Smart Little Kid

Parent Cafe
41

<p>Grade skipping is taboo for a little bit of both. It’s been done in my school system (I can think of a couple examples), but it’s really rare, and the school committee is reluctant to grant grade skips in general. We also have two family stories about grade skipping.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>When my dad entered school (late 1950s), one mother wanted her son to be in first grade. The teacher tested him, and he passed, but she said it was only fair that the other little boys be tested too. A couple passed including my dad. Well, he ended up repeating second grade, which wasn’t so good. Although now my grandma is really glad it happened because if he wasn’t in high school that extra year, he would have ended up in Vietnam!</p></li>
<li><p>My aunt’s brother was a December birthday, and he was asked to repeat first grade. Maturity issues, the usual. They realized that was a mistake pretty quickly that next year and had him going back and forth between first and second grades, eventually going to third grade with the other classmates. But he was a really confused kid that year. So with my aunt’s other brother (also a December baby), they waited and that was fine.</p></li>
</ol>

42

<p>Wendy, my advice to the whole family is to slow down and not get ahead of yourselves. At the end of the day this is about your nephew, not your aunt’s brother or whomever had a bad experience skipping grades… and your nephew hasn’t even started Kindergarten yet so you don’t know if he’ll find it an energizing, exciting place, or dull and dreary… you just don’t know yet.</p>

<p>If you want to be really helpful, it would help this kid in my opinion if you could all back away from the labeling. Does it matter that he’s in the 99 percentile for height? Is he really gifted or just an early reader? At this stage it’s just not that important to attach a label to who he is, and as you’ve already seen, the ed-pros typically get defensive once the labels start flying unless they are the ones to attach the labels.</p>

<p>If it were my kid (which it’s not…) I would talk in a supportive way about how much fun Kindergarden is going to be; I would take him to the library every week and allow him to explore any subject he showed an interest in; I would find someone to teach him chess; I would ban video games and the like but keep the house filled with crayons and rubber bands and stuff; I would help him enter kindergarden with an open mind and support his efforts at making a few buddies; I would stay informed with what’s going on at school (be aware of discipline issues; watch him color or use scissors to see if the fine motor stuff is happening; make sure he can hop and do the gross motor stuff at an age-appropriate fashion;) withouut hovering or focusing excessively on the academic stuff.</p>

<p>Keep him stimulated; keep him learning, and you all may find that he “fits” quite well into school without sacrificing his own interests. OR, you may find that this school is a bad match, in which case you go to plan B… but I don’t know that attaching a label now is in his best interests.</p>

<p>There are highly gifted kids who end up as highly talented, fulfilled adults… and then there’s the guy working a dead end job with a track record of bad relationships who was a child prodigy in something. I’ve got a family member who was such a prodigy… and although it was challenging to keep him doing normal, age appropriate things in addition to the phenomenal genius stuff, it was well worth the effort. I don’t think it will matter to the world if he wins his Nobel at age 32 or age 36.</p>

43

<p>OK, I haven’t had the time to read all these posts, so I could be repeating things, but here are my thoughts. My d. was extremely precocious – reading well before kindergarten, favorite activity: read the encyclopedia - etc. </p>

<p>Kindergarten was the easy part. Along the way of figuring out what to do with my gifted daughter, I had the good sense to read “The Hurried Child” by David Elkind. He pointed out that gifted kids often do extremely well in the relatively unstructured environment of a traditional kindergarten, where there is time and room for exploration and play. (My d’s favorite kindergarten activity: watch the guinea pigs – there was a male/female pair that she loved to play with and observe. One day she came home and announced that she figured out what the mama and papa guinea pigs do to make baby guinea pigs - and she had! :eek: ) In any case, K was not boring.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, kindergartens are getting more structured, more like first grade these days – and the more the kid is expected to sit still and pay attention to learning what he already knows, the more difficult things get.</p>

<p>We resolved my d’s issues with partial acceleration – she did reading & language arts with older kids, other activities with her own age. At around age 7 we offered her the choice to skip a grade the following year, and she thought about it for awhile but chose not to, as she was more comfortable among kids her own age. However, I’d note that my d. was very small for her age, a factor that does not apply to your nephew. </p>

