Moving up your accelerated child in Sunday school...

[6packofun]

We are youth leaders and want to have a strict policy about age and grade before kids move up into our jr. high class because spiritual, intellectual and social maturity are all important considering some of the topics we cover (and their depth). We don't want to offend potential academically accelerated children or their parents and at the same time we need some set boundaries because many parents, well, want their child to move up to be with friends or because *they* feel their child is ready even if we can see that they may not be, etc.

 

Do most of you have your children go with the flow or guidelines set up at church or do you request that your child move up? If the latter, would the request be regardless of any other factors or only if your child had the social/emotional maturity as well? Would you be offended to be turned down?

 

We're trying to do our best to accomodate everyone and make everyone feel welcome and yet we want to urge our Children's Church leaders to be sure that ALL kids are spiritually fed in their respective classes to avoid anyone feeling like they must move up in order to be challenged at their level.

 

Sorry, this is kind of rambling and I really just need to perspective as I'm the mom/teacher of 6 wonderful, mostly average (academically) kiddos!! Thank you for your thoughts on this; I apologize if it's been asked before. :001_smile:

[Reya]

I would have benefited by moving up early. As it was, I dropped out of SS by teaching in the nursery classes as soon as I could.

 

My DS, OTOH, is a social butterfly and likes playing with kids his age almost as well as he does older kids, so I leave him. That's best for him for now.

 

Social/emotional maturity is really critical in SS classes.

 

>We're trying to do our best to accomodate everyone and make everyone feel welcome and yet we want to urge our Children's Church leaders to be sure that ALL kids are spiritually fed in their respective classes to avoid anyone feeling like they must move up in order to be challenged at their level.

 

This is a bit naive! The level of theological discussion that a very gifted child might be interested in would alienate his age-peers. You can either bore him or bore the other kids, not accommodate both. I would make decisions on a child-by-child basis. I would never move up an immature child, however.

[6packofun]

We do try to accomodate every child and it can be very difficult (I wonder if parents understand just how much because they are only advocating for *their* child). For example, we have a girl in our class who is homeschooled (going into 7th) and is very spiritually mature and contributes wonderfully to our discussions but cannot read/write very well at ALL. It's an interesting challenge because she wants help for all of our reading and writing activities and it disrupts the flow of the class. But she would be bored silly in a lower class, of course. :confused: Btw, this is the PASTOR'S dd.

 

Our church is also located in a very urban area. We have plenty of unchurched, street-wise children who visit and the conversation needs to be continually monitored. We wonder about children who are accelerated and can handle the class content, but at a younger age are their parents going to be upset that their child happened to overhear talk of someone using drugs or having sex, or asking questions about guy-girl relationships, etc. (Not on a Sunday morning, usually, but this happens occasionally on Tues. youth night.) A lot to think about.

[Donna]

My oldest ds (12yo) moved up, one year only even though he is 3-4 yrs. ahead academically. He moved up going into K because he was reading well as a preschooler and there were no other children his age at the church which would have left him in a class with children who were a year younger. We chose to have him move to the class with children a year older. This ds is very socially mature, a leader type of child who gets along with anyone so it has worked out well. He is now involved in the youth group at the church which occassionally runs through high school and he contributes well in the discussions and as part of the group.

 

 

My middle ds (10yo), I did not move up because there were plenty of children his age range and very few a year older. He is accelerated academically also but I don't think anyone needs to accomodate him for one hour a week of church/religious learning. He tends to hold more indepth conversations with his ss teacher than most of the kids his age but he gets along with everyone regardless.

 

My youngest (5yo), I have not moved up either. She was a bit hesitant to leave me during church when she was younger and finally became comfortable with the teacher so I allowed her to stay in that class even though she is academically 3 years ahead and constantly asks questions of a religious/philosophical nature. Most of her questions would seem strange in a class of 2-3rd graders let alone K'ers but she saves them for me so at this point she "fits in" just fine and as with her brother, I don't see a need to accomodate for 1 hour a week of learning. The stories are all new to her and we expound on them later at home if she has more interest.

 

I think it is very important to have the social maturity. I would not be offended if I wanted my child moved up but the church felt strongly against it. It is their program and they are not required to give anyone special treatment in my opinion. If I felt strongly that my child needed more spiritual guidance or learning, I would provide it myself as I do for their academic needs. I don't think you could ever make everyone happy in your situation.

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

My son was moved up by one year only, but he was bored silly. He's an avid reader, so as soon as he got his hands on a children's Bible he read through it all. He knew all the stories. And he had asked me for their significance, so the stories were discussed at length at home. Yet I was afraid to move him up by more than one year.

