n/a

You may want to wait and just see how it goes. You can see on threads where people have skipped their kids, sometimes in upper grades they run into handwriting issues or concentration issues, where the child intellectually is able to do the work but emotionally has problems.
Just enjoy the ride for now.
If he is suddenly 3-5 years younger than the other kids, he may not be a very social little boy. You really need to relax and give him time to develop.

I agree with jack'smom (and you) that you probably can't usefully form a concrete plan that far ahead right now. Reading and learning is good, and it seems to me that learning about all the ways to accelerate and compact won't take all that long, and then you're loaded for bear on that front. You will probably want to learn about the subject areas at each grade level, of course, and home schooling and other educational options for them, which also won't take long; that way you can be better prepared if you need to pull him out of a particular school system and home school, or go with some other non-traditional option.

Your son may be ready for all-day formal schooling earlier than 6. One aspect of home schooling him until then that may work against him is that he won't learn to fit into the school routine, while rubbing elbows with kids in a bigger classroom, so it may increase the learning curve a bit when he enters at a grade where most of the kids have learned to settle in. But it's like many similar issues with a highly able, asynchronously developing child: if he's engaged, he can probably surmount those obstacles.

If you home school until 6 and stick with the plan to enter the school system then, I'd also make sure he gets plenty of writing practice at home.

I have a 3 yr old and I see what you're saying. I only have one elementary school locally, no private schools, a boy with a late birthday, and a principal who's never heard of early pre-k entry, although I've been told by a local teacher one town down the schools down here don't mind skipping; they test the kids and place them accordingly.

Re: staying one step ahead of him, my thoughts;
When I wuz preggers I told the hubby, "if he's smart I'm going to homeschool him so he doesn't suffer. If he's normal I'll send him to school so he can have a normal life". I made my judgement call early in his infancy. Of course I've evolved as a parent since then.

I think what has to happen to stay one step ahead of a PG-gt-let is to call it like what's happening is that you're ultimately homeschooling/afterschooling/unschooling regardless of whatever else happens. If he's lucky enough to go to school for a year, or two, or ten, or thirteen I consider that desirable.
I would call it unschooling in that the responsibility and the right to learn belongs to the child. We have to keep bringing it back and realigning the plan to that goal. I call it homeschooling because as a mother I'm dedicated to teaching my kids the basics because, well, that's what parents do. I'm hopeful for a good school experience when it's our turn. Of course it's a huge unknown. I don't know what I'm going to do/request. I don't know what the school's going to do/request.
Keep reading this forum. It's very reassuring and chock full of common sense. Acceleration and reversal are never final decisions. At 6 he may be too immature for his academic peers, or unable to manually complete the written coursload. And he may be concurrantly too immature to "play along" with his agemates' classwork if it's too easy and the pace is too slow.
You may homeschool until age 6 and find he's not mature enough for what school has to offer until age 9 or 10.
Enjoy this year if it's enjoyable and/or productive. Congrats on the baby step. How exciting a first school!

Also if all goes well I assume you'll have teachers and gt parents from your area letting you in on the scoop on what's available locally by the end of the year.
Also if you like kindy and try first but don't like it I think you can pull him out and homeschool/unschool/virtual school and/or retain him a year or two. Here you can even keep them out of schOol completely until they should enter first grade, which since you're going early gives you a couple extra years at home if you don't like it or change your mind.

No need to prickle; Jack'sMom's "you need to relax" isn't the "you need to relax" you hear from other people ;-) She's right: however much you know your DS is gifted, you have no idea right now whether a 3-5 year grade skip is going to be appropriate for him. (Based on what I read and hear here and elsewhere, it's vanishingly rare for it to be a good answer, actually; you don't solve what is basically a pace problem by starting at a different point.)

I too had a miserable school experience in which I wasn't challenged, so I know what you mean about being determined not to let that happen to your child. I'm not advocating doing nothing.

You say your son is (about to be?) doing handwriting at K level, and you posted elsewhere about how he doesn't currently like teacher-structured environments. Those are the two really big things that limit the practicality of large skips: they have to be able to meet the expectations of the class they go into and they have to be able to produce the output. (Some schools will be prepared to do some accommodation e.g. allowing typed rather than handwritten output, but it's not a silver bullet: my DS still doesn't find typing any easier than handwriting.)

My DS7 is, as I often feel obliged to put in, untested, but on the pure intellectual side, a 5 year skip would look just fine, in the sense that he can easily handle explanations etc. aimed at 12yos, make arguments expected of them, etc. In fact he'd still need individual teaching in his strength areas. However, although we've discussed skips, we've decided against even one because it isn't, overall, in his best interests to do it. The output and social expectations are an important part of the reason: e.g. I'd rather have him somewhere where he can, with effort, meet output expectations than somewhere where he has to have accommodations because it's obvious he can't meet them. Another major reason is that no amount of skip would leave him looking typical for the class he arrived in. There's no substitute for sensitive teaching, and if you've got sensitive teaching, it can happen in a variety of settings.

