Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Grade skipping and sports

Just like to mention that many of us are adults who were grade-skipped (some multiple skips), who have none (or few) of those regrets. There is data to support that the majority of adults who were radically-accelerated as children feel that the benefits outweighed the drawbacks. One's child could as easily say, years later, "if you had only grade-skipped me, I could have..." (http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/edu/82/3/464/)

We make the best parenting decisions we can for our children, and communicate that a) all of our decisions are made out of love for them, and b) we are not perfect, so some of our decisions will turn out to be wrong.

And don't forget that a decision for one school year doesn't have to lock you into all the downstream decisions.

Sorry, didn't mean that the grade-skipped folks all had huge regrets. One multiple grade skipped woman I know is happily married, happily employed and early entranced her kids - her "regrets" were minor. However, another always felt like she was treated as an outcast by her schoolmates, and when she gained entrance to a prestigious conservatory, her parents said it was too far away for a kid her age - and she never went to college.

I guess you can always "undo" a skip with a post-grad year if that skipped year proves to be a disadvantage for college athletics. Of course, the tuition might defeat the goal of a swimming scholarship, though one kid from my school essentially did a post-grad year at her local public school,

We have not done a grade skip with DD due to sports. My husband and I were both D1 athletes and had scholarships that payed for everything. We were also both very good students. Honestly, students with perfect to near perfect GPA's and high SAT/ACT are pretty common. These students who are also D1 caliber athletes are rare. I had several friends who had slightly higher GPA's and SAT scores than me, I also was the one offered a spot at schools they applied to. We are a family of athletes and most neices and nephews are collegiate athletes. Ask yourself how talented your daughter really is, not just locally but regionally and state wide. If she is really an excellent athlete I would not do the skip.

Meh. I'd say I was marginally less ostracised in elementary after my skip than before. Middle school, no one cared. I'm sure I would have been just as unhappy at having no partner for prom being one year older - no idea why that should have made the straight A kid with the thick glasses and the big mouth any more popular with the boys. I had lots if women friends who gave me rides when I didn't have a licence yet, and at the time we all mostly still rode bikes anyway, because hardly anyone had their own car and our parents let has drive theirs only for special occasions. I probably would have been competitive for any kind of academic competition if my school had ever cared to actually enter a student (I asked and was shot down). I certainly got the full academic ride to college anyway, even a year younger. Socially, the skip could be called a disaster. I still do not regret in the least because I went from going out of my mind to only mostly bored.
It is almost impossible to find the perfect fit for our kids, unless you luck out with the perfect gifted school in our neighbourhood. I feel that for our DS (who HAS been accelerated once) a second skip might compromise his chance at finding a good enough fit, socially AND academically, in gifted middle school - I haven't mentioned yet that his EF skills simply aren't ready for middle school either, gifted or not. And he is NOT going out of his mind, only mostly bored. As he wants to stay with the kids he knows, we'll try to make fourth grade work. It's only another year now.
Could there be reason to regret either choice down the road? Of course! But I can only passably judge wether middle school this year or next will set him up for a good middle school experience, anything further off is trying to read the tea leaves. Divination being a very imprecise ranch of magic and all...

Note that I am NOT advocating against a skip for the OPs DD, just for trying to find the best fit, socially and academically AND athletically, because I'm sure her DD cares about swimming, too, NOW, not plan college applications. And our DS has been accelerated, but mildly, as it were. He is clearly a third grader, not a second grader. Sometimes you can tell these things just by looking at your kid among others.

OP, is your DD old or young for grade? If she's old, that would be another reason to skip, along with her feeling more at home with kids a grade above - and, of course, asking for the skip herself.

Unless not being challenged in school caused you to lose interest due to boredom. Or always being the top kid in your grade (without expending any effort) allowed you to become complacent and lazy in your studies (which made actual rigor in college a huge shock to your system).

I have a twice grade skipped daughter, taking two foreign languages, who has amassed more credits after 5 trimesters of HS than most of her peers will in 9, and she is still half-arsing most of her classes. I cannot imagine how bored she would be not having been skipped.

Would swim be a little more satisfying if she were with her age-mates? Sure it would. But a decade from now, I'd rather see a medical degree hanging on her wall than a swim team MVP plaque from HS.

Just my two cents. Please don't be offended by my brusqueness.

Best of luck,
--S.F.

According to this paper, "grade skipping may enhance STEM accomplishments among the mathematically talented."

https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Park-Lubinski-Benbow-2013.pdf
When Less Is More: Effects of Grade Skipping on Adult STEM Productivity Among Mathematically Precocious Adolescents
by Gregory Park, David Lubinski, and Camilla P. Benbow
Vanderbilt University
Using data from a 40-year longitudinal study, the authors examined 3 related hypotheses about the effects
of grade skipping on future educational and occupational outcomes in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM). From a combined sample of 3,467 mathematically precocious students (top
1%), a combination of exact and propensity score matching was used to create balanced comparison
groups of 363 grade skippers and 657 matched controls. Results suggest that grade skippers (a) were
more likely to pursue advanced degrees in STEM and author peer-reviewed publications in STEM, (b)
earned their degrees and authored their 1st publication earlier, and (c) accrued more total citations and
highly cited publications by age 50 years. These patterns were consistent among male participants but
less so among female participants (who had a greater tendency to pursue advanced degrees in medicine
or law). Findings suggest that grade skipping may enhance STEM accomplishments among the mathematically
talented.
Keywords: educational acceleration, gifted, math/science talent, longitudinal analysis, propensity score
matching

The answer to the OP's question will depend on the relative importance one ascribes to academics and sports, and a forum for academically gifted children may tend to attract parents whose especially value academics. Most people here do not favor foregoing an academically justified grade skip for athletic reasons, but if the same question were asked in a forum for parents of gifted athletes, the majority opinion could be different.

