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

Just thinking this out, since DD is just turning 10. The frontal cortex does all that crazy growth 14-21, right? And just thinking how I was emotionally, even though I skipped, fit in socially, emotionally I was what I was. What is the price?
A 15 year old boy in college is probably not going to get any action for a while. While a 15 year old girl is a desirable target. No matter how smart, socially adjusted, it is still an emotional issue. Great, if the guy stays with her for a few years, but it aint high school. I had not thought about the emotional factor. Socially DD is great, intellectually no problems, but now that I think about it, not sure how any emotional scars from sexual relationships in college would impact her.

Suddenly reminding me of the desperately hopeful look on the face of the opposite-sex radically-accelerated college classmate who was one of the few I knew who was not one of my relatives or their friends. Too bad I had, by that time, decided that the solution to the age gap was to wait until I had reached late adolescence for anything more than simple friendship! Which is, of course, one possible solution.

Oh, and the frontal lobe is still growing well into the early 20s. Usually later for males than for females. Which is probably one of the reasons (in addition to the range of optimal reproductive health) that it is more socially-acceptable for the male partner in a romantic pairing to be older than for the female partner.

And see, I look back and feel that arc is largely idiosyncratic as much as the intellectual one is.

My emotional maturity had been goosed substantially by life circumstances-- so I was more or less not like any other 14-16yo, but much more like my friends who were 22-28yo. I understood certain things about the human condition, if you will, because I'd seen things that most kids my age had not. Most teens? Made me feel old. And tired. World-weary and not a little impatient with their-- immaturity and naivete. I remember that sensation quite clearly, and recall thinking that I hated being the functional "grown-up" in every group. My friends and family agemates and I did a lot of very dangerous/risky things during those years, but my judgment kept us just this side of major disaster, if that makes sense. I was a wild teen, but the ONLY time that we ran afoul of the laws of man or nature was when someone was too dumb or arrogant to listen to me when I offered objections. Of course, a healthy dose of good luck helped, too-- but when I go into detail about some of those things, like bridge jumping, staying out all night, etc, it is still clear to me many decades out that my judgment was that of a person much older. It appeared that I was far more reckless than was ACTUALLY the case. My mouthiness was the only thing that getting older helped with in terms of regulation. At 15 I was already very much like the person I'd be at 30. I realize that is somewhat anomalous.

DD's emotional maturity is similarly old for age-- but for different reasons. She is less sexually mature for age, however-- but she is far more self-aware there than I was, and having parents who are assertively in-the-loop has meant that we've done what we can to protect her and coach her as she encounters predatory individuals and unhealthy interpersonal stuff.

Anyway. All of that to note that I think that all of those developmental arcs (physical, emotional, intellectual) have to be taken into account, and reconciled in the context of a person's life circumstances if one is to know what the "right" thing is. Our strategy with DD is to make sure that she can talk to us about anything (and she does), and to express our hopes, our fears (within limits, of course), and expectations to her. We also make clear what is known about the neurobiology of any particular stage or event in her life, so that she can properly contextualize it and extrapolate from as many different places as possible. Thus far, that analytical approach seems to work very well for her.

Hindsight is always 20/20, though.

Tigerle, we didn't accelerate even though our ds has been working way ahead of grade level since he was very young. Have I ever had regrets? Yes. I've also had many times that I've been thankful that we didn't. I think that truthfully there is no clear answer in either direction for most kids, and no crystal ball for us as parents to look into and know what the best answer will be for "most of the time".

All in all, accelerated or not, I think the key to success for all of our kids is staying in touch and involved as a parent and being flexible enough to change direction or forge a new path as your child encounters a new bump in the road or a new opportunity along their journey.

For us personally, the one large looming thing that held us back from accelerating was hearing from parents of children who had been accelerated that it was great for elementary school but they regretted it once their child was in class with middle school kids going through puberty. I also honestly didn't want to lose any years that my ds would be at home with family by sending him off and away to college at an early age. For our ds, that decision worked out well because he's always been happy being with age-peers and once he was mature enough to talk about this and give us his opinions, he was very clear that he also didn't want to be whole-grade accelerated. He's also very clear with us that there have been times that boredom with the pace and intellectual level of some of his classes has been beyond bearable - but he would rather have that than be navigating socially in a grade where he was by far the youngest student. Did not accelerating prevent him from learning at as high of a level as he is capable of? Definitely at times, more so in his early education than now in high school, but yes, it did. Did it matter? It felt like it did sometimes back then, today I'd say a big "NO". He did not become lazy and he didn't lose any of his love and motivation for learning. He may have added a few years to the time it will take him to find whatever career he ultimately decides, but that's ok. Really.

So sorry - no real advice here, just a note that it's sooooo not ever going to be easy to know which is *the* way to go. And there might be multiple ways to go! The best any of us can do as parents is to gather all the input we can, and then go with whatever our gut feeling is - so trust your instincts, whatever direction they are pointing

Best wishes,

polarbear

I have been following this thread with interest. Like HK, I was absent a lot of the time in high school and developed a really negative attitude toward formal education during the process. I was near the top of my class and in the national honor society despite my absences and it gave me a lack of respect for the educational process that regrettably continued into college. I did fine in college as well, but could have taken much more from my education if I had been more engaged prior to graduate school.

My daughter has been accelerated one grade and has a spring birthday, so she is quite young for her class. Her psychologist suggested another skip, but she doesn't want one. She loves being one grade higher, but feels that a larger skip would be too much. Her school is somewhat flexible (it is a charter school and kids work at their own pace, plus she goes to the middle school classes as needed). It really isn't ideal, though, and we are starting up tutoring to try to keep her engaged. The expense really adds up; tutoring costs more than when she was in private school for a couple of years at this point.