Concretely, at 7 DS is currently expected (ha :-( ) to be able to produce a nearly full A4 page of writing (small, neat, joined up) on a set topic on demand in about 45 minutes. That may, I think, be a little ahead of usual expectation for that age, but it's a guide. He has to be able to do what he's told all day, get himself to a lesson on the other side of the campus on time and on his own, dress himself quickly and without fuss including tie and lace up shoes, etc. etc. etc.

TBH I think if you try to grease wheels for a 3-5 year skip for a child currently only just three years old you're simply going to get backs up and get yourself written off as crazy. Keep quiet, homeschool him for a bit if it seems right, see how it goes, and if you want to put him in school several years ahead of age in due course, then get a copy of the Iowa Acceleration Manual, get an IQ test, and go for it. But argue it then on the basis of the evidence you have then that it's the right thing. For now do what's right for him now.

When you are talking about a 3 yo and rapid acceleration, I think you should think about how you can adapt social needs. I don't think recess with the 1st graders will really work, having just had a kid in 1st grade. They tend to cluster with friends, then eat lunch after recess.

You may consider some activity, like Karate, where he can develop age peers friends. I read 2 seriously PG kids, graduate college at 12-14 and they seem to have that kind of thing happening where they developed friends.

I don't see anything wrong with long term planning. Put the paths of the various outcomes and what the options are. But I don't see kids 3-4 years older hanging with your child as they get older. They are going to be into different things, and not discussing chess strategies.

Ren

Sing it sister!
My son also is super strong extrovert and that is a bit unusal in PG world. He also was very distressed by the agemates at age 3 but I was so in denial that I had no idea what I was seeing. Your school set up sounds lovely and hopefully you will be able to maintain the social relationships he starts there for your sons whole life. Parents do a lot of the work for a childs social life until about 4th grade in our neighborhood.

Meanwhile start attending the local school board meetings and get to know the decision makers. Building relationships is the name of the game. If the private kindergarden is well respected by the local public school then the teachers recommendation may go along way. Build friendships at the local homeschool coop and see if once they know you the rules don't start to bend.

Lots of camps and sports teams and afterschool activities will bend act requirements especially if they know you.Or you ask nice.

Apparently you are just going to have to accept that it is going to be hard for folks to hear the truth when it comes from you (even we moms don't trust moms) so get others to stand up for you as much as possible. Professionals teachers music or karate teachers even other kids Moms or othe kids.

My son did well with a single skip plus a summer birthday but was limited by ADHD and low stamina. He has many friends who are at 3 years accelerated but I ones I know started with a single skip then added a subject acceleration then added gradually from there. I think it is great that you and your DH remembered your own experience and can use it as a guide. Most folks I know are still in denial. I'm sad to say that I thought that if I could just manage to avoid filling my sons head up with ideas that he could be what I always wished to be in elementary school...someone whose needs could be met there.

Now I get it that the children are born the way they are and it isn't my fault. My mom was so proud of her kids being smart and looked to me like she was sure it was all because of her. I'm so sorry that I never even asked my son's day care to try him with the older kids or looked for a school like yours.

I believe that you will find good patches as you go. Remember that from the elementary schools perspective it is the concrete skills that impress them....handwriting...telling time...shoelaces....math facts.....taking turns....sharing toys and...ut oh....doing things the teacher's way.

My DS15 has had behavior charts at school off and on between 1st grade and 6th. 'Doing things the teachers way' was a biggie.

On one hand 3 is too young to expect that but on the other hand the giant reinforcer is there at this private preschool...access to big boys.
You might want to start harping on the idea that 'big boys' do things the teachers way at school and save other ways for home.

But I gulp to even write this. Is there anything honest you can say about doing things other peoples way in the workplace? A sort of family creed to explain the importance of flexibility in this matter?

Love and more love
Grinity

There will be no great fix to this situation as there are *lots* of differences between 6 and 7 yo children and 3 yo children, between 12 yo and 8 yo, etc., and being capable of the intellectual work of older children will not erase the other differences. The social fit has to be both ways, so that it's not only whether your son likes the fit but whether the other children do too. At 6 or 7, my children would not have chosen to play with a 3 yo when they had lots of age peers available.

I would look for opportunities to find age peers for your son as well as good educational fits. These do not have to be the same activities. If your son needs social outlets, I'd find sports, clubs, or other age and interest based activities that he could join. For radically accelerated kids, having some interaction with others in the same age range seems to be really important.

I agree with the other posters that 3 is too soon to plan long-term education decisions. Most early schooling is play based and as long as your son likes to play, he may enjoy early schooling even if it isn't appropriate academically.

It sounds like you have found a great fit for next year. I think information gathering is just natural for someone in your situation, but really you can't predict what's going to work or not work in the future when your child is just 3.

Though our DS (now 7) knew pretty much all the kindy curriculum before he went, we chose to not send him early, on advice of the psychologist who tested him, because kindy is a more fun way to learn how to "do school". Also, the school did do some differentiation. We then skipped 1st, which worked out OK, but still wasn't enough, so we transferred to a school for HG kids where they work baseline at 3rd grade, plus split out for groups at different levels (e.g, my son's reading group was doing 6th grade levels books). This latest HG school has worked quite well, and we are hopeful that he'll be able to stay there through the program, but you just never know.

