Can someone explain to me why #2 above would be a reason not to accelerate? Why are merit scholarships a consdieration? I understand the rest, but not that one.
Thanks!
If one is depending on being a big fish in a little pond in order to get to college then it might be better to go with keeping the child in school with agemates, and making them work their butts off at home. Theoretically the child would have more free time to pursue a academic competitions or Intel science. So much depends on the parenting style and on the child's personality. I believe the research says that children who get their needed gradeskip have more knowledge than if they stayed at their original grade, but if you have a very self-motivated kid, or are a bigtime charismatic leader in your home who's kid does everything you say the first time, and your kid has enough stamina to pass time in school AND do meaningful enrichment at home, then maybe it's better to leave them as standouts in their grade...our family definitely couldn't pull that off, but my son knew a very gifted child in his 6th grade class who was taking this approach. The father said: 'When the teacher assigns a 4 page paper - You Do and 8 page paper.' and the child did!
I think that the family did cultivate an 'us vs. them' mentality to justify why their kid had to do double what the other kids did - but I'm not knocking it - it was working!
Love and More Love,
Grinity
