Off Disney -Anyone ever have a child that skipped a grade?

[daisyduck123]

But it does make the social stuff more challenging - being the shortest, last to hit puberty, last to drive, in college - last to be able to go dancing or to a bar - that was tough.

It varies from child to child.
My DD skipped & was still the tallest girl in the class & the first to hit every part of puberty. Now the driving part....well, she'll have to wait, but I'm actually glad about that!!

 

[Redbudlover]

My son was very gifted and reading by age 3. In first grade they put him in the fifth grade math class. The following year they skipped him to the third grade. it was okay that year. In fourth grade, though, as kids discover all the ways they are different he lost the friends he had made and by fifth was becoming the outsider. he was tall and big for his age and so it wasn't that he was too small. He was different and it was more apparent due to his having been skipped. Things didn't even out and get better for him until ninth grade. In the meantime I sent him to special rockets and math schools in the summer and took him to join groups of gifted kids involved in varous projects. the school's so called gifted program was abysmal. Finally in high school he applied for and was granted acceptance in a state funded residential school for the gifted. There he made lifelong friends with other very bright and caring kids. He is 35 now and still maintains his friendships with a number of these people. Would I skip a kid? NO. He needs every break he can get to cope with the ways in which he is different from others. As parents there are many educational and vocational activities you can find to challenge your gifted child. Just my opinion and experience....

 

[liamandcaili]

DSis skipped third grade, and that decision definitely had repercussions on her social and academic life. The girls in the class were pretty brutal about her skipping the grade, and while her reading was way above grade level, she never recovered in math. She is perfectly happy and fine and wonderfully smart now, but she had some rough years in school and had more issues to deal with than the average student.

My DD just turned five, missed the Kindergarten cut-off by six days, and just finished reading "Little Women." However, she is small, quiet, and can't remember how to hold her pencil correctly. I am glad she isn't in school this year, and when she is, I will supplement her with plenty of extra materials. I will not skip her a grade.

DS, now in second grade, also performs above grade level, and I wish the school would give him more challenging material, especially in math. When they don't, I leave National Geographic magazines for him or buy other educational materials that he thinks are fun. Again, I have no plans to skip him, nor do I think it necessary, as he seems to have some classmates who are at the same level.

 

[LaraK]

I can also only speak for myself. I skipped 1st and 8th grades. I was 16 when I got my HS diploma. After skipping 1st grade I was tormented by the other kids. I remained a bit of a social outcast (even though I was one of the tallest kids in the class). They skipped me again from 7th to 9th. Again, I had to deal with the social aspects of the jump. By 20, I finished college and was an "adult"....but I couldn't legally drink a beer.

I say let your DS enjoy his youth. I'm going to have to find ways to stimulate my DD at home, but I don't want her to skip grades. In life she's going to have to deal with people who don't catch on as quickly as she does, she may as well start learning to deal with it now.

 

[Merriwind]

Two weeks into kindergarten, I was moved to first grade. I was on the young side already and was always very small--I'm only 5'1" all grown-up. Skipping didn't make the work any harder or more appropriate for me. Really bright kids need true enrichment, not just the regular curriculum thrown at them faster. I think it made social experiences more difficult for the reasons that the pps mentioned--being younger, hitting puberty later, driving, even just the emotional maturity. Plus, there is an age where anything that makes you different is a reason to be tormented. Being a year or more younger than anyone else can easily be one of those reasons. Going off to college right after turning 17 wasn't great for me. If I could turn the clock back, I would stay in kindergarten. Thank goodness my parents had the sense to say no when the school wanted to skip me again...

I had this issue with DD8 as well. Although she is tall, bright and had a late (in terms of school cut-off) birthday in NY and a mid-year birthday in FL, I never considered skipping her. It wasn't a good move for me and I really want her to be a child for as long as possible. There is a lot for kids to deal with these days--drugs, sex, bullying, cheating, etc. I think that an extra year of life experience and maturity would be a benefit to any child facing today's tough choices and situations.

We have tried a lot of schooling options for DD--Montessori preschool, homeschooling, the enrichment program at our neighborhood school. This year, she started at a magnet school for gifted children and I feel like we finally have a good match for her. (They actually skip a year in math and reading there, so all third graders are working out of the state's fourth grade math and language arts books/curricula.) If this didn't/doesn't work out, I will probably go back to homeschooling, as we both loved it!

I think that there are a lot of options other than skipping that are more beneficial to very bright children. If first grade is that easy for him, it is unlikely that second grade's curriculum will be much more appropriate. But he'll be different from the other kids in his class. See if you can work with the enrichment teacher, work with him at home, look into extra-curricular programs.

Best wishes to you. It is so hard trying to make the best decision for our kids.

 

[momrek06]

I wouldn't do it. You're basically taking a year of his childhood away from him.