Handwriting has been hard, as well as gym. My son was a perfectionist early on too (my mom remembers noticiting signs when he was 1). He did start writing letters very early on, but quit when they weren't turning out how he wanted them. He refused to try when we encouraged him, so kindy turned out to be a perfect place for learning to write (that was our main goal for kindy). DS's writing is still very bad compared to the other kids in his HG school, most of whom are a year older and had 1st grade, a writing year. But his teacher did not made a big deal of it, pushing just enough. A lot of good fit for highly asynchronous kids depends on great teachers. Sounds like you have one now.

I agree that it is quite important for kids to learn at some point that school is indeed for learning, and not just breezing through. Kids need to encounter some safe failures so they can learn to persevere, and it's better when this comes earlier. Bad when it comes in college.

I think it's great that you're so clued in to his needs when he is so young. I was quite blissfully ignorant of what to expect when my guy was 3.5yo.

I used to think older kids were cruel too when my son, like yours, craved friendships with much older children. But he's now almost 9 and I completely see his point of view. Although he loves his friends' younger siblings to bits, he has his own interests and likes/dislikes and there's little chance, extrovert that he is, that he'd spend hours playing with a 5yo or 6yo unless they are truly intellectual peers (emotionally my guy can be 4 or 5 lol).

Your K teacher sounds fabulous. However, I've had friends who were told similar things and found themselves having to pull their kids out a few months later because things just weren't working out the way they were promised. I sincerely hope this won't be the case for you.

I wanted to suggest, if you do eventually attempt to homeschool till he's 6, to be prepared to see him advance at such a rate that he'd far outstrip 3-4th grade public schoolers. We've homeschooled for 5 years now and because we've found some great friendships within the homeschool community, we've been very sheltered in the last few years. So sheltered that it shocks me when I do some research and find there's no way he could fit back into the system academically if something were to happen such that we couldn't homeschool anymore.

He's currently progressing at age=grade level, that is, he completed 8th grade as an 8yo and will start 9th grade as a 9yo. Writing is still an issue but this year he's shown the ability to show/write/prove math and produce output on par with what an average 8th grade public schooler will produce so I'm guessing his writing ability in other areas may follow suit given time and (nail-biting) patience.

Given that with these kids, they are usually able to conceptualize what is to be expressed and are just waiting for physical writing ability to catch up, and given that your child may not have special needs, he could begin to write at middle/ high school level at 2/3/4th grade age. Will your school district be able to accommodate that? It's tough!

I know that we chose acceleration because we homeschool. But I also spend so much time trying to give more breadth and depth to what he does. Good work ethic doesn't come easy and so much of the time my struggle is to model it for him. It's easy to forget though given what they can do that they're so young. I remember my own attitudes toward good work ethic developing only in my teens. My suggestion is to model it as much as you can for your child, and this includes allowing him to take his time with his work, enjoying it, learning to keep his curiosity and joy of learning alive.

It isn't as easy as we think lol. Good luck!

You misunderstood. I was writing about cases I have read. The first one was a girl on Long Island who graduated stoney book at 14 and was profiled in the news.

My daughter is only 6, entering 2nd grade. I supplement with CTY math, to accelerate, and she does Chinese as extra, with Spanish at school. I find it hard to "homeschool" the extras with limited time and it is a pain. She is 2 grades ahead in her reading, provided by her teacher this year.

But I have a plan for a 4th grade skip, that I am working on, with providing CTY as a way to keep the math on the pace it is currently on. She is very strong in math.

And, she is an extrovert. Poster child for the kid that likes to socialize. Life would be very difficult without her having friends, play dates, and the sports to use up her energy. My 40 lb kid swims in the ocean waves, diving under constantly. She needs the energy usage. (Funny, her dog is the same)

Everyone has to find a path for their individual kid and as you proceed, the path usually changes. But I would not assume that because a kid is so highly gifted, success will be there. That is the big dilimema. The not as gifted kid, who knows how to play by the rules, doesn't question so much and has that nice work ethic can outsucceed our questioning kids.

Ren

My 8 year old son will enter 4th grade this fall. He did a mid-year skip between 1st and 2nd over holiday break last year and completed 3rd grade in June. Socially, it was the most perfect solution.

Pre-skip, he was in an odd group where he was still the oldest by quite a bit with an April birthday. In CA, kids can enter K if they will be 5 by December (well they could my son's year, this is changing). So he had kids in his 1st grade class that were not yet 6 and he was already 6 1/2. This is not an ideal match for a HG+ kid by any means!

When he skipped, by coincidence, he skipped into a class that had mostly red-shirted kids. He's now 8 with most of his friends being 9 1/2. This wasn't intentional, it was just the way it worked out.

Academically, the skip didn't help for more than 6 months. He completed 3rd grade on paper but was in a reading group of GT 3rd graders doing 6th grade work. He finished 4th grade math mid-year and was left to hang out while everyone did test prep. We afterschooled a lot.

We will homeschool the next two years to try to go "wide and deep" instead of constant test prep at school.

The best advice I've ever gotten was to plan for the "least worst scenario" and to plan one year at a time. Each time we've found the most perfect plan, we've gotten so excited thinking it'll last forever! If it lasts one school year, we've learned to be satisfied with that.