A book I really liked

Developing Talent in Young People (1985)
by Dr. Benjamin Bloom

has chapters on various types of talent, including swimming. The chapters are as follows:
• The Nature of the Study and Why It Was Done
• Learning to Be a Concert Pianist
• One Concert Pianist
• The Development of Accomplished Sculptors
• The Development of Olympic Swimmers
• One Olympic Swimmer
• Learning to Be a World-Class Tennis Player
• The Development of Exceptional Research Mathematicians
• One Mathematician: “Hal Foster”
• Becoming an Outstanding Research Neurologist
• Phases of Learning
• Home Influences on Talent Development
• A Long-Term Commitment to Learning
• Generalizations About Talent Development

I am going to concur.

Kids get addicted to easy success-- and frankly? STEM in post-secondary is a wicked beast if you are conditioned for that.

Dealing with this particular cocktail of factors right now. DEEPLY regretting not accelerating harder on math-- until it wasn't so easy.

Deeply.

I say that as mom to a kid who is a 15yo college student. So she was "accelerated" significantly-- but graduating #1? Yeah, clearly 3y wasn't enough, and we should have figured out SOME way to get her learning some of what she needed to know. Things like "life is hard, but you can improve if you work" and "not everything that is worth doing/learning is going to be OBVIOUS the first time that you see it."

Advanced STEM topics aren't easy for anyone. Being bright is necessary-- but not at all "sufficient."

Hard work also necessary-- but not sufficient.

There's no way to "work harder" to an understanding of some topics if your FSIQ is just 100 or 110. Won't happen. Then again-- osmosis isn't a good plan, either, even if your FSIQ is 150.


What I'm going to say here is likely to be non-PC, and may make some people unhappy-- but-- what we're finding is that our child is looking at what is "easy" for her versus "hard" for her-- and realizing that she can more or less CONTINUE to be a slacker and not face down her perfectionistic demons (that is, perfection is still more or less attainable with little effort) in her arts/humanities courses. Not-so-much in STEM.

That said-- it IS possible for people who are bright enough, and have learned that schooling is a 'demonstration of innate knowledge' (as opposed to a learning opportunity) , to skate by even in college. They just won't be doing it in STEM.

Ask yourself if you want to help close that door. Seriously. If it's that it isn't your child's nature/passion, well-- so be it, perhaps. If it is, however, I'd proceed with caution on allowing things to be too easy.


I would not consider sports in an academic placement decision. Look to club sports with age placement if it is important, and realize that you've made some trade-offs. But decide which is MORE important to the long term well-being of your child. Proceed accordingly.

I, to, hope that this isn't too blunt. Hindsight, though-- I sure wish that someone had tipped me off to this one when DD was 6 or 7y.

Having been a D1 athlete and also having earned a Ph.D. (my partner has an MD and was a D1 athlete) we agree that it is sports that taught us to work hard. School never became difficult. There were hoops to jump through, a dissertation to write etc.. but nothing very mentally challenging. The daily grind of being an athlete is much more difficult than school. Having to be up early, play games that end late and still pull the same grades as your peers is what teaches you to not waste time. You learn to complete assignments and study for tests early because you don't have later. We prioritize athletics and academics in our house. DD makes perfect grades without breaking a sweat. She is performing three grade levels above peers academically (on average). Allowing her to skip one grade or even two will not make school hard it will just force her into a situation where she is socially awkward. Sports (which she loves) force her to work hard. Every child is different, but I would encourage anyone who has a child interested in athletics to give them the opportunity to play. There are so many posts on this board about teaching children to work hard, athletics will do that. It will teach them skills that academics will not.

http://www.thedp.com/article/2015/02/student-athletes-work-hard-and-play-hard

However, if you read the OP, it is the child who has been asking for a grade skip for *2* years... to me, that is a big issue. How do you explain to a child that you do not want to skip simply because they may (or may not!) be a D1 swimmer 6+ years down the road - we don't know what level of passion the OP's child has for swimming over her desire to be grade skipped.

Burnout happens in sports all the time - I see it so often with kids who played a certain sport all the way through high school and just did not want to do it during college. I know of people who were recruited for their sports skills (from D1 to DIII, which does not offer scholarships but where their sports background was a factor in admissions) and then completely drop that sport in college and do a different sport or no sports. I played an indoor sport intensely through high school (travel team, coed team and high school team) and yet when I got to college, I found myself not interested in that sport anymore. Instead I switched to a totally unrelated sport (which I did for many years after college, including placing in top 4 a few times at national team trials).