Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Radical acceleration down the road - any regrets?

We're homeschooling, so many of these concerns don't arise.

I agree with doing what's right in the near term, and cross future bridges as you come to them.

THIS. Both paragraphs-- so, so much.

The reason that I had a thoughtful answer at the ready, honestly, is that we have thought most of this stuff through. Ad nauseum, in some particular niches.

No crystal ball but ask yourself whether you are a glass empty or a glass full type of person. This will make a difference. For example, if you are a glass full type of person, you are more likely to notice every instance down the road that affirms the soundness of your initial choice. Regardless, know this: There is generally not one right decision at a particular point but rather a series of adjustments we make along the way, which of course depends on what we have chosen before.

There are so many variables at any given point that you first need to understand your personal priorities and what should be priorities based on your particular child's idiosyncrasies. Because you described your DS as anxious and highly sensitive, I would examine your choices through that particular lens to avoid harm above all else. It's truly a balancing act. For example, while a little boredom never killed anyone, persistent unrelenting boredom year after year can also do real damage.

DS11 just started middle school (6th - 8th grade here) so a lot can still change between now and adulthood. However, I am glad that we chose not to grade skip him when it was on the table in early elementary. We did double subject accelerated him in math (during 2nd and 4th) so that he is studying GT Geometry with 8th graders this year. Interestingly, one of the reasons that we chose not to triple subject accelerate him was my concern that Geometry might be a weak area (based on his relative visual spatial weakness) so that I wanted him to be older when he took the course. At the time (two years ago), our district GT math sequence placed GT Geometry after GT Algebra II so that DS would have turned 12 before studying GT Geometry. However, due to Common Core, our district changed the sequence starting this year so that GT Geometry now comes before GT Algebra II. Ironically, this means that electing to NOT subject accelerate an extra year two years ago still resulted in DS taking GT Geometry at age 11. Who knew? As it turned out, based on a recent geometric reasoning assessment, DS is still an outlier and presumably well beyond ready for a course requiring geometric proofs. Now you can interpret our choice two years ago as a mistake since the district ended up changing their math sequence this year and it turned out that DS was ready for GT Geometry at age 11 so that he could have/should have taken GT Algebra I two years ago and GT Algebra II last year. However, it's actually all good. I don't have regrets partly because DS' GT Pre-algebra teacher two years ago helped lay that strong foundation in Geometry since many units in that course covered Geometric topics. DS would not be as strong in Geometry now if he had taken GT Algebra I instead two years ago. That's not my way of rationalizing or claiming that we made the best choice - only that there can be good found in many choices and it does not necessarily have to be do or die. HTH

I'll chime in as someone who was not radically accelerated, but who made choices that allowed for some acceleration in university.

My public elementary school volunteered a skip from 3 to 6, but my parents were concerned about socialization and encouraged me to select a single year skip. At the time, gifted testing began at the beginning of fourth grade. I moved into the 5th grade gifted program 6 weeks into the school year after the test results came in. I was not academically challenged, made friends, but felt like an isolate, and spent most of my time reading in class.

I moved to a private girls' school for 7 to 12 with a group of university bound girls. The social dynamic was terrific, and I quickly morphed into a social butterfly-hyper achiever, grew to hold leadership roles in many clubs and played several varsity sports. I had an A+ average every year, despite never doing work outside class and goofing off in class on my laptop with friends.

I managed to cut the final year off high school, complete the IB diploma program, and gain credits for first year university, giving me second year placement while preserving first year scholarships. University was probably the first time I'd ever had to work, but after a semester I had figured out how to get As with minimal effort while enjoying a robust social life. I enrolled in a master's program, compacted and completed it in 8 months, and went on to work as a researcher at a think tank at 20, where most of my colleagues were 30+.

I'm by no means as accelerated as many folks here. In hindsight, I think any number of arrangements could have been successful, including another year or two of acceleration in elementary. The single sex environment was, for me, a social catalyst. I went to university between 3 and 4 years younger than peers and blended in well. In my first year, most of my friends were seniors.

Just thought I'd tell a story of self-governed, late stage acceleration to show that the game isn't over in elementary.