<p>Nonetheless, I’m glad we opted for a go-slow approach. I knew my d. would be bored in school, so I felt it important to encourage her focus on outside activities, in her case, gymnastics and dance. My d. always had a lot of friends, and basically she found common interests – she DID have a problem talking to same age peers until they all hit puberty, as her vocabulary and interests were way beyond theirs — but she ended up with friends of all ages, including adults. Often I would find that she was having long conversations with the parents of her friends when she was at their houses – but that was fine. She could ride bikes, go skating, go swimming, go to movies, watch t.v., go to the mall, trade clothes, etc. with her age mates, and lead a well-rounded life. </p>

<p>I think that if there is a problem with the gifted nephew, the parents will deal with it as it arises – you can fix things down the line if a kid is bored or frustrated, but its hard to go back if the kid has been pushed ahead. The emotional/social issues are very important, and those are harder to develop in isolation from one’s peers. A kid who is large for his age and accelerated a couple of years in school may look like he fits and be easily able to keep up academically, but his emotional immaturity could lead to him being bullied or shunned by his peers, and adults who do not realize he is younger could have little tolerance for what they would perceive as immature behavior. </p>

<p>If there is a real intellectual gap, a grade skip of 1 or 2 years won’t help anyway – I mean, my daughter was tested as reading beyond 5th grade level before she entered 1st grade. Plus, guinea pigs aside, I was faced with the reality that I didn’t want my 6-year-old d. reading literature geared toward adolescents – too much focus on themes and ideas that I did not think appropriate for a small child to be thinking about. </p>

<p>I guess the bottom line in my view is that you can’t recover a lost childhood. It sounds to me like this kid has wise parents who are striving for normalcy in this kids life… and who probably have far too many people telling them what they ought to do. Having been in a similar position, I’m also 100% sure that they probably do NOT want unsolicited advice as to how to raise their son. I had way too much of that, including too many parents of “gifted” kids telling me that I was harming my child by failing to take action to develop her mind to its full potential.</p>

44

<p>

OTOH there are many resources out there for parents of gifted kids. It would be a shame not to pass the information on. BTW, I’m not really a fan of grade skipping, it’s just that in many systems it’s the best of bad options. My happiest years in school were when I was in a one room school house. I think if I were to give any advice it is to take it one year at a time. Even a grade skip can be reversed. I’ve known parents who told their kids “We made a mistake, it’s not your fault” and it seemed to turn out okay. My nephew repeated K by switching to another school. Outside interests help, but it still breaks your heart when your child comes home from school everyday complaining that they learned nothing or you discover they’ve had time to read a 400 page novel in two days in class.</p>

45

<p>I strongly agree with exposing these kids to lots of different things. They suck up experience and thrive on them. One of the reasons I let my D get involved in acting was because she hadn’t had the experience of doing worse than someone else…in school. The acting arena isn’t as kind, and she learned that there is always someone out there who can do things as well or better. Not winning wasn’t very important, it was just another part of the day. It was a lesson in humility. Winning became a nice surprise, and the quest became more important than the prize. Auditioning was the point, a booking was gravy. It was a good life lesson, and ended up giving us both some amazing experiences along the way. Sports can do that, and so can music or anything else that challenges them in a different way—especially something that they are not likely to be the very best in.</p>

46

<p>I am not a parent, but I am a “gifted” high school student (freshman). I skipped 3rd grade and had many other opportunities to skip grades including my sophomore year. I am glad that I skipped 3rd grade, and I have no problem fitting in today. I had several reasons for not skipping 10th grade. Some of the main reasons include: I needed some time to mature, I didn’t want to lose my friends, and there didn’t seem to be many advantages. I decided to skip two levels of math. Also, I reccomend taking chess classes or some other activity that can help to “fit” in. I play soccer and the saxophone. I love the saxophone and it creates a sort of “back door” from all the academics. The saxophone has become a passion for me and I have won many state awards for it. I think that if your cousin is really that bright then he should skip grades early on because it becomes more difficult to skip grades as time goes on. Some reasons to skip grades earlier are that you haven’t made friends yet, and not many peers know you (which helps to conceal your age). In the end, it is your cousin’s and his parents’ decision. Skipping a grade worked for me. Good luck!</p>