 

This year, I requested to be the leader of his class. There's another boy in his class that is very bright and has a lot of religious education at home. Both of them would need a different class. They were both kids I could push farther. If I gave readings to do at home, they would both do it. And demanded more.

Not the other kids...

 

The kids were from 10 (my son) to 13 years old. Mixed bag. I had older kids who had joined later and were doing their first communion. That level is mandatory for first communion. There were some times the kids brought up the discussion of sexual-related sins. My son was completely lost. He knows about the sexual act, but none of the deviants. So now I'm glad he wasn't accelerated by more than a year.

 

So here's what I would recommend, based on my personal experience and the church I attend.

Let parents choose to accelerate a child by one year, no more.

Bright children need extra stuff to do at home, extra discussions with the teacher to keep them interested. Plan for that.

 

----

this post was written under the influence of drugs. I'm on codeine tonight.

[Jenny in Florida]

However, you may or may not know that very bright children are often "accelerated" not only intellectually but emotionally/spiritually, too. Very gifted kids often hit those emotional developmental milestones early. My daughter certainly did.

 

In fact, she was pretty much born a seeker. She developed an intense interest in religion--specifically comparative world religions--at a time when most kids couldn't care less about their own faith. By age 7, she was seriously interested in Buddhism. She had read several books on the subject by the time she was 9-ish and, when I tried to seek out a mentor for her to continue her studies, the only folks I could think of to ask told me she already knew as much as they did.

 

By the age of 11 or 12, she was having a spiritual crisis regarding the "big questions" about death and the existence of God.

 

We tried various things for her in our church's Religious Education program. To begin with, we just kept her with her age peers, assuming she would want to be in class with her friends. But she got disgusted with the fact that she was usually the only one who appeared to have any interest in actually discussing the topic being covered in class and with the fact that the teachers usually couldn't answer her questions.

 

We then tried bumping her up a level. (Classes at our church are multi-grade, usually two or three grades grouped, so this would mean she was with kids who were usually one and two years older than she was.) We had mixed success with that. She still found the classes less than stimulating or satisfying, and she missed the one or two girls her age with whom she did enjoy spending time.

 

The year our church decided to peg enrollment strictly to age, rather than grade, she opted not to go to class at all. And I think that was the beginning of her loss of interest in church.

 

There was a change of administration the following year, and we arranged a meeting with the new program director. I took both kids in to meet her to discuss appropriate placements for them.

 

The RE director, after meeting my kids, essentially gave me free reign to enroll them as I saw fit.

 

My daughter agreed to return to class that year, largely because she just really liked the RE director and felt supported and understood. They classes were still frequently uninspiring, but she made it through to year. They also got a middle school youth group going, which she did enjoy and which allowed her to take on various leadership roles.

 

(She went away to school this year, by the way, and we recently learned that the youth group has become more or less non-functional in her absence.)

 

My son (now 10) is also "spiritually mature." He thinks deeply about "the big issues" and, while not as interested in the more academic knowledge about world religions, can become passionately interested in moral and ethical questions that simply elude most boys his age. He was fairly happy for a couple of years after we bumped him up a level. His closest friends at the church have always been one to two years older. So, it worked reasonably well for him. This year, however, he, too, lost interest. He found the kids in his class, even though they were mostly older than he, were extremely immature and unfocused, not to mention rude and inattentive. He freqently found he didn't learn anything, either because there just wasn't much content being taught or because the lack of interest and involvement from the other kids made it impossible to get anything out of the experience.

 

Now, don't get me wrong. These are "good kids," from nice families. They all go to good schools and have involved, caring parents. Many of them are in gifted programs at their schools.

 

He has drifted away from going to class in the second half of this year, and given what I have observed, I find it difficult to insist. I don't know whether he will be willing to return next year.

 

So, I would say that policies about this sort of thing need to take into account the needs of the individual child and also the content of the class. If you are talking about classes that have a large academic component (memorization of Bible stories, for example) and you are dealing with a child who is clearly capable of and craving more than the class for his or her age would provide, then I don't see how one could in good conscience hold that child back. If your class includes more analysis and soul searching and discussion, perhaps you would do well to require some sort of interview with the program administrator before moving a child up a level.

 

Personally, I would not be offended to have my child turned down for acceleration for a good reason. We were offended and very put off by the inflexible, assignment by age, no exceptions policy that was in place at our church for that one year. Faced with that brick wall, we simply opted out of the program entirely.

[Jenny in Florida]

 

Quoting myself, because I wanted to clarify: We didn't opt out of the program because we were offended by the policy, but because it was clear that our kids would not benefit from what was being offered.

 

And it isn't just the risk of them being bored, but the fact that going to these classes actually upsets them. They find it sad and painful to be there and see the other kids blow it all off, while they get treated like weirdos because they actually care and want to be there and take it seriously.