Yes, ditto this! Although for us, only the last 6 months were truly successful, so I'm quite happy if something works for even 6 months.

As with any potentially perfect plan, it's just a plan, and sometimes in execution it doesn't work out quite so well. Going into kindergarten and second, we had great plans on paper, but neither really worked out. Hence the transfer mid-year second grade. With luck, plans work out enough so that you're not pulling your hair out with all the advocacy you are required to do.

I just sent you a pm with a few great books list in response to another thread, now I see this last post, girL, we could talk for hours about eductional options. How exciting!
The biggest cirriculum resource is to remember this forum. There is so much experience and information I feel like I benefit from spending time here, besides I enjoy it. There's nothing like true stories and live conversations to create a clearer picture.

Hey, we're there too! Actually I need to buy the next Singapore math soon because he's almost done and he did like 12 pages the other day. And I did one of these every few days on a whiteboard

Check out this video on YouTube:



This is our second time through and this time I'm having him copy me on his whiteboard. He already can read it like a sentence 0 x 1 = 0, instead of like a word "0x1=0" and we only did the ones this time but he answered 1x5=? Before I did. Plus it's practice writing and numbers is less writing to complete a project than words are. Someone mentioned mangahigh maths the other day. I looked at it. It has a cute flower fraction game under demos. I've showed him fractions once, this is the second time, and the second time showing him multiplication. He tried to call 1/2 one and a half.

Also, look at this


He just did this ten minutes ago in front of me. He's been telling me he doesn't know his letters lately an writing an n for a u, etc... I was actually about to pull out hooked on phonics letter cd from when he was 2 yrs old and remind him. On this worksheet he said, "how do you write a 2?" Then he wrote 7, I said no, that's an "r". Then he wrote the nine backwards and I didn't say anything. The I said "are u going to write the 2" because I saw what he was doing. I saw him try to write it backwards, pause, realize it was too hard, and write it right. I bust out laughing in his face and said, "ha! You thought u were going to write it backwards and you couldn't do it. Ha ha.". And he bust out smiling because he was busted when he was trying to be sneaky. I knew what he was doing because there's been a thread on here about it lately. Thank you other mamma's!
Sorry son, that doesn't mean you don't know your numbers and letters. It means you know them well.

But ok I'll stop and let someone with some older kid's answer. Just saying stick around because there's good advice and stories here.

I wasn't sure what "he's age-grade on reading" means. Could you explain please?

While I am sure it is true that homeschooling will allow for more advancement, realistically if he's very PG and already give grades ahead I don't think you will stop, or necessarily even slow, his fast rate of advancement by putting him in school. It can be easy to feel like you sort of have control over it by the decisions you make but for some driven HG and PG kids it will just keep going no matter what you do.

One question you may want to consider is if you have it as an option to homeschool over the long term. For a kid who needs five years grade skip I think you have two choices:

1. Homeschool (and accept all that goes with that in terms of responsibility and possible loss of wages).

2. Accept that they likely are not going to be fully challenged in school academically and that you may have to make some compromises socially. This may sound negative but it certainly works out for many kids and I don't believe there is a reason at the outset to assume that it won't.

While early college has been a positive decision for our family, I personally would be wary of a five year grade skip for a student attending school. I wouldn't want my seven year old with twelve year olds or my twelve year old with seventeen year olds. Often the halls of middle and high schools aren't the nicest of all places. I personally feel much more comfortable with early college because the people attending are adults and especially with a very young student it is clear you aren't expecting that to also be the place where they make the bulk of their friends.

Overall though I agree with the sentiment that it is only guess work. Make the best decision you can for next year and take it one year at a time.

Hi Annette,

You've got some great advice already, but I did just want to chip in that I agree with the others that 3.5 is too early to be planning too far ahead. I can relate so much to what you are saying - I had all the same thoughts as you when my PG daughter was your age and I felt like I had to make sure I got everything right. I contacted schools when she was 3.5 to enquire about early entry etc. I was really worried that she was never going to fit, that if I didn't get the mix right straight away and getting her in with older kids she was never going to learn a thing. I had read every book going, attended seminars by experts in giftedness, spoken to them about my daughter's specific circumstances and felt I knew exactly what she needed. I was convinced of it.
Then she started school and I realised that all my reading was only useful in terms of knowing what options were out there, what COULD work, etc. What I had created in my head was an ideal scenario that in reality was brought down by asynchrony and the reality that school really IS about more than academics, especially when they are just starting out. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any issues with acceleration, including radical acceleration in theory. But all the theory in the world doesn't deal with the fact that at 3.5 - even at 5.5, which is my daughter's age, they are still little kids. They only have a few years life experience.
In dd�s first six months of school we�d changed schools, reversed a grade skip and we�re planning for reinstatement of the skip down the track. The path I was so convinced of when dd as 3.5 has turned out very differently to what was planned and if there is one thing I have learnt is that there is no right way of doing this. The books are useful, the gifted experts too. But they don�t know your kid.
I was convinced my daughter needed either early entry in to school or entry in to grade one when she was 3.5 and we ended up with her starting in grade 1 / 2 composite having just turned 5. She did the work without issue and made friends easily, however we really found that her sensitivity and lack of worldliness were no match for the rough and tumble of the older kids at school. She is not emotionally immature by any stretch. Most people think she is a couple of years older than she is as she is tall and articulate and appears very calm. But she just melted down every night after school. She�s now in a kindergarten class with an experienced gifted teacher, reading 6th grade + books and working across a range of grades in maths from grade 2 up. She loves it. However socially it�s not perfect and there is only so much differentiation a teacher can manage, so she will be skipped, possibly a couple of times on recommendation, in the future.
I guess what I am saying is the path can be pretty twisty and turn-y . My kid at 5.5yo is a very different girl to the girl she was at 3.5yo. While always sensitive, just how sensitive didn�t become apparent until she was around 4.5yo, when her awareness of death and injury overwhelmed her for example. She�s now much less anxious about those things, but I didn�t see that coming for example and it impacted her ability to cope with her skip significantly. So take it year by year � even month by month and see how things go. And don�t invest too much in one plan because it can, in my experience, make it harder to see if it isn�t working.
Good luck!

