Thank you guys so much! Already I can tell this place will help me feel better!
So, I tried to figure out the quoting thing, but I am apparently too tired and braindead. So, um..hmm. point. Ok. I'll try and go through and respond in order to everyone.
Kriston, I have considered grade skip and homeschooling. Homeschooling I think about but worry about socialization,b/c my son really likes being with groups that are WORKING for him. Also, I worry about me. See braindead, above, and small baby. And we would be a lot more secure if I can get a job, you know? we're kind of scrambling a bit just now- we moved into this town last year FOR the school system and safe neighborhood thing. It's frustrating to think if we'd stayed in our mold-ridden place on a 60mph road with no children around, we could maybe have afforded private school. So there's money, there's worry that I wouldn't be a good teacher, there's ds's loneliness-- but there's also this feeling that we would be butting heads terribly, that it would be too much closeness or something. He's terribly strong willed, and probably I am too, really. It just feels like a good idea intellectually IFF I could keep it together to actually teach instead of leaving him to his own devices while I read things and fed the baby...but I don't really trust myself on that, and I have this worried feeling that then our relationship would become contentious instead of safe for him.
Grade skip I don't think the school does willingly...but I also have reservations about it. DS is really sensitive and cries easily. He's been gross-motor delayed. He's very short...even as one of the oldest kids in his class, there are girls nearly a year younger than him who are taller than him. And he CARES, a lot, about being teased for being slow or physically inept. He's also not incredibly socially at ease. No wonder, really, but I feel like he's kind of maturity-wise where he should be, and I hate to expose him to feeling little and less with much older kids.
And there's also a bad family history with grade skips. My mom did two, and always felt so out of it socially, has had life-long poor self-concept and is quite depressed and has trouble connecting with people/making friends. My brother-in-law was skipped one, and was never able to make friends, protected himself against feeling out of things by feeling superior, has a lot of trouble with dating, has a troubled marriage, and has been in grad school for 16 years w/o getting a degree, has no job, and is pretty conflicted and unhappy. My grad school roommate and her eventual husband were skipped a year...my friend therefore developed later than other kids and worried she was lesbian b/c not interested in boys at same time, and feels that it made her promiscuous to try to counter that. Her husband, who's short like my son, but athletically gifted, unlike my son, felt constantly unsafe and was held back a year in 7th grade when they moved, and then felt SO much better and did great after that. My brother was sent early to school, and spent his life being really picked on and feeling miserable. My second brother my mom held back a year, and he was then taller and more coordinated...he was less picked on, though still some. I thought she made a terrible decision at the time, but looking back, I think it was brave and good of her to do the social hold back. (all of these people are gifted, btw).
So all the examples I happen to know involve long-term unhappiness with the skip. I know this is anecdotal. But also, in most of these cases...the people share genes with my son. So my dh and I are really worried about it. In our cases, b/c of dh's brother and my mom's experience, we were not skipped. We were in multi-age classrooms and subject accelerated. And we both feel we had an easier time and are happier adults. And that's what we want for our kids...that they be happy, productive adults, not that they necessarily win the Nobel (my dh's parents' goal for him, I kid you not. They still call up to berate him for not doing better on that!)
I've also thought, it's not like he just read the 'wrong' books and has contraband information, and after the classes catch up he'll be all the same as the other kids. He learns fast, and I feel like no matter where he skips to, he'll have this problem of being driven nuts by the instruction. Which is really repetitive and test-driven.
So I've noticed that grade skipping seems to be thought the best-practice thing to do...but I'm concerned about it for my particular son. My second son, I'm considering letting him do the early kindergarten thing, b/c he is more socially able and very good athletically. He is still short and sensitive, but he doesn't have as many counter-indications, I think. I really don't know about that, but I've got a year or two to worry about it.
And, #3 is stirring, so I think I'll post this now rather than counting on having time to respond to everyone. I would, at any rate, really appreciate thoughts on the grade skips...I sure notice that we seem to be in a real minority in thinking the grade skip is not nec. such a good idea, and that makes me wonder if we're idiots.
