Thanks for this thread, montana. We're dealing with the same issue right now with our DD. I have a few friends who were skipped and they say it wasn't a great experience for them, mainly once they reached high school. Both of them feel being younger contributed to them making poor decisions and giving in to social pressure. That's just how they feel, though.
I wasn't skipped and neither was my DH, though he definitely should have been and I probably should have been. He was given math textbooks to work through alone in middle school, and he was pretty miserable until he got to high school coursework. I never learned any work ethic and definitely went "underground" until college and law school, though AP classes did perk me up quite a bit in high school.
Our DD6 doesn't seem to want to go to 2nd grade right now, mainly because she has a few friends in her 1st grade class and she's heard that there are fights in 2nd grade. She says it sounds scary. I will say, though, as you likely know, the research overwhelmingly supports acceleration as a good option for gifted kids. That's what's changed our minds. A little over a year ago we said that we'd never grade skip our kids; we should have known that in parenting, never say never. I had learned that principle about sippy cups, bedtimes, pull ups and other things. I guess we'd gotten too big for our parenting britches.
I'm interested to hear about others' experiences. Thanks for starting this thread.