Annette,

My son is one of those that is radically accelerated. At 8, he should be looking forward to 3rd grade. Instead he will be taking 2 7th, an 8th, and 2 9th grade classes this year. It works for him because of who he is and where he is at.

He goes to a very small charter school that is located on the campus of our university. The entire student body are self identified geeks (don't ever call him a nerd). They don't pick on him because they were all picked on at some point. Last year when he started, he was an anamoly for a couple of weeks. Now the other students treat him just like everyone else. They seem to have forgotten he's 5 years younger and 2 feet shorter. Sounds odd but it's true.

His school is set up to offer dual enrollment whenever it becomes needed and if he ends up in a college classroom at 10 it will be because the faculty at his school deems it appropriate. The difference is that because of his age, he will be escorted to and from his college classes and still have the full support of his current school. It is the perfect situation for DS and I count my lucky stars everyday. Who would have thought that a program like this could possibly exist in a state ranked 49th overall for education?

The key to all of this and to any of these kids is flexibility. You have to be willing to make short term plans and have long term hopes because everything can change over a summer. I would think long and hard before I would allow this kind of acceleration in the general population of a public school. I know that it wouldn't work for my son. You have to look at the individual and make your choices based on him and him alone. We can all share our experiences but just like any other population, they are all different. You know him better than anyone, you have to gather as much information as possible, cross your fingers and make a choice.

I'm not sure why you need early admission into K from the district to qualify for homeschool coops. Is it because the coop will not consider your child for admission? I'm trying to understand how it works in your state. Perhaps the coops will have your son anyway? Perhaps you could work out some sort of a parent participation agreement? Or perhaps if socialization is the key reason, you could ask the coop director if you could hang around and see if your child makes friends with other students and possibly even their younger sibs? I wouldn't completely rule out age-mates. In the beginning it was difficult for my son to find friends who were the same age but chances are there are other families homeschooling in your area for the same reasons you might...always worth a try. Necessity can drive us crazy moms pretty far (grin).

Again, necessity...use it and create your own group! I've done this twice and one of them (albeit not a gifted-specific one) now counts 900+ members. You would be surprised how far desperation will drive you.

I hear you..."missing something important"...sigh, don't I remember that well. I assure you, he will be fine and will learn what he needs to when he needs to. You probably know that -- just wanted to offer the extra reassurance.

I joke with myself that I will homeschool till he's 12 and then unschool till he's ready for college. There's so much available to learn that I am not convinced he needs college to learn it. Not until he's craving it anyway. Right now, he wants to be homeschooled/unschooled till he's 25!

Real life, deep discussions and lots of well-written books. And Google. I went on a curriculum high the first 3 years and don't regret it but we don't use homeschool-specific curriculum anymore except for the one or two that are usually unschooled or if I feel I need to keep a few around for reference (that's usually when I panic about correlating what he's learning with what's expected for the age or grade level--we have some thorny asynchrony issues here).

Is he a natural speller? If he is, I'd suggest just reading as much as possible. Mine surpassed all of AAS' placement tests at age 5. I'm saying this to help you save some $$. Good thing with AAS is it seems to have good resale value.

PM me if you like. Take care!

This is so true. We're currently have school holidays and in the one week we've had so far, dd has shot ahead again. You can think you've finally worked out an accommodation and suddenly need changes again!


This is a great piece of advice. Dds new school has a cohort of highly gifted kids and the cultural mix means that the majority of kids there are at the very least high achievers, focused on their work. Her previous school had some smart kids, but was much more relaxed. In that context her lack of worldliness was much more marked - all the kids knew the latest music trends and bands, watched TV shows that I don't feel are appropriate for young kids and so on. At her current school the kids are much more focused on school work. It's acceptable to be smart and scholastic effort is valued by both the teachers and students.

In terms of how we dealt with her anxiety, I can't really say we had a plan. We kind of approached it by gently insisting on exposure to the things that scare her. It's still an issue from time to time (she won't use the school toilets for example), but the school is hooking her up with their counselor who is experienced with gifted kids. Now things come out of the blue (like the toilet issue) rather than being constant.