ITA!!!

When my son was winding down in the 2nd grade his school called suggesting he SKIP the 3rd grade and go directly to 4th. We had the BIG parent/teacher/principal meeting. I knew my son. I knew my son was very smart. Heck, people were telling DH and I by the time he was 1yo how smart he was. He was reading by age 4. His vocab was amazing. DH would say some big word while talking and the next thing we know DS is using that word exactly as it should be....amazing yes, but MATURITY...WOOOOW...hold up and HOLD UP big time. NO WAY, he was soooo not ready to MISS an entire school year and be in the 4th grade. He was socially a very happy and well adjusted child and had many friends HIS AGE but he was no where near ready for the social group of the 4th graders AT ALL.

So the BIG MEETING was very short as DH and I had already made up our mind that DS was staying right where he BELONGED.

Fastforward: DS did SKIP Senior year of high school and attended college in the "dual enrollment" program with our high school. He was so far advanced in Math, the high school had NO math for him so the TOWN paid his tuition to college. Now that was AWESOME. He went onto college upon h.s. grad with a ton of college credits.

OP, IMHO, I think your child will be verrry happy staying right in the exact grade the child should be in!!! Remember JMHO!!!

 

[DiszyDeanette]

Or did you or someone you know skip a grade?

That would be me... after a month or two in kindergarten, the powers that be decided that I should go to 1st grade, as I could already read (I was reading the Little House on the Prairie books at that age) and write (this was a little more basic). It was stupid, because it's not as if I was challenged in reading in 1st grade either. End result? I graduated a few months after my 17th birthday. It never should have happened. Why? I was always behind socially and developmentally, and felt left out a lot. It got a little better in high school, but when your friends get their driver's licence in 10th grade, and you're still 14, or you date a guy one year ahead of you, and your mom won't allow it because you're 15, and he's 17 or 18, it causes a lot of teen angst. And there's enough of that without the added problems of being too young for everything in 'your world'. I'd imagine it would be worse for a boy, being the smallest in the class? Not to mention boys usually being less mature than girls anyway, he may have a hard time finding a homecoming date. And I won't even get into the problems of graduating, moving out on your own and being 17 until into the following calendar year. You can't sign a lease or any other legal document, it's just a mess.

Anyway, you have to do what you feel is right, but unless you intend on putting him in some kind of private school until college where this is the 'norm', I wouldn't recommend it. I wouldn't subject a child of mine to what I went through. Not that it was horrible or anything, but it caused unnecessary problems, and who wants that for their child? Not to mention, the children who are 'advanced' in the (fairly simple) lower elementary grades, may not be later as other kids catch up. And what's wrong with letting them be the star of the class for now? It's fun, and a great ego boost for a little kid!

 

[momrek06]

That would be me... after a month or two in kindergarten, the powers that be decided that I should go to 1st grade, as I could already read (I was reading the Little House on the Prairie books at that age) and write (this was a little more basic). It was stupid, because it's not as if I was challenged in reading in 1st grade either. End result? I graduated a few months after my 17th birthday. It never should have happened. Why? I was always behind socially and developmentally, and felt left out a lot. It got a little better in high school, but when your friends get their driver's licence in 10th grade, and you're still 14, or you date a guy one year ahead of you, and your mom won't allow it because you're 15, and he's 17 or 18, it causes a lot of teen angst. And there's enough of that without the added problems of being too young for everything in 'your world'. I'd imagine it would be worse for a boy, being the smallest in the class? Not to mention boys usually being less mature than girls anyway, he may have a hard time finding a homecoming date. And I won't even get into the problems of graduating, moving out on your own and being 17 until into the following calendar year. You can't sign a lease or any other legal document, it's just a mess.

Anyway, you have to do what you feel is right, but unless you intend on putting him in some kind of private school until college where this is the 'norm', I wouldn't recommend it. I wouldn't subject a child of mine to what I went through. Not that it was horrible or anything, but it caused unnecessary problems, and who wants that for their child? Not to mention, the children who are 'advanced' in the (fairly simple) lower elementary grades, may not be later as other kids catch up. And what's wrong with letting them be the star of the class for now? It's fun, and a great ego boost for a little kid!

WOW DISZY: Although I am NOT the OP on this Thread...thank you for sharing your story. WOW, you never know exactly what is ahead of you in a situation like this and you sharing like this may very well help some Parents attempting to make this decision.

 

[DiszyDeanette]

I wouldn't do it. You're basically taking a year of his childhood away from him.

I wouldn't have thought of it this way, but this pretty much sums it up in one sentence.