 

When it gets to the point that they are leaving church in a bad mood every week, we let them drop out until they feel like going back.

[KAR120C]

We have chosen NOT to move DS up at all for church, but actually it's because of the immaturity of the older kids, not the younger ones. I've taught elementary age Sunday School and middle school workshops in our church for years now, and knowing most of the kids as well as I do, I'm quite certain that he has more challenge, more interesting discussions and less disrespect and general immaturity among his classmates by staying with the younger group. If that weren't true I would absolutely be insisting on different placement, but as it is, I'm not.

 

Like Jenny-in-Florida's kids, DS has had an intense interest in religion for a long time. Church and Sunday School have never been enough, really, and so we supplement heavily at home (surprise! homeschoolers! LOL) And I've consistently volunteered to teach the Sunday School weeks when there are topics that are of particular interest to him. (We do block scheduling of volunteers, so it's easy to pick and choose.) Then we can follow up at home with whatever more he needs. I do know from experience that it's difficult to pitch a lesson at a wide range of kids, but I think that's going to be true no matter how you divide the groups -- DS will never be a perfect fit anywhere.

 

Anyway as a general thing, I would suggest that you not have a hard-and-fast rule, but allow flexibility within reason -- I like the idea of allowing parents to move kids within a year without special permission, and I do think it's wise to warn them of the topics that come up. I'm not sure if you can attribute a standard level of maturity to junior high students (not the ones I've taught anyway!), but it's probably a good idea to keep in mind the particular kids involved in both groups.

[Academy of Jedi Arts]

Dd6 no longer attends Sunday School regularly. We started her in the 1st-3rd grade class at age 3, which was a good fit for her. She had friends and she had fun. I was going to move her up into my class this year (I teach 4th and 5th graders), and was discouraged from doing so. The 1st-3rd grade teacher was a public school teacher from way back and knows everything. She assured me she would differentiate some things for my dd and I did not want to rock the boat too much, as I have been very involved in Children's Ministry in the past. Besides, I figured, it's just Sunday School.

 

The first sign of trouble was when the teacher said she wanted dd to be a "leader" in the class. Then, the director asked me at promotion time last year if I wanted dd to get a Bible and a certificate, since she was "first grade age now". I replied that dd entered that class at at age 3, and that I would consider it offensive for her to be offered a certificate NOW. The last straw was when the teacher called to ask me a favor, and mentioned how the curriculum they are using for this unit is for 4th and 5th graders, and since NONE of the students in the class can handle some of the material, they are reading things to them instead of having them read themselves, and are having to leave some things out. So, she has material in the class more appropriate for dd, but refuses to use it. She also mentioned how much fun dd has been having, but when I ask dd, she says the stuff is babyish and whenever she thinks something is going to be fun, it ends up being lame. So the teacher has no clue what dd is really thinking or feeling.

 

It's not a matter of dd merely being academically advanced. Dd is more than highly gifted, and I am not expecting these people to really meet her needs in the classroom. The main reasons she needs to be accelerated are social and emotional. She has no friends in her class, and fellowship and friendship is one of the main reasons we send dd to Sunday School in the first place.

 

I have solved the problem up until now by pulling dd into my class every now and then. Also, the 1st-3rd graders leave the church service and go back to their classroom, and I have been keeping dd in the service. My MIL recently had a knee operation and has not been making it to Sunday School, so recently I have just been letting dd stay with her.

 

Next year, I would insist they move dd up and I would make a big stink out of her getting her promotion certificate, but the director has been bringing in a lot of problem children to our church, and the behavior influences in either class are not something I want dd around. So now we have a two fold problem with Sunday School.

 

There is another Methodist church nearby that several of dd's friends attend. Dh and I have toyed with the idea of sending dd there during the week for Sunday School and attending church at our church on Sundays. The director there knows dd and it will be no problem having her with her older friends.

 

I am also on drugs (lol)- cold medicine- and it is very early, so I hope this makes sense.

[plansrme]

Leadership can and should explain the pros and cons, but barring some aspect of the child's personality that would interfere with the other children, it is ultimately the parents' role to properly assess their child's emotional and spiritual readiness.

 

Terri

[6packofun]

It helps to hear from parents and learn what frustrations and struggles you've had in this area and what has worked well. I think we'll stick with a loose age/grade rule but take special cases within 1 year (up or down) as we work with the parents to have the best fit. :) The last thing we want is to alienate anyone, and making our class content clear to everyone will help US as teachers and the parents to know what will work best.

 

(We've had a parents' meeting and only 2 showed up, so having involved parents is not a major issue, unfortunately. My questions here were more for future reference and because the children in the lower levels seem to move around between classes at will. LOL)

 

Thanks again!