I don't know what we will do for high school because she is so out of sync at this point. We will look at early college entrance, but I also don't want her going away before she is ready. People argued against the single grade skip saying, "do you really want your child to go to college a year early?" I responded that she could always stay home or travel for a year; she didn't have to go to college. The problem is becoming more pressing now that it's clear the acceleration wasn't enough.

I agree with polarbear. I think there are multiple options that can be made to work. You can always do an acceleration and then reverse it, as awkward as that may be. The decisions aren't irreversible and situations can change. I just try to do the best I can.

I was really bored in high school, and skipped a lot too. Skipping was fun Going to class, not so much lol! Except for a few classes that were made up of just the few of us very geeky science nerds… with teachers who taught us at our level. That kept me going. I have often been annoyed that I willingly spent hours daydreaming my way through the slow and boring classes because I felt that didn't help me develop good habits for paying attention in lectures when I needed to in college and beyond. OTOH, I think I'm by nature a day-dreamer so I'm not sure it's fair to blame all of that tendency on being under-challenged in high school.

We're just beginning the high school journey with our kids - but fwiw, high school is so very different now in terms of options than it was when I was young (a long time ago). There were electives and honors courses and AP courses (although far fewer) when I was in high school, but that was about it. Today our public high schools (where we live) offer credits for online classes, for courses taken through programs such as CTY, for mentorships in the community, for courses taken at both of our local universities, and we have several alternative programs as well as the traditional honors and highly gifted programs. The opportunities for having challenge and studying in your area of passion as a high school student *today* are just absolutely 100 times more abundant than they were when I had my relatively "non-challenging" high school experience. I hope they will continue to offer more variety and opportunities as the world changes in the next 10+ years for the children on this board who are just starting out in their education journey.

Just a thought

polarbear

Thank you so much for all these stories, it is incredibly helpful to get all this btdt perspective that is so hard to find in real life.

I realize that in our case, it is the emotional side even more than the social side that worries me. DS is tall, thin and handsome in a geeky sort of way, and girls seem to like him. He has a harder time with boys, particularly as he is unable to do the posturing and physical stuff. He is all sincerity and literalness. I am not even worried about him drinking too early - he is too much worried about the effects of alcohol even now, barely swayed by peer pressure and anyway, we live in Europe, he can legally drink with his parents at 14 and by himself at 16, which takes a lot of pressure off kids to prove their coolness by rule breaking.

But he is physically awkward and really bad at ball games, and while he wouldn't be interested in school sports and we can choose club sports for him where he might be able to succeed inspire of this (I will try to keep him interested in martial arts to improve his coordination, and later let him try out rowing) there is mandatory PE and games at recess...I could tell he was upset that his first number grade in PE was as bad as it was.

How to keep up his confidence, let him overcome his anxieties, understand that another kid being unfair or mean is not the end of the world or even that bad on the side of the kid...i think it might be harder with a second skip.

And all of you who reminded me that nothing is set in stone are right of course. Well, we might be choosing his high school soon, as middle and high are one continuous program we live. But schools can be changed and there is always early college - the local university might be a good science choice at least for a couple years.

Any more stories? Loving how this thread turned out!

Our current plan is to homeschool until we run out of advanced high school material, and then take individual/extension/online college courses in those subjects until our children appear globally-ready for the college life. We try to keep their schedules, independent homework, and extracurriculars at a level of intensity that matches their interests and developmental levels, with only the content of academics accelerated. Our sports enthusiast plays by age group, which appears to be the norm in our community, for both community and club teams. We do know many talented athletes who "play up," often with much older children, based on their level of competition. School teams play by grade placement, but also routinely "cross-grade" athletes by skill. (Alas, none of this is common for academics.) One of the advantages of homeschooling is that no one on the team (kids or parents) seems interested in the grade placement of our child.

My siblings and I were all radically accelerated straight into college, which, as I said, I don't exactly regret, but I and one of my siblings with school-age children appear to be tending toward the model described above for our own children. Another sibling, whose children are early elementary age, has them in a high-achieving private school (more or less pre-prep level), without any particular plan to accelerate so far.

We didn't go away to college (attending the state 4-year in our home community instead), mainly because our parents felt we should still be under the level of attention and supervision typical of our chronological ages, but also because, back in the day, most college insurance policies would not cover students under 16 in campus housing. Besides, our parents took the position that only your grad/professional degree matters; your undergraduate institution is irrelevant, beyond a minimum level easily met by a four-year state institution. Generally speaking, that proved to be the case.

As there is no way of accurately predicting the circumstances this many years in the future, I think it is most productive to make decisions about placement and programming based on what is best for your child right now--for the next six months, year, two years. I am inclined to overthink future plans too, but remind myself that my parents had to make very fluid school decisions for each of us (all quite different along the way), most of which they would not have been able to anticipate based on our circumstances at age seven.

I hear the anxiety about harming your child in the future with a decision made now in good faith. There is something to be said for extending a certain amount of mercy to yourself as a parent. We do the best we can, but we will make mistakes. Surprisingly few of them result in irretrievable damage, especially as long as we are effective in communicating to our children that we love and value them as they are, and thus make parenting decisions as an expression of our love. Even when there may be irreversible consequences, the context of love allows for forgiveness and healing. Do the best you can based on the resources you have available to you, apologize and make reparations if it doesn't work out, and forgive yourself.

You are so right. I'm guessing most of us parents here went through school during the early days of developing institutional gifted ed programs. (Actually, the early days of widespread programming for children with disabilities, too, so any of you who are 2e really got hit hard.) With all the challenges remaining, there are many more options now than there were in the past.

Oh, and I didn't skip class at all...but I did read through every one of my classes. I would check out a book at the beginning of the day, and return it to the school library before going home. Sometimes I'd have to stop by at lunchtime for a new book. I think it was very educational.