 

[JMLBrats]

Wow, some very powerful reading here! Thanks to all of you for posting. I feel very sure that I want to keep him right where he is and enrich him in other ways as we always have been since he was a baby. He's already one of the youngest in his grade and just thinking about the torment and social problems he could encounter as he gets older makes me cringe. He does so well socially now, but after reading all the posts, I've come to realize that he needs to be with his peers even if he is ahead of many of them academically. So glad I posted, sometimes you just need to hear other people's stories to come to certain realizations.

 

[DiszyDeanette]

WOW DISZY: Although I am NOT the OP on this Thread...thank you for sharing your story. WOW, you never know exactly what is ahead of you in a situation like this and you sharing like this may very well help some Parents attempting to make this decision.

I actually feel so strongly about this, that I held my own daughter back in kindergarten. She has a summer birthday, and the cutoff date here is 8/30. She did OK her 1st year of K, but just OK. Her teacher was concerned because she never spoke to anybody, and when they did things like the 'home life' learning center, the other kids would treat her like the baby. I mean serious, wrapping her up in a blanket and putting her in the doll crib type of stuff, she was the baby! They all liked her, but she was more like the class pet than an equal. I had to make a choice, did I want her to always be the youngest or the oldest? It wasn't a difficult choice. She's in 5th grade now, and is exactly where she should be. Excellent grades, tons of friends and few worries. I couldn't imagine her being in 6th grade (which is middle school here) and she can't either!

 

[fivefordisney]

I was the youngest kid in my class and we didn't advance our two "gifted and late summer kids." In my experience, bouncing up doesn't make the intellectual stuff more challeging - he'll pick up algebra just as fast when he is exposed to it. Move him up a grade and next year he'll be just as bored. But it does make the social stuff more challenging - being the shortest, last to hit puberty, last to drive, in college - last to be able to go dancing or to a bar - that was tough.

I'd look to extracurricular enrichment. Make sure he has a lot to read. Give him access to Science, Math and Literature above his grade level. Let him study History or Music. Give him something to excel in that isn't in his classroom. And don't expect too much from his teachers, who need to teach down the middle. They'll support you, but keeping him challenged will be your job.

Well said!!!

 

[MATTERHORN]

Glad you have made a decision and are at peace with it! Hope you both have a great school year!!!


Andrea

 

[webairs]

I was very advanced in school at that age (way beyond the others especially in reading and math). Maturity wise I too probably would have been fine skipping a grade (and I have always been above average in height, so size wasn't an issue).

However, our school was very against allowing that. Luckily they had an excellent gifted program that really helped fill the gaps for me, ours started in 1st grade. My parents left me go in my regular grade. Even though I was always at the top of my class academically, by middle school plenty of kids pretty much caught up to me. I trully believe that everyone learns at a different pace, and there are so many factors that affect a child's academics.

IMHO, I would probably just let your son stay in his current grade and try to find ways to enrich his education on your own and with the help of the school until he can get in the Excellerated program. In the long run it will probably benefit him more than skipping a grade. Maybe he could do a special project or sit in on another class or have extra computer time or something like that. I just think there are so many unknowns to take into consideration way down the line, such as what happens if the other kids eventually catch up (could be crushing to the ego), size issues, sports, being the youngest to drive, the youngest in college, etc.

This is just my opinion though, and only you can decide what is right for YOUR child.

my sentiments exactly. I have a ds who was put into the gifted program in 1st grade also, so he misses normal classes 1 day a week for the program. He's in 4th grade now and still gets bored from time to time (Which usually leads to talking when he shouldn't be), but I feel he is getting a more advanced education without the pressure of moving up with the older children.

 

[crisi]

I actually feel so strongly about this, that I held my own daughter back in kindergarten. She has a summer birthday, and the cutoff date here is 8/30. She did OK her 1st year of K, but just OK. Her teacher was concerned because she never spoke to anybody, and when they did things like the 'home life' learning center, the other kids would treat her like the baby. I mean serious, wrapping her up in a blanket and putting her in the doll crib type of stuff, she was the baby! They all liked her, but she was more like the class pet than an equal. I had to make a choice, did I want her to always be the youngest or the oldest? It wasn't a difficult choice. She's in 5th grade now, and is exactly where she should be. Excellent grades, tons of friends and few worries. I couldn't imagine her being in 6th grade (which is middle school here) and she can't either!

Same here. My son is a late August birthday. My "reading at three" daughter has a birthday 20 days after the September 1 cutoff.

The thing was until I was making the decision for my own kids I said "I was happy - or at least it wasn't bad, I got a year advantage at being a grown up." Had you asked me at 23 if I'd move my kid up if I had the chance, I'd have said "of course." A little distance and watching my own children and I've done a complete about face. Now I remember being too young to date when everyone else was and having a year of everyone but me having a license. Going to college at 17 was challenging - not intellectually, but emotionally and socially.