[Starr]

I find teaching Sunday School difficult for all the reasons mentioned in the above posts. Sometimes I think a family Sunday School class might be an idea. I hope someone here will have all the answers! :)

[summer]

I would not move my accelerated children up in Sunday school. Sunday school serves a completely different purpose than math or English class. Church and Sunday school is for socializing with other people who are there to be with and to honor God and Jesus. You will always reread the same bible passages and stories and so on.

 

In school, it is about learning the things, mastering it, always being challenged, and moving on. Church is completely different. It is about being together. I do not approve of moving a child up in church or Sunday school based on being ahead in reading or math or anything else.

[In The Great White North]

I don't recommend a rigid policy at all.

 

If a parents feels strongly about their particular dc and you have a policy that you're not willing to bend, they will leave. That is not your goal.

 

Your best option is to publish a clear list of topics covered in each grade so parents can make an informed decision. Be sure to include topics that are not in the curriculum but usually come up anyway. That way, no one will be upset when their "advanced" 9 year old comes home talking about what he learned.

 

Most parents will follow the grades anyway.

[Jenny in Florida]

I would not move my accelerated children up in Sunday school. Sunday school serves a completely different purpose than math or English class. Church and Sunday school is for socializing with other people who are there to be with and to honor God and Jesus. You will always reread the same bible passages and stories and so on.

 

In school, it is about learning the things, mastering it, always being challenged, and moving on. Church is completely different. It is about being together. I do not approve of moving a child up in church or Sunday school based on being ahead in reading or math or anything else.

 

Well, all of this may well be true for your kids and, in fact, for most kids. However, there are a few of pretty big generalizations that I cannot let pass without comment.

 

I should probably say up front that it is late and I am on my way to bed. I haven't been sleeping because of this stupid back pain, and I really want to be fresh tomorrow. (My son is singing a solo during our church service.) So, I truly do not intend anything I say below to sound curt or rude. I'm just trying to get my thoughts down quickly and completely so I can get some sleep! I'm not big on smileys, but please do mentally insert one every now and then to remind you that I'm typing in a friendly tone.:001_smile: (Okay, maybe just one.)

 

First: Church may well be for socializing and spending time with other people with whom you share beliefs. However, at least at the church I attend, Sunday school/Religious Education is intended to teach children about their faith and its place in the world and to, in the words of our current minister, "help them develop their own beliefs." At least in our RE program, there is a definite academic component, and children who are beyond what is being taught or the way it is being taught will find being stuck in a classroom in which they do not belong tedious to the point of tears. That's hardly the way to help kids develop positive feelings about religion and church.

 

Second: Not all Sunday school programs are about God or Jesus. It's a small point, but one I can't let pass.

 

Third: Again, at least in our church, there are different curricula used for different age groups that often cover very different themes. We do not just re-read the same Bible passages each year, but often cover entirely different information from grade to grade or level to level.

 

Fourth: As has been mentioned more than once in this thread, very highly gifted kids really are different. They are not just advanced in math and English, but often operating on a whole different plane. They often have much bigger questions, much bigger concerns and much more capacity for (and interest in) exploring these things than other kids their age. Remember that a highly gifted child may be as different from a "moderately gifted child" as that moderately gifted child is from an average one.

 

Finally: Many of the same kids who might become bored and tune out under such circumstances may well turn out to be leaders in the church if you keep them involved and invested. So, if refusing to meet their academic and spiritual needs means they end up not coming at all, that's a loss not only to them but to your church and your denomination. Finding appropriate placement for them in Religious Education programs is not about bragging rights for the parents or a boost to the kids' self-esteem. It's about finding some way to serve a legitimate emotional and spriritual need for that child and about creating a life-long bond between that very thoughtful and insightful person and your church.

[summer]

I am assuming then that your church Sunday school classes are very different from ours.

 

Here is how ours go....

 

The entire Sunday school follows the same exact theme. It is a very planned out curriculum. It is actually a very good one. So, on the day they discuss such-n-such, the entire Sunday school, all grades, do something with it. My children all have high enough IQs that they have ceiling'd out the tests given to them..referring to actual tests given by psychologists.

 

My 6 yr old is obviously light years ahead of the children in his class in reading and understanding and such. When they say something about Egypt, he can tell them where on the map it is, what continent, about the Nile and so on. The rest of the class probably does not even understand that Egypt is a country. My son can read the teachers lessons plans when she leaves them sitting while the rest of the class barely reads at all. None of this is an issue for the way things are presented. He still learns stories about the bible and moral concepts. There are interesting lessons. If he went a grade level up, he could easily handle it, but that is not what it is about. It would be presented on a slightly higher level. But, I realize now he would not benefit from that. I certainly would never move him to the level he functions at, which is 3 grade levels ahead....4 if you count reading.

