Knowing that you like a lively discussion, I will partially disagree with you.
I do indeed! Good on ya'!
I was skipped preemptively; the only one having a problem was my teacher who didn't know what to do with me. Before the skip I was very happy, had lots of friends, and was not bored.
I would agree with you wholeheartedly that this is very probably the root of the problem with your skip. I would never support a skip for the sake of a teacher's convenience! Oh my!
My point is that if you can see that a *child* is going to have a bad fit, I don't think you have to wait until behavioral problems occur before you do something. (And I'm not suggesting that a grade skip is the only something that can/should be done.) We do this all the time as parents, don't we? We try to arrange to have our children's needs met so that there are no problems. We try to get him in the classroom of the teacher who will be best for him. We try to get her in that summer enrichment program so she's not bored all summer. Why should other interventions (including but not limited to grade-skipping) necessarily be any different?
I was subject-accelerated two grades from the start of K. There was no time for boredom on my part to become behavioral or emotional problems. I walked across the playground into the main school building for 2nd grade reading on the first day of K. In arranging this intervention for me, my parents didn't wait for trouble, they prevented it. The writing was on the wall for me: I'd been reading books for roughly half my life at that point. Going back to learning letters would have made me miserable. My parents knew me and respected my needs enough to take preemptive action, and it worked in my case. In fact, I think their action probably made it so that a full grade skip was not strictly necessary, though I sometimes wonder if it would have been better for me (much as you wonder if it would have been better not to have been skipped, acs). Socially I was always much more comfortable with older kids.
But I digress...
I think that if Mia--and anyone else--can see that her child is likely to have problems in a regular class, then it's perfectly responsible to take action to prevent those problems.
My caveat that I'll add again is that with these kids it is always necessary to be flexible, but it is especially important to be flexible with a preemptive intervention. If it doesn't work as planned, then you have to find a way to fix it.
Since we're talking about it, I'm curious, acs...
May I ask: how do your parents remember those years? What do they have to say about their choice to grade-skip you? Why didn't they try something else with you when it became clear that you were unhappy? Did they not know how hard it was on you?
I've been wondering about that, since I think virtually all parents--certainly you, me, and everyone on this forum!--would advocate for a change if our kids were unhappy with an intervention. I find your parents' lack of action to be confusing, particularly since it comes on the heels of a grade-skip, the action biggie! Clearly your parents weren't uninvolved in your education. I guess I feel like I don't understand their part of the story.
I don't mean to pry, and I'm not judging. I just wonder about this every time it comes up in conversation, and I thought I should finally ask. I hope I don't offend by asking!