I'm un/homeschooling my 2/pg ds8.5 due to the rapid acceleration issue. He's already been in two private (gifted) school and neither one of them could accommodate or even address the rapid acceleration needs. I ran out of options. Both schools could only deal with a couple of grade skips, but nothing else and ds started to tailspin. I had to un/homeschool and try to figure something out and quickly too.

Ds will be an early college in time and when he's social/emotionally ready. I don't have a crystal ball or when that time will be. However, there's a number of colleges and prestigious prep/boarding schools who enroll kids around 12 yrs old, some even possibly earlier. Mia Farrow's son, Ronan, went to college at 10 yrs old, for example.

A point to keep in mind is that there's tons of college courses online (MOOCs - massive open online courses) today - totally free too. There's EdX, Coursera, Udacity, Future Learn, Open 2 Study, and many, many more. So there are potentially options for some temporary or short-term college work at home.

I'm not saying online college courses are ideal, but they may provide an intermediate step for you. There may also be local opportunities for a young child to attend college courses at a community college or state college or equivalent. Again, these may not be ideal situations. However, they may be the lesser of two evils or the least worst situation.

Two things I try to keep in mind: 1) most decisions are reversible and 2) most 'normal' rules don't apply here. With un/homeschooling, my ds can take high school or college courses online yet play around with kids his own chronological age or at the playground, for instance, which would be nearly impossible otherwise.

So, what is a wrong woman, and how do I recognize them and get rid of the little hussies for my poor DS :p?
The first is actually a genuine question...

How do you undo a skip? I mean apart from the obvious - how did you make the placement work for her?

I don't want DS to start college too early. I think it's an important point that one can take college level course, either informally learning the material, or actually enrolling in individual courses before actually formally enrolling as a full-time college student.

At my high school in the 1980s there was a policy that you would be docked a full letter grade for skipping a single class. High schools do value attendance, in part because funding is tied to attendance and also because they are supposed to help enforce truancy laws.

Some but not all college course do not require attendance, although I would not recommend skipping classes. More important, the number of hours per week of class time is much lower than in high school. There is no "study hall", and you are not being babysat/warehoused. I was a goody two-shoes in high school, but high school graduation was still one of the best days in my life, because it meant FREEDOM. Accelerating your children means granting them freedom earlier.

I can give the OP some anecdotal information about my eldest, who is a boy and is 14. He skipped two grades and is now a combined high school junior/college freshman. This odd placement is because he's enrolled in a program called Middle College. I recommend that others at least read about Middle College programs. They're fairly popular are free, and aren't heavily advertised.

Academically and socially, the double skip worked out well through 7th grade. Eighth grade was difficult for him socially for a variety of reasons. One of them was that the boys were adolescents and he wasn't. He homeschooled for 9th grade and then went to the regular high school last year. At that point, he was bigger and he fit in better with the boys in his class, and always had someone to hang around with at lunch, etc. He was happy last year. He's also happy this year, though the girl thing is probably tough. That area is presumably tough in its own way for 99.9% of high school kids, though, so at least he's in good company.

Middle College (MC) is a dual enrollment program for high school students (some programs are for grades 9-12; more typical is 11-12). Academically, it's amazing at this point (>3 weeks in) and has surpassed my expectations. People who read this forum regularly know how often and how loudly I complain about schools, so for me to say "it's amazing" says a lot.

My son spends his whole day at the college, where he takes 3 high school classes with the people who run the program, and and 3 college classes. Interestingly, the MC students aren't allowed to take remedial courses! He may have an A.S. in Mathematics when he's 16 (hasn't completely decided yet). The people who run the program are very smart, and that makes a huge difference --- not just for my son, but for all the kids in the program.

Others here have said, "We don't want our child to go to college when s/he's too young," and I understand that sentiment, because I feel it too. My concern is that being too much younger than the people around you will create significant social problems. So far, Middle College is allowing DS to take college classes while being surrounded by students who are still kids. He also benefits from the college's open-minded perspective regarding very young students. For example, a 12-year-old took calculus recently, and there's a 13-year-old non-Middle-College student in one of DS's classes.

Middle College programs presumably differ from place to place, but they're generally seen as alternative ed. From what I've seen, programs in this bucket tend to have increased flexibility and less of many of the very frustrating stuff that comes with big public school systems and even many private schools.