 

I did, however, promote my DD to the higher grade level. Previously, she not only accelerated a grade, but still placed in to the "highly gifted" program at our local very large public school district. But in the end, I regret putting her ahead. It just meant she took communion a year earlier and would do confirmation a year earlier, and so on. In the end, I changed my mind. Too late, it is done with. But I wish I had not done it. She had no trouble getting along and my church did not give us a trouble with it at all. But I regret it. There was no point to it. She was done with Sunday school a year earlier. She moved on to Confirmation classes a year earlier, and so on. The mere meaning of communion in our church left me feeling unsettled that she took it sooner than she had to.

 

In reality, our teachers are tolerant enough and our classes small enough that the teachers expect to deal with a variety of abilities and no one has an issue with it.

 

My church may be very different from yours, but I have no experiences with any sort of church where things would be so different from one grade level to the next that it would be worth placing a child a grade level up.

[summer]

Fourth: As has been mentioned more than once in this thread, very highly gifted kids really are different. They are not just advanced in math and English, but often operating on a whole different plane. They often have much bigger questions, much bigger concerns and much more capacity for (and interest in) exploring these things than other kids their age. Remember that a highly gifted child may be as different from a "moderately gifted child" as that moderately gifted child is from an average one.

quote]

 

BTW, FYI, this came across as very condensending. My statements are based on the fact that my church has never been bothered by bigger questions or questions of things that go more in detail by one child out of the class. It in no way came was because I have no clue about "very highly gifted kids." My own IQ has been tested in the 160+ range on more than one occassion by a real psychologist. I qualified for Mensa with ease and for another high IQ society that had far high standards. Despite DH having family members in Mensa, I just never bothered to actually join after testing. Nothing against it, sounds fun. Just didn't have the time. So I am well aware what it means to have a "very high IQ"...and well beyond that. So please do not assume that just because someone disagrees with your viewpoint means that they must just not be as smart as you or their children must just not be as smart as yours. All it means is that someone is disagreeing with you.

[Jenny in Florida]

BTW, FYI, this came across as very condensending. My statements are based on the fact that my church has never been bothered by bigger questions or questions of things that go more in detail by one child out of the class. It in no way came was because I have no clue about "very highly gifted kids." My own IQ has been tested in the 160+ range on more than one occassion by a real psychologist. I qualified for Mensa with ease and for another high IQ society that had far high standards. Despite DH having family members in Mensa, I just never bothered to actually join after testing. Nothing against it, sounds fun. Just didn't have the time. So I am well aware what it means to have a "very high IQ"...and well beyond that. So please do not assume that just because someone disagrees with your viewpoint means that they must just not be as smart as you or their children must just not be as smart as yours. All it means is that someone is disagreeing with you.

 

Summer, I honestly apologize if I sounded condescending. That was not my intention. As I said, I was awfully tired and sore last night and did not take the time I might otherwise have done to edit my comments.

 

I have never felt comfortable discussing IQ scores in public, probably at least in part because I have lingering concerns about exactly what such tests do and don't mean. However, it sounds like we are in very similar boats, both individually and with our children. The reality is, though, that such kids are so rare in the general population that it is entirely reasonable to assume that most people will never meet one. So, I have learned that it sometimes saves a lot of time and hurt feelings to make it clear up front what we're talking about.

 

With that said, I just want to respond to a couple of things you said: I never said and did not mean to imply that our church was "bothered" by kids with bigger questions. My concern was for the children, who, at least in our family's situation, have benefitted greatly from the opportunity to share and discuss those concerns and those questions with intellectual/emotional/spiritual peers.

 

Also, regarding your experiences with your daughter: Our situations again seem to be quite different, in that our church does not have rituals like yours that must be completed at specific ages or grade levels. So, I have no concerns about my children being "done" with RE too early. In my daughter's case, she ended up leaving for college well before she even approached our traditional "coming of age" program (one of my few sadnesses, by the way, about sending her to school early).

 

We'll just have to wait and see where my son goes with this. At the moment, he is unsure he wants to participate in RE at all next year, because the classes were so unfulfilling this year, even having moved up a grade. It makes me sad for him, but I won't force the issue, since attending classes that aren't working for him makes him so upset and, as we experienced with our daughter, creates a bad feeling about church in general.

 

Again, it was not at all my intention to sound dismissive of your experiences or your point of view. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree, especially since it sounds like our churches are so different as to make meaningful comparison very difficult.

