Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Grade skipping trade offs

That is our thinking also Ivy.

I think elementary aged children usually understand about skipping. I have seen recommendations to let them try it even if they are hesitant because it can always be reversed; if they are solidly against it, though, it doesn't seem a good idea.

My daughter was excited about skipping and it has worked well. We're pleased with the decision. Additional skips have been recommended, though, and she doesn't want to do that at present. She does go to a higher grade for individual subjects and does individual work, though, so that helps.

This is one reason we delayed skipping my son for so long. He was miserable, we knew he was miserable, but we also knew his best friend was in his current grade and class and he didn't want to skip because of that. (Also, the group of boys in the next grade up weren't a good fit for him. It was a separate HGT classroom, so we knew he would be with those boys for several years.) We did the skip in middle school and even though he's small for his age, and now even smaller because he's with older kids, he's still happier. I think/hope it's going to get better every year now, instead of worse.

We didn't skip our DD in sixth grade because she said no. She was miserable for the whole year. Kids are still kids and as much as they understand skipping, DD had already done it once, they can't always see all the consequences. Neither can adults so not unexpected.

The point is to consider all options and have a back up plan. Skipping isn't the answer for every kid or in every situation but I am now wary of DD being negative about options because she fears change. We then have to work harder to ensure she can see both the positives and negatives of both sides to an option. Debating has helped actually.

I think this can't be repeated often enough: when your kid is miserable, that is a crisis and doing nothing is not the "safest" thing, and skipping may not be the bigger risk even though teachers, and often parents, and sometimes kids, think it is.
Our kid might be happier in a higher grade, or he might not. He is bored in maths and has meltdowns during revision period at the beginning of the school year. But for the rest of the year, the rest of the day, he is NOT miserable. If he were, this whole trade off debate would have had to be different.
I think it is important to view grade skipping in a somewhat more clinical way: not driven by the stark test scores, but by the child's day to day, demonstrated needs (as we parents, experienced testers, competent teachers and not least our children can assess them).

I totally agree Tigerle. When children are miserable it is a huge red flag. We have seen it twice and it was awful. The other problem is that when anyone is depressed, change can seem even more daunting so paradoxically, making a move can be even harder. We had exactly that situation in year 4 and despite being miserable DD was terrified of going to a new school with a full time gifted class. We had a back up plan and made her try, which may be contrary to what some people believe we should have done, and DD had the best year of her educational experience.

Of course, listen to your kids but also look clearly at the entire situation. Low mood is not conducive to making clear decisions in adults let alone in miserable children.

I have another one that tends to fear change-- and wants ALL of the data (sometimes irrational, that, since it isn't always available without a crystal ball).

She also tends (on the other side of things) to see only positive aspects to change once she is onboard with it, and then minor setbacks (often things which can be anticipated, even) tend to seem like epic failure to her.

She only once "blamed" her gradeskips for feelings of social difficulty in secondary-- and when I asked her what we should have done instead, then, she quickly backpedaled. She didn't REALLY mean that she'd rather be a seventh grader than a junior in high school at the time. Not really. How did she phrase it?

Oh yes-- "Before I answer that, do you know how a wild animal might chew off its own leg to escape from a trap? Well, that's probably what 7th grade would feel like to me at the moment. Yes-- academically, of course. It would be intolerable there. But socially it would also be awful. Have you SEEN how they act??"

I think that was a vote from my then-13yo in favor of "thanks, but being an 11th grader might suck a little bit, and occasionally more than that, but it's definitely not the worst option."

Letting go of thinking in terms of perfect educational solutions was really key for us as a family in meeting DD's needs reasonably well. We weren't going to get perfect. The real question was whether or not it was a good-enough solution.

Think we have DDs with very similar outlooks HK!

We have done a lot of letting go of perfect. Even our current setting is by no means what we expected but we keep working on making it work and DD isn't miserable. That is really important.

While getting the child's input is great there are times when a parent has to make a decision in the child's best interests.

The IAS is a helpful tool.

I tried getting the IAP. It seems to be only available as a school bundle of 10 for $200. Anyone knows how to get one for home use?