Oh and constant explainations helped her too... for an extreme example, dd was terrified of getting pregnant 8 months ago. This resulted in a very detailed conversation about why she could not get pregnant now (covering her age, puberty etc). Then she got worried about getting magically pregnant after puberty. Sooooo... we had a conversation about why it would be her choice when and if she did get pregnant(a very high level discussion about the technicalities of sex and contraception)... not a conversation that I was expecting to have with that level of detail for quite some time. She just wouldn't believe me until she had all the evidence. She has at least declared she will never have sex

Goodness they're complicated little things.

It is good you are aware of your fear. I will say that I bet every single person posting here can think of traditional aged students they knew who had alcohol or drug problems in high school. I think your best bet is to not eliminate options out of fear. Keep an open mind to as many options as possible.

I would also encourage you to keep in mind that there may be a range of options someday that you aren't aware of right now. Your child may spend half days at high school or homeschool and half day at college. They may go to college and live at home. They may study abroad or work for a couple of years before attending college at the traditional age. He may begin to prioritize sports or some same age peer activity and accepted slowed down academics in order to get it.

My best advice is to try to make decisions looking at the kid you've got right in front of you rather than thinking about the child you expected to have or somebody else's kid you've observed in the past.

I was skipped three grade levels. I found it much easier to make friends because we were on the same level intellectually. I was very lonely when with my age peers. I had few friends outside of sports.

Mr W (3.5y) is in with 4-5 year olds and has made friends. I've got a pic of him sitting with some 5 year old boys on top of a tall slide and they are grinning at each other. He is clearly the smallest kid, but hangs with them. He told us the first week he liked it as the "other kids can talk!"

When he was 2.5y he would wait after school with Kindergarten kids and played with them. Once the older kids realized that he "was really smart" they let him play with them.

We've run into a few issues. One is that the kids sometimes "dont play fair" and he gets bumped or pushed. LOL. Well, grow up.

In another case, there was a 4 year old girl who was bullying him by hitting him or pinching him and the staff did little about it as she did it when no one was looking. I told him to hit her in the face and scream as loud as he could the next time she did it. And she left him alone after that. ( This was at the Montessori school. )

I thought his writing would be an issue but is has really taken off as has his artwork.

First off, get rid of your "normal" thinking when it comes to the reality of having a PG child. We started my son with a program from day one that would seperate his academic life from his social life.

Group 1 - When he was four we enrolled him in a small church Sunday School that had mulitple grades per class - thus a wide range of ages, but we did sort of pressure at one point to move him ahead but only to stay with the children he had become good friends with that were 2 to 3 years older than him.

Group 2 - He also attended Chinese school at this church, on Sunday afternoon, and while some people from the church attended there were other people there also and a wider range of ages (beginners all together regardless of age). If this hadn't worked we would have found another activity not age based.

Group 3 - Outside sports activity. While he tried soccer when he was 3.5, he started taking martial arts at the YMCA when he turned 4 and started competing in competition when he was 5. Over the years he has switched schools a few time to improve his skill and at each one he has made friends with a wide assortment and age range of children. He has also travelled all over the country for competition and has friends all over who socialize with him over Facebook and Skype. One thing my wife and I noticed is that children who consistly compete in Sports Martial Arts seem to be smart in general, with a large majority of them getting all A's and participating in IB programs for high school.

With social activities not being an issue, we concentrated on provide him with a program where he could progress at his own rate not mine. We did home school (reading, writing, and arithmetic) till he was 7 and then started him in the 3rd grade with k12.com for a structured curriculum. He progressed through 6 years of k12.com in 4 years, taking all curriculum classes and supplementing with courses from EPGY and CTY. He started high school at Florida Virtual School (flvs.net) at age 11 as a home schooler and completed all courses requried for college in 2 years (all honors and AP, except 2 years of chinese language, with an A in every class). This was allowed because he was home schooled and not enrolled through the local school system. He began college at 13 (almost 14) this last August 2011 as an early enrollment student and this is where his social, academic, and martial arts life seem to merge.

He appears to be a bright, articulate, extremely self-confident (we feel due to the martial arts) Freshman that is maybe 17 or 18. He has gone to campus club meetings where he knew club members and officers because they went to church with him. He has seen other students on campus that knew him from other activities and friends. He is meeting new friends, some who are now going to the dojo where he teaches martial arts.

We never had him tested (other than EPGY and SCAT, SAT for CTY), we never had expectations, we have never been disappointed by his results as long as he did his best. At any point he could have gone to a regular school if he wanted, not gone to martial arts, church, or chinese school. We have simply treated him with respect and dignity and told him our job was to make opportunities available to him and his job was to decide if he wanted it (we did offer our guidance).

So just enjoy the time you have with your son and don't worry too much, unless you truly want to operate within the educational system. If you try to do it witin the system, with other people making decision for your son on what's appropriate and then you having to argue back, good luck. IMHO, opt out and enjoy!

Annette-

I just wanted to let you know you are not alone. My DD is 4, will be 5 in a month and a half, and right now, she could easily hold her own in a 2nd or 3rd grade class. DD has the advantage of her handwriting being amazing and her fine motor skills shocking her psychologist. She writes better than any of the second graders at my mom's school. So for her, output is not a problem. In fact, last year DD spent time for a week in a second grade class and was able to hold her own socially, emotionally, and more than academically. She would need further acceleration in several subjects. Radical grade skipping would definitely work for her. We would be looking at a 3-4 year min skip across the board with further acceleration possible.