[Academy of Jedi Arts]

We accelerate our child (not just in Church) primarily for social and emotional reasons. It is no fun being met with a blank stare when you try to talk to someone, whether it be about God or your favorite TV show. It's no fun being surrounded by games you have no desire to play and kids you have no desire to play with, knowing there are friends, fun games, and kids performing skits, etc. in another room not far away.

 

It has nothing to do with our child being "smarter than".

[summer]

Thank You Jenny, you were very kind in your words this morning.

 

I can see our churches are structured so different. I had DD go up a grade level in the church because she had already done it in the public school. In the public school, they rarely rarely skip. There are currently almost 50,000 kids in the district and I was told by the district that she was only the 4th person in 20 yrs to pass the tests (the tests are definitely made for failure). They tried to keep me from allowing her to go on ahead. We pulled her and she has been homeschooling. Ok..we let her go 1 more day of school and then pulled her. We thought about returning her this past year. Even testing with the higher grade level, she tested in to the gifted program and the highly gifted program. To explain what that means is there is a so-called gifted program which is really just an accelerated track. Then there is the highly gifted program where you have to test at 96th percentile and above in 6 areas (ITBS and Cogat) to place in to. She took it with the higher grade level and still passed. This is particularly amazing because of her hearing impairment. Children with hearing impairments get behind in reading and usually cannot catch up, let alone test 96th percentile and above at the higher grade level.

 

But, needless to say, she felt going back to school would be a waste. So she is home and this is fine.

 

But back to the churches..the progression here did not meet with my happiness in accelerating her in Sunday school. I did put her just one grade up. Even at that point, she was more mature and such than the other kids, but this is fine. But in our church, the classes are kept small. Parents can be very involved and there is tons of individual attention. I have heard stories this year of my son, who was in the kinder class, telling in great details about planets, countries, or adding all the numbers up on a board in his head. This was while the rest of the class was in the process of learning the alphabet at school.

 

There is a point in our church where the children do First Communion. I went ahead and had DD do it with her own grade rather than her age-grade. In the classes, as they spoke of being accountable for their sins and that basically, they did not say it in these words, but that they are no longer the innocent children but rather are old enough to be held accountable and such and needed to take communion and so on. I was not happy. I knew this. I was raised in this religion. But when it really internalized was when I watched my DD stand in front of the church about to take her first communion and I wanted to grab her down and have her wait. Most the children were 11. She was 9. I think 12 or 13 would have made a better age for this. I felt rotten. I never told her or anyone how rotten it made me feel.

 

In our church, what they do in the 1st grade class is so much the same as the 2nd grade that in some churches, they combine the grades. They do not really do much different at the different grade levels with the exception of the year they do first communion, and even that is done in a separate class after church. My DD was not required to participate but everyone does at that grade level so it was only natural she go along with her Sunday school classmates.

 

Beyond that, Sunday school and church are mostly for fellowship. I have brought my neice who has dyslexia and put her a grade up and my dd a grade down to have them together. Never an issue.

 

But that is how our church runs Sunday school. Oh, and the lower classes have more fun at our church. The lower level classes are more likely to leave the classroom and do things. They are more likely to tend to the garden or do a skit and such. They have crafts and songs and such. The older classes tend to just sit around discussing things and reading the bible, but not much fun at all. When I was a child, I could barely stand Confirmation classes (7th grade and up). It was like being in a regular lecture class.

 

So things must be very different between our churches.

[Academy of Jedi Arts]

Summer, the first day we attended dh's family church on Communion day, I was dumbfounded. What???? Now? No classes? No white dress? In our church, even the preschoolers take communion. 2 of dd's friends who are raised in the Catholic faith had their first Communion this year. They are 8 years old, and I was more envious than I thought I would be considering I have not been a practicing Catholic in 20 years.

 

We are lucky too in that confirmation classes are taught separately in the evenings and not during the Sunday School hour for our youth. It would be possible for our daughter to stay with her friends for Sunday School, but not do confirmation until she is 11 (when our church usually does it- 6th grade), and I still think that is young for confirmation.

 

So, I totally understand your feelings.

[Jenny in Florida]

Thank You Jenny, you were very kind in your words this morning.

 

. . .

 

Oh, and the lower classes have more fun at our church. The lower level classes are more likely to leave the classroom and do things. They are more likely to tend to the garden or do a skit and such. They have crafts and songs and such. The older classes tend to just sit around discussing things and reading the bible, but not much fun at all. When I was a child, I could barely stand Confirmation classes (7th grade and up). It was like being in a regular lecture class.

 

So things must be very different between our churches.

 

I'm glad I was able to be clearer in my intention the second time around!