I also think when you are looking at a small sample, you think your kid is really exceptional and therefore something exceptional must be done. But I know lots of kids who read at three or four - look at all of them on this thread!

 

[Tiffer]

My DD had the option of skipping 1st. She is already one of the younger kids inher class as she started K at age 4, turning 5 the week after school starts. Our old district had a Dec cut off.

We decided against it and I am so glad we did. WE are now in OC CA schools that are among the best out there. The schools are so much better that although she is still advanced, she is challenged adequately. If we were still in NY, it may have been different, but a better school may solve the issue too.

I was always among the youngest in my calss to w/ a Nov B'day. IT would have been a bad choice for me as well.

With that said. You have to do what is best for yours!

 

[graygables]

I did. I am sorry that I did. It was great when I was younger. It was AWFUL when I was older. I started my senior year in HS when I was 16. Most of my friends had gotten their DL when they were in the 10th grade. I was always the "baby" and I hated it. All of my friends were 18 when we graduated, but I didn't turn 18 until the following fall. It was a long summer because they were all adults, while I was only 16. Guys didn't want to date me when they found out I was "jailbait".

I had the opposite experience. I was tested out of K and went straight to first grade. I was sick a lot as a kid and missed a LOT of school, but never had any problems. My 6th grade year, we were allowed to work at our own pace and I was done by Christmas, so had the entire Spring to be a teacher's aide, help in the nurse's office, chill out and read or skip altogether. Yes, all my friends had their licenses, but it didn't matter to me, they could drive me around. My senior year, I only needed English to graduate, so I tried to take it the summer before so I could skip it, but the principal wouldn't sign off b/c she didn't want a 16yo to graduate from "her school". Whatever. i took English and a few other irrelevant classes, got permission to have the 1st hour and the last 2 hours off, got a job, and hated my principal.

Started college at 17 and it was great. I always liked being the youngest, everyone tended to "look out" for me and we always had a lot of fun. This, of course, was back in the day when alcohol and sex were NOT pre-requisites to "fun", so I don't know how that would play out today.

There is nothing worse than being bored in school and the feeling that you don't belong among those you are in class with b/c of intelligence/maturity. Kids start "dumbing down" in those situations and I've never seen it work out well (used to teach high school).

 

[daisyduck123]

I had the opposite experience.

Started college at 17 and it was great. I always liked being the youngest, everyone tended to "look out" for me and we always had a lot of fun. This, of course, was back in the day when alcohol and sex were NOT pre-requisites to "fun", so I don't know how that would play out today.

There is nothing worse than being bored in school and the feeling that you don't belong among those you are in class with b/c of intelligence/maturity. Kids start "dumbing down" in those situations and I've never seen it work out well (used to teach high school).

Finally!!
Someone else who had a positive experience with grade skipping!! I thought my story was the only one out there from the way this thread has been going. I'm glad it worked out great for you too!!

 

[asianmom]

I'll like to share our story though our situations may be somewhat different as we live in Asia.We have two kids who skipped the last year of kindergarten. Yeah, I know, I know,it does sound like they have aggressive parents.Not really.When my son turned 5, his kindy teacher encouraged that we do an IQ test on him which lead to a placement offer in grade 1.Like many parents, we almost reclined the offer fearing the emotional and social set backs.My son was a Feb child so it would have made him 1 and a half year younger than some of his classmates.Any how, we decided to let him go ahead and try for a term, but alas, there was no returning from there as the little guy loved school so much he refuses to hear of switching back to kinder class when the term was up.To say that it was plain sailing would be a lie.I had to cut back on my working hours so I had enough time to monitor his progress in school.It started out quite a disaster as he could not sit through the 45 min class. Fortunately, the teacher we got was very understanding and accomodative. She would have the assistant teacher take him aside for story time.She also permited him to take little walks around the school compound when he got restless.This went on for half a year before my son settled in.Socially, it was challenging for him in the initial stage but after a while, the class accepted him as the 'little brother' and would look out for him in many ways. We worked very closely with the form teacher throughtout the two years that she had him.I know we were lucky to have this teacher for had my son been placed under someone different, he would not have made it.He just started on grade 3 and is a happy, healthy kid who enjoys going to school everyday. Work is a tad boring for him still, but I try to keep him occupied with physical activities and extra curriculum enrichment as best I could.It turned out to be the correct choice for him so when his sister was again offered a chance to skip a year, we accepted it. She's again placed under the same teacher my son had. What luck.I am not sure what the scenario would be like when they grow older but we always have the choice of staying back if the needs arise.

 

[JMLBrats]

I just wanted to say that I did read all the positive experiences here and I appreciate that feedback as well...you guys just seem to be more in the miniority and I guess I wouldn't want to take the chance on the experience being bad. It's just not worth the risk IMOH.