However we are homeschooling because we only have one school here and they do not believe in acceleration of ANY kind. Sigh. However not operating under the school system has been a blessing for us. DD started girl scouts this year with kids 2 years older then her, and while it is still not an ideal fit socially for her, I think it is the best we can do, because I am not sure socially how a group of kids 3-4 years older than her will accept her in a group situation. If they gave her a chance, yes, they would, but in a group, they don't have to, they have their own groups already and it is hard to break into. Individually she has a few friends now who fit her well and understand her, and they enjoy each other company. They tend to be 4 years older than her.

Could you start your own homeschool co-op or group? I am not sure why the school district should have anything to do with homeschool groups. The one we joined when we lived in PA let us in when DD was 2.5, after meeting her she did classes with 6 year olds and loved it. Here we don't have a homeschool co-op but I have started a homeschool art class and the kids range in ages from DD (4) to 16. It has been great for her.

For us, we have committed to long term homeschooling so that DD can just be her and learn at her pace. Try not to worry (I know WAY easier said than done! LOL) I still have a hard time breathing when I think of DD starting college so early, but in reality I have no clue what she will want to do, be ready for and when. So I try to breath and take it as it comes.

I have to agree with Maillig. I really like the suggestion of keeping social and academic separate, and I think for PG kids, a lot of time that works best. Good luck!

DS6 is in K now but we were in your shoes a couple of years ago. First, don't feel bad about searching for information- ever. Second, remain aware that the information that you are gathering is only that- information. Your child is a person, a living being, and will change many times over right before your eyes. Research all possibilities but remain open to having to use any of them at any given time.
I called and emailed people from all over our school district starting when DS was about 3 yo. My basic question to each of them was "My son is doing X, Y, and Z already. He may be in your school in two years time. What would you do with this?" This simple question got me all kinds of information from "some things will just be easy for him" to and offer for early entrance to kindergarten with possible subject acceleration from there. What we ended up doing, instead, was enrolling at his 'regular' entrance age (5y9m) at a charter STEM school.
When we were going to before-school conferences I told DS to think of a question he wanted to ask the teacher (thinking 'Where's the cafeteria/bathroom' When is lunch?', etc). Instead when teacher asks him if he has any questions he blurts out "Is infinity really a number?" I'm pretty sure he was the only one asking THAT particular question.
Anyway, the school has a focus on science, which is his real passion. Also, despite not having a 'gifted' program per se or even an early entrance option, we ended up feeling like they would foster the kind of environment that we felt would be best for allowing him to feel comfortable in his interests and give him the opportunity to move ahead with differentiation as much as possible. About 1 month and a half into the school year he got bumped up to 2nd grade for both reading and math. He loves this arrangement and, for now, its working wonderfully.
Even though this arrangement is working for the time being I am always aware that we may need to change things at any time. Right now, DS is saying that he wants to go to 2nd grade next year and skip up to 3rd for math and reading. He's already testing at a mid-3rd grade reading level (up from mid-2nd in October)and is trying to do multiplication and division as well as negative numbers, fractions, etc... so I have no idea what level he'll test at or where we will end up having to place him next year. For now, we let him enjoy things as they are, expand on them at his request at home, and really just sit back and enjoy the show
Sit down, buckle up, and hold on. It's gonna be a wild ride and there's no map to show you where you're going.

P.S. I'm assuming I'm not the only one who firmly expected to have a kid, put him in school at 5, go through all 13 grades, have him graduate at 18, and then go to college, only to be shown in no uncertain terms that MY plans have absolutely no bearing on HIS education ;-)

Hi Annette,

The Davidson database has a few articles on radical acceleration. They advocate one skip at a time, and doing it as early as possible. I know that each child is different, and the one skip at a time may not be possible, given how advanced he is. But the research has been quite positive on radical acceleration in general, particularly on the child's social development and view of self-worth. One article in particular compares one year skip to multiple skips in terms of the happiness of the child. This can be useful when approaching schools about multiple grade skips.

My son, DS11, has had two grade accelerations. He is in 8th grade and bored silly. He sounds much like your son at age three. I remember him teaching himself multiplication at age 3 by watching a Schoolhouse Rock video once. Sigh. I'll point out a few things that I have learned along the way. They may or may not help you, since each child is so different.

Much talk is given to grade acceleration. But you can also subject de-accelerate, when needed if you want him to be with age peers. My son fits in socially best with kids that are 3 years older than him. (He has a summer birthday, and was by far the youngest even before the skips). The one class I would consider de-acceleration to be important is gym. Having a young kid, who has yet to hit puberty, in with older kids can be hard. It really depends on the older kids, and how they handle it. But it can be a source of bullying and teasing. You can also put them in younger grades for art, music, etc. But honestly, my son prefers to be with older kids, even for gym.

Puberty is just not fun. It is hard to have an 11 year old boy in a class where the kids are completely obsessed with sex. They talk about it constantly. They think about it constant. They share words, definitions, and web sites with your kid that you really wish they wouldn't . But hey, that is just the one downside to having appropriate education. Ask me again when he is a high school senior and still can't drive if it was the right move to make. I'm pretty sure I'll still say yes.