 

I suspect this is largely a function of the child's personality, too. I had to smile when I read your description of the younger classes having more fun, since my daughter told me word for word at about age 9 that if she had to attend one more RE class in which they heard a story and did a craft project, she was going to run screaming from the building. I asked her what she would rather do, instead, and she said she wanted to sit at desks and have a "real class, with discussion." She also said she would like to have reading assignments in between classes, so that everyone would come prepared to talk intelligently about the subject.

 

So, that's what I'm coping with.

 

I'm glad you've found an approach that is working for your son. We're still working on that for mine.

[elizam]

I personally think it is better to have a policy if it will be followed by every member.

 

My ds was dimayed when he was in 8th grade to have several classmates moved up to high school early. They don't act especially "spiritually mature"--in fact, some rarely attend and others are just typical teens and even so typical as to be very cliqueish and wanting to move up to be with their friends.

 

A few kids told ds he should move up as well, that anyone could. Well, that led to a very humiliating situation where ds got the runaround and I was told he just "wasn't as mature as those other kids" and "should be a good example to the younger kids" by staying in his middle school class. Also, the accelerated ones supposedly were moved up by parental request. But I guess that didn't count for me since ds was not considered as "mature."

 

Yes, maybe that all sounds very sour grapes, but it was painful. My mother agreed with me that it was terrible to do to a kid that age.

[bettyandbob]

I would advise no more than that, because 7th grade and beyond the focus on teen social issues during Sunday School time can become significant. I'm not saying drugs, s**, lifestyle choices take up every class, but they come up. The teachers at my church have taken training to deal with these topics when the kids bring them up. Even if the teachers say they won't talk about these things, these topics will come up because they are at the forefront of the teens lives.

 

My ds, is gifted intellectually. Sure he could have quite an advanced theological discussion. He also knows about s** . He's learned about more than the physical act (we've discussed love and rape at different times). I know he's aware of same-s** issues and s** acts other than intercourse and STDs. But he is just not ready to handle group discussion on the topic, even if it's a side discussion that is going on without the teacher's awareness. Physically and intellectually he well developed beyond his peers, but social-emotional issues are an extreme deficit for him, especially regarding s**. These topics do not go completely over my ds's head in group discussion, but they make him completely uncomfortable. So, for now he needs to avoid them.

 

I think part of the issue is some people do not realize that for the junior high and high school groups Sunday School tries to apply theology to life and the fact is some kids have a lot of "life experience" or at least thoughts about "life experience".

 

I vote for a hard age requirement for at least high school, if not junior high Sunday School. This may mean a gifted kid has to choose between staying extra time in an elementary level program or dropping out a year or two. Some very excellerated students may fit better in Adult Sunday School, depending on the topics. At my church, kids 6th grade and up can serve during the service. The kids who volunteer to do this, do so in teams and miss Sunday School the day they serve. A gifted kid who has exhausted the elementary curriculum could do more things during the church service.

[Testimony]

You know this was a topic even on Focus on the Family. Only, the issue was what if a child was classified and in a class for second grade, but he really belonged in third. I think that they recommended that if the child was in public school in that grade then they should be the same in Sunday School. My church ends up lumping every child together because there are not enough children.

 

If the child is mature spiritually/emotionally, then accelerate them.

 

Blessings,

Karen

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/testimony

[K&Rs Mom]

I don't know what our church's exact policy is, but we put dd in the grade she'd be in for outschool. Our Religious Ed classes are somewhat combined (K-1, 2-3rd, etc), so this fall she'll be the older of her group. We decided to do this for reasons of sacraments (First Communion is 2nd grade here, and we didn't want her to do that early) and because we want her to get to know the kids near her age in our church. She is frequently bored, which I'm sure isn't helped by our doing a separate program as part of our homeschooling. ;) I think an hour a week of boredom is probably good for her, because that's how the world is, so she needs to learn to deal with it, and this is a way to ease into that without the full-time boredom of outschooling. Yes, academically, she could have finished the 5th grade program this year (dh teaches the 4/5th class, so I saw the material), but socially she's still a 5yo.

 

We're not to the point of the teenage/mature issues yet, but I don't want her to get there at age 8, kwim? Even if she's academically capable of keeping up with our youth group (the highschool classes are all lumped together), it wouldn't be a good idea. So if we accelerated her now, what would she do from the time she finished the 8th grade class until she turns 14 and is more ready for the mature topics?

[alexfam]

We moved son up when he was in preschool to the kindergarten class. He is very social and did wonderful. At the end of the year when it was graduation time the kids leader (not over sunday school but over kid activities) said that he could move up in ss with his class to the 1st grade ss but that he couldn't do any of the 1st grade activites b/c he wasn't a 1st grader. He couldn't go to camp nore any of the 1st and up activities so he would miss out on things that the kids would be doing and talking about in class. So, in the end we decided to leave son in the Kindergarten ss class for another year so that he can do that activites next year with the kids in his class. I really didn't like this decision b/c son didn't want to leave his friends. His ss teacher (which he has had for 2 year now) has said that DS gets things more than other kids in K ss class. OH well! It doesn't really matter now.