47

<p>WendyMouse,
Have your cousin’s parents look into the Davidson Foundation for highly gifted children. <a href=“Davidson Institute | Programs & Support for the Profoundly Gifted”>Davidson Institute | Programs & Support for the Profoundly Gifted;
Also CTY <a href=“http://cty.jhu.edu/[/url]”>http://cty.jhu.edu/&lt;/a&gt;
[center for talented youth], which is run by Johns Hopkins University-the CTY website has links to many enrichment programs for gifted learners. <a href=“http://cty.jhu.edu/imagine/links.html[/url]”>http://cty.jhu.edu/imagine/links.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

48

<p>Skipping grades in not “taboo.” I skipped 3, and take classes 3 years ahead of THAT in math, science, and foreign language. The result is that I am challenged by my schoolwork, not bored to death.</p>

49

<p>This sounds a lot like my son. He was always big for his age, about 8 inches taller than his class mates in kindergarten. He was a “natural reader” and was reading at a high school level by 2nd grade. To answer your question about when school began to challenge him, well, it never did. Every year, teachers would say that the next year would be really hard – “Second grade/middle school/eighth grade/high school/junior year is MUCH harder than this year!” and every year my son would get anxious and hopeful that it would actually be true, but it never was. Neither were the community college classes, or even much of the work at Stanford Summer College. </p>

<p>What challenged him was the work, study, and thinking he did on his own, and the complexity he added to assignments himself. When other students wrote an explication essay of one poem, he wrote an essay 3 times as long comparing 3 poems with a common theme by one author. When chemistry students did a lab, he wrote a paper about the history of the principle they were studying. </p>

<p>This fall, after 13 years of not being challenged, he’s going to Reed College, and he feels pretty confident he’ll be challenged. :-)</p>

50

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<p>Very true. I also coasted through elementary in “normal” classes (never tested into gifted - my 6th grade teacher tried to get me into the middle school program but no go there either - odd but I didn’t care then and don’t care now). I became very aware that I was functioning at a much higher level in 8th grade (however I wasn’t in the gifted program, just in some honors type classes they offered in limited subjects). However it didn’t frustrate me. Never did. I’m a senior now, but I don’t know. I’m somewhat laid back in a lot of ways, so that could be it. I’m also not on the crazy side of genius cognitively - where I tend to stand out from people is that I can be oddly perceptive but that’s more almost like a people thing than being able to instantly recognize patterns or something. </p>

<p>With acceleration, personally I’d hesistate if it was a boy because it’s common to hold boys back a year now and they don’t mature as fast emotionally in general. In essence even a year of acceleration would put him two years behind his peers, which could be a problem. Even if he is big now, growth is not always even. I was normal and maybe even on the higher side of normal as a young child (never tall though), but at my adult height (or I guess what is my adult height) I am in the 10th percentile. If I was in their shoes, I would probably start him in normal kindergarten (it sounds like he has been in preschool, functioning normally I suppose if there have not been problems) and if he seemed content probably take it from there. I know a lot of people get freaked out about that because they say he will not reach his full potential, personally I don’t believe this is true since at this point I have not only caught up but surpassed 99% of the kids who were identified as “gifted” in the primary school years. If the parents continue to provide an intellectually stimulating environment at home, and he continues to do well in school, then there is no reason not to do that IMO. Many people for years survived just being normal. When my dad was a kid there was nothing special and he is on the scary side of intelligence. He has been very successful as an adult nonetheless, even though he was not in anything special. </p>

<p>Obviously if there are problems they’ll have to re-evaluate. And if he’s doing fine, they don’t HAVE to do this, he won’t turn out “wrong” from some other approach. I just think sometimes there is this push that you absolutely MUST do something with a gifted child or something very bad will happen. I don’t think it’s necessarily true, but it seems almost fear tactics nowadays, I don’t know. Lots of people thrive on being above average and for example, helping others or simply finishing and then just thinking and coming up with new thoughts. It is okay to learn this I think, eventually when you are older no one can be special all the time, when I am bored because I already know something I just sit and think. However I just chose a courseload that people said was too much (nope :slight_smile: ) and that worked out challenging enough.</p>

