. It happened in mine, only when I avoided the talent area (music), it found me anyway, as the teacher sort of discovered me by accident. I'm pretty sure the fact that I subsequently participated at the highest levels, just as my brother had, that it had a far more profound negative effect on his self-esteem than anything I earned on my report card.

I have always found the recommendation not to skip a younger sibling based on the perceived effect on the older sibling to be baffling. If a child needs acceleration then why should they suffer the negative effects of not accelerating because it might impact the other child? Why is the older sibling more important Such that their needs can over ride the younger one's.

Surely the solution is to not ignore the potential impact of such a skip on the older child but to put support mechanisms in place for them as well.

Like others I have definitely seen the impact of one child being identified by other siblings as the smart one and so other roles being adopted. But it had nothing to do with grade skips and had a lot to do with individual personalities and a fear of being compared or not wanting to be challenged. It definitely should be addressed but not by discouraging the child who is doing well but supporting the one who is not reaching their potential.

Having said that all children have a right to be different as long as they choose their path for the right reasons not for perceived inadequacies and as parents we have an imperative to support each child individually and not deny needed opportunities.

It is a tough question, especially when I did another skip. I am glad that I do not have to deal with that as a parent, having one kid.

And sometimes kids don't get any identity. I was the smart one and the athletic one. But he does have a nice life. Though it still haunts me the comments he made about this stuff when we got older. I am sure he never thinks about it.

I too would vote that avoiding the skip doesn't necessarily avoid the problem. My older brother was never academically strong (I now wonder - a lot - about what he could teach us about our 2E children if anyone in my family could admit there was anything to talk about). I was never skipped - but I was doing my brother's homework before I even started school, my friends were always of his grade not mine, my marks were better even though I did no work, and I compressed high school to graduate at the same time he did.... children are incredibly aware of the differences among classmates, never mind among siblings. To this day, to my great sadness, this incredibly creative and intelligent man considers himself the uniquely not-smart member of a smart family. Accelerating me wouldn't have made this dynamic any worse (but would have improved my lot considerably).

Instead, give each kid what they really need. And pay a lot of attention to their unique strengths and weaknesses, so each gets the support they specifically need, AND the room to fly where they were made to. Celebrate the differences, let them each be proud of themselves and of each other's unique accomplishments, rather than make both kids feel like they are wrong to be who they are.

Oops, sorry about the soapbox. I just don't think this kind of sibling problem is solved by pretending it isn't there - which is really all avoiding acceleration does.

Update: met with our district gifted coordinator and DDs current principal to discuss options. Based on her Cogat and MAP scores the coordinator felt DD would do well with any type acceleration - subject or whole grade. They left the decision up to us as a family. I was really surprised. So now we have some decisions to make and lots to think about. Thank you all for your thoughts and sharing your experiences.