[nitascool]

Do most of you have your children go with the flow or guidelines set up at church or do you request that your child move up? If the latter, would the request be regardless of any other factors or only if your child had the social/emotional maturity as well? Would you be offended to be turned down?

 

In our church SS is divided into Nursery 0-1 1/2, Nursery 1 1/2 - 3, PreK-Kind., 1st-4th, 5th, 6th-8th, 9th-12th and adults.

 

If my children attended SS the younger two would be in the Nursery. The older two would be in the K and 1st-4th class. My older two do not attend for different reasons.

 

My 6yo is uncomfortable in groups larger then 10. His SS class has anywhere from 15 to 20 kids in a class designed for no more then 9. It has florescent lights that really hurt his eyes, no room to move (which he desperately needs), and the noise volume was literally been so high that it caused him to vomit. On top of that he had already learned every thing that the class taught. He complained that the teacher didn't explain things very well (not enough depth), and that the other kids had never even heard of Noah - that weeks lesson.

 

My 8yo was the youngest in the class that he attended. The teacher had told him that he was not old enough for her class and that he would better be placed in the K class with his brother. (He's small for his age.)

 

We did convince her that he was 7 and not 5. By the second week he told us, "I am offended by the childish behavior of my classmates." "The material is juvenile." "The games are embarrassing and foolish." The game was "Jesus Says".

 

The teacher commented that my son read well above any of the other kids in the class, that he was obviously intelligent and that he was "too serious" for his age. She said that he was disruptive, he questioned the children's choices of words, calling each other stupid... and reprehended them for doing so. (The oldest child syndrome doesn't float well when you are the youngest.)

 

He also asked too many "strange" questions which were over the heads of the other children, "Why was Noah considered righteous even though he was a winebibber?" "Why was Noah's grandson punished for his father's indiscretion?"

 

And that some of his questions had "mature" themes and that she was concerned that it might be a problem for the other children (rather their parents), as they did not and should not understand such vocabulary. "Did Noah and his wife procreate after the flood?" "And did God allow them to be more fertile since they had to fill the earth with their seed?"

 

btw they up until that day been taught about Noah a total of 45 times from our previous church attendance. I used to keep all their SS papers and we had quite a few replicas of the exact same lesson.

 

The rule is that the 5th grade class children have to be 10-11 years of age before they can attend. In the class they discuss all the things my ds is currently grappling with. The big S, puberty and what God has to say about their changing bodies. My son's body isn't changing yet but he is aware of them. In all other ways developmentally he is closer to the average 12yo then he is the average 8yo.

 

By the time he's old enough to be in the 5th grade class he will most likely be ready for the high school class. It seems that he is always getting caught in the pesky age related trap weather it is not getting to participate in the library club he's interested in or the SS class that would better meet his needs.

 

Needless to say... we do SS at home. Would I be offended? No. (He however was.) We try to teach him that it's just the way things are. Even if he could be in the 5th grade class it wouldn't be the best fit, as I am sure he would be teased by the boys in the class for being too short or too smart or too (fill in the blank). These same kids meet for Children's Church on Sunday Nights and they think messing with my son is fun sport. He's learned to ignore it for the most part.

 

Our Sunday night teachers try hard to meet our kids where they are but I think for us having a SN GT kid (my 6yo) and a GT motor mouth (my 8yo) has made any kind of normal church experience impossible. So we take what works for us and leave the rest.

[Jenny in Florida]

. . . has made any kind of normal church experience impossible. So we take what works for us and leave the rest.

 

I was active for several years on an e-list for parents who were homeschooling gifted kids, and one of the ideas I absorbed there that has been helpful to me is the idea of the "least worst option."

 

In other words, when you have kids who just don't fit the mold, you may at some point have to give up the idea of finding the "best" situation and accept the "least worst." There will, with these kids, always be drawbacks to any choice we make for them, because the world just isn't designed to fit their needs. So, all you can do is choose the situation that has the fewest negatives balanaced against the positives.

 

I found myself coping with a lot less stress once I really accepted that idea.

[bairnmama]

I've been following this thread with great interest.....

 

I'm currently struggling with my ds and his SS level - though not pertaining to the original Jr. High question. Our church separates the levels like this: Crib babies, toddlers, older 2's & 3's, 4's to finished K, 1st & 2nd grade, 3rd & 4th grade, then all the others get lumped into the youth group starting at 5th grade! This is mostly due to lack of adults to teach than kids to attend.

 

My ds seems to be on his way to being a gifted learner at 3