The other thing is that for PG kids, the rate of learning is radically different than for normal kids. You can skip all the grades you want, but the pace of the new class/grade can still be maddeningly slow. So even radical acceleration doesn't really solve the problem, if your son is in a regular school like mine is. Unfortunately, not all areas have HG+ schools. My son spent most of the last month drawing Sci-Fi cartoons and inventing computer codes and expansions for his Mindcraft world in his head when the teacher is talking. He can do the lesson and the homework in the time it takes the teacher to explain the lesson to the class. He currently enjoys the company of his classmates, so we are trying to settle in and keep this grade. I honestly don't know if further acceleration is in our future or not. Sometime subject acceleration, on top of multiple grade acceleration, helps keep them with their friends, but allowing their mind to be challenged in at least one area.

And teachers are the make-or-break needle on the balance. A teacher who gets your child can make all of the difference. Unfortunately, this means that each year is like Russian roulette. Some years are great, while other years are dismal. And this is within the very same school. It makes any form of planning just useless.

And lastly, from my limited experience, what seems to be important is the temperament of the PG child in determining how he/she fits into school. Some kids are intense and have trouble with the slowness of school. Other kids are mellower and can handle the boredom if they enjoy the social fit. It just depends on the personality of the child. Our second child, DD2.5, is completely different from DS11 in personality and temperament. We will likely have to learn everything about gifted kids and accommodations all over again in order to help her.

You are going to have a wild ride in store for you. The best I can say is that you already have a leg up on the situation, since you are investigation education options and you have read about levels of giftedness. This board is wonderful for both the friendship and the resources.

Cheers!

DS(4y2m) also gives a blank look when asked an easy question.
He has never been one to draw or colour because of perfectionist issues but a breakthrough came for us with the book 'Ish' and his space obsession (alien people, buildings etc are supposed to be odd shapes )
He loves taking things apart also.
I have no idea how a fit will happen at school as he is an introverted (but not shy) boy, reading gr 3 level, maths probably gr 1/2 level, general knowledge/science mid to late primary but socially closer to his age. We are thinking of an initial skip to gr 1 next year with hopefully subject extension, +/- another skip the following year. One step at a time... He would love homeschooling in some ways but at the same time some of school would be potentially good for him. It will be quite a journey for us all...

I'm so grateful for the above posters and comments. I'm going through a similar situation with my eg/pg son (6 yr) in kindergarten.

My son's been in two private gifted schools (both aimed at HG/MG) since last year and we're about to pull him from the second one and homeschool him. We tried a number of times working with both schools, but we've found the teachers/principals inflexible about grade skipping and other policies. Then again, we also ran into social/emotional issues with both schools in terms of my son and other children.

So I agree that a lot of revolves around the teachers/administration as well as the other kids. It is case of Russian Roulette.

I've found other issues too crop up with having a eg/pg who's 3-5 years ahead of his age and peers.
1. Confidence/output. Children do not always want their ideas/thinking/abilities to stand out. My son read two books at a 4th grade level (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the sequel) but no one else at the gifted school is reading 4-5 levels ahead. My son doesn't want to stand out so now he's reading at a 2/3 grade level again.
2. Acceptance/tolerance. Some pg kids can be in an academic setting who are less gifted, but others will not tolerate it long-term. We had this happened with our son, especially at the 1st gifted school. He whizzed through the pre-k/k/1st grade curriculum in 2 1/2 months and then started to act up because he was bored and wanted to be out asap. At both schools, we've found that our son has trouble relating to kids his age and vice versa. This has contributed to problems. He's done better at the second gifted school in a mixed-aged setting, but we've also come across older kids who don't know what to make of him, not mature, or 'resent' him (for lack of a better word).
3. Social/emotional. Your son may be socially/emotionally more mature than other kids his age, but others may not be as advanced. Some kids are fine with this, but other kids like my son are less tolerant.
4. Curriculum. Teacher/child-driven. We found our son totally resisted the drill-kill, rote learning, teacher-driven approach at the first gifted school. Total disaster. At the second gifted school, it's been child-driven/ intrinsically driven and there's been more success. Still, my son is miserable with the way the teachers at the second gifted school approach math, especially the timed test method. He's been less thrilled with some of the overemphasis on arts/crafts and experiential learning than on content. Upon reflection, I'd say you need to strike a happy balance between content and extras and intrinsic/external motivation to learning.

If the curriculum isn't rigorous enough or enough depth/content for your pg (like we've found), then it can be a difficult bridge to cross if your son isn't getting enough to sustain him at a school setting. And of course, there are other curriculum issues that pg parents face, which some of the above posters have mentioned. Even if you're child is reading only 3 grade levels ahead, you still have to monitor what they're reading in terms of social/emotional issues. I forgot how much authors write about bullying, teasing, girl/boy stuff, sibling rivalry, etc. in books aimed at typical 3rd grade children. It starts early and yet your child may or may not be ready.

PG kids tend to do better in mixed-age school settings so they do not stand out, but again it depends on the child, teachers, school, and the other students.