51

<p>Reading these posts brings back lots of memories, some good and some well, less good. I was skipped early and was still bored, bored, bored in class. And I was too emotionally immature to deal with class time. Thank God I was large for my age and athletic, or public school would have been an unending torment.</p>

<p>When my D began to show promise (Calmom’s post #43 provides a fair representation of her) my wife and I were pretty well prepared for what was to come. We used many of the techniques described previously: unstructured kindergarten ($6K, yikes! but worth it), lots of library time, lots of purchased books, as many new experiences as we could jam into our schedule, talented and gifted programs within schools, EPGY and CTY programs and distance learning, organized activities unrelated to academics (dance was great, but perhaps not such a good choice for a boy), and finally an academically challenging prep school.</p>

<p>The bottom line is your cousin needs to connect with peers both socially and academically. The hard part is that this involves two DIFFERENT sets of peers. And like it or not it’s the parents who need to bridge the difference, offering support and providing regular access to experiences that help the boy grow both socially and intellectually.</p>

52

<p>Calmom, Elkind says it’s not hurrying to accelerate a gifted kid. :slight_smile: <a href=“http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/elkind.htm[/url]”>http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/elkind.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

53

<p>A few comments on a number of posts.
1.We were not attuned to signs of giftedness in S at an early stage. By the time we were, he had made good friends and did not want to skip. So, if a child is identified as gifted early, it makes sense to let the child skip the early grades, before friendships are formed.
2. For many kids in need of acceleration and compacting, the big phobia is slow and repetitive.
3. Outside enrichment widens the gap between the gifted child and the age peers. S learned math mostly outside school, which is how he ended up doing precalc in 7th grade.
4. Many kids are unevenly gifted, so grade skipping is not always the best answer. What they need is subject specific acceleration and compacting. Hence the need for flexible teachers willing to tweak the schedule as my Ss’s teachers were willing to do.</p>

54

<p>I don’t have kids, but based on my own experiences, I can say that your cousin will be okay if he doesn’t repeat. I learned how to read when I was two and a half, and when I was in first grade, I tested beyond 5th grade in reading and I also wrote little books and stuff. I went through school normally, but in lower school, I was given “special” books to read and I was pulled out of english for a class with 2 other kids called “enrichment.” In Enrichment, we learned about greek mythology, the human body, medieval times, a bit of shakespeare, how movies are made, the newspaper publishing process, etc. That was my favorite class in elementary school. </p>

<p>Then, when I went home, I would sit and read about whatever I wanted to. I went through phases where I read all that I could about natural disasters, Native Americans, Victorian times, Ancient Greek… And my parents would complete my little self-imposed units with trips to the museum and stories they knew. Then, I would invent projects for myself. In fourth grade, I wrote down how I wanted my world to be (I even included taxing procedures haha) and created a curriculum and method of learning for the public schools in this land. In third grade, I drew pictures to accompany certain scenes in Moby Dick (I don’t actually remember this, but we have the pictures and my parents used to make me date everything). </p>

<p>He’ll find things to do. As long as his parents find different subjects for him to delve into that interest him, he’ll be fine. If he likes english, you don’t need to teach him vocabulary, just expose him to different genres or periods of history! If he’s 5 years ahead in math, then he should continue learning math but he doesn’t have to learn so much of it- he could do math puzzles or contest-type problems. Instead of learning a lot about one thing, you could get his parents to expose him to lots of different things- teach him another language! I spoke five by the time I was six. When you’re young, it’s really not that hard (I don’t know if it’s hard if you’re older because I speak everything my school offers, but I’m sure it must be easier when you’re younger) and if you make it a game as you teach him, he’ll want to learn. I watched cartoons in french when I was little and sang songs in spanish. My favorite book was in portuguese when I was in kindergarten.</p>

<p>I think I went off-topic a bit. What I meant to say, though, was that he doesn’t need to skip grades to be challenged. If his parents are willing to help him learn what he’s interested in and if they take him to the library and to museums/other cultural venues a least once in a while, he shouldn’t get bored. It took me a while to fit in with my classmates when I was young, but that’s because I was very shy- no matter how smart little girls may be, they all love barbies and baby dolls. I’m sure that your cousin will find something in common with his classmates.</p>

55

<p>School didn’t provide challenge until high school ap/enriched classes. Music, reading and sports involvement really helped. Puzzles (all types) develop all sorts of skills and can be very social. D/S became a passionate reader, talented writer, and musician and continues to enjoy sports and puzzles. </p>

<p>We felt that it was important that d/s learn to deal with intelligence diversity, since that is the world we live in. We felt it was important that d/s learn patience, tolerance, and true appreciation for different learning styles and abilities. Focus on the whole person; think long-term, but care for the present. Remember that emotional intelligence may be very different. </p>

<p>FUN crosses all intelligence boundaries. Don’t forget to let the child have carefree fun. </p>

<p>If your d/s is in public school, understand that it is PUBLIC education, oriented towards serving the majority. Be reasonable about what you can expect in any given day, given the school’s resources. Remember to respect the rights of all students. Within those boundaries, speak thoughtfully and honestly to teachers. Value your child’s giftedness and expect others to, at least, respect it. Encourage your child to respect it.</p>

<p>It’s a good problem to have. Don’t forget to enjoy living with a smart person. It is fun.</p>

56

<p>Mathmom, re your post #52 – actually, the Elkind book I read was Miseducation, and I was thinking of this passage (at pages 153-154):

“Structural imperative” refers to the child’s internal drive to learn, such as the drive to learn language. Miseducation is arguing against the trend toward highly structured preschool education and early introduction of formal academics.</p>

<p>PorpoisePal’s post #54 above provides an excellent illustration of this “structural imperative” at work. My main criteria in picking an elementary school for my kids was too fine one that was flexible and had enough different stuff going on so that it didn’t get too boring, so they ended up at a school that was very big on hands-on learning, field trips, extra projects, cross-grade activities, etc. It worked o.k. for us.</p>

57

<p>Calmom, I agree with you completely there. Unfortunately it’s not easy to find schools that allow kids to explore their interests. That’s why my oldest was so happy in kindergarten. I picked the best school for him that was available - as a magnet school they did a lot of extra stuff, but it still was a pretty bad fit in the early years despite having a fair number of teachers who recognized how precocious he was.</p>

58

<p>I really have to say again, since this topic seems to reappear pretty routinely…</p>

<p>There is as much variation between a “gifted” child with an IQ of 120 and one of 150 (more profoundly gifted) as the 120 child and a kid of IQ 90 (low end of average).</p>

<p>“Gifted” is a big umbrella. When we talk about gifted, we are not all talking the same language, and it is impossible to tell, from the OP’s post, what level she is speaking of. The needs of different levels of gifted or talented children differ widely, and there is absolutely no “one size fits all”.</p>

59

<p>^^That’s true - I have kids whose IQs are probably 30 points or so apart. Younger one was tested older one wasn’t. My 130ish gifted kid was academically pretty on target in school. Can’t be positive of course, but the behaviors the OP described sounded to me more like a kid on the upper end of the spectrum.</p>

60

<p>I would say more profoundly gifted.
I remember getting somewhere in the 130s or 140s on those Otis-Lennon tests they gave us in elementary school, but I’m not sure if those are at the same scale or I read the scores right 12 years ago. Based on what my cousin is doing, he is smarter than I was.</p>

<p>My cousin had memorized books and words when he was two. The other day he claimed the other day that he was reading. My little sister and I, having known he knew his letters before he was two, taught him “cat”, “dog”, “stop”, “go”, “flowers” and his name because we thought he was rather amusing. He kept asking my aunt and uncle how things were spelled, and pointed out basic words. Since he had memorized the entirety of a couple of Dr. Seuss books about a year before, everyone had figured it was more memory stuff. It wasn’t until he was on vacation, was looking down at the words carved on bricks on the ground and read out loud, “Animals are a gift from God, we should love them”, that his parents realized the reading was real. He was 3 and a half then.</p>

<p>This thread has been great. I told my aunt about it, and she’s looking forward to reading what everyone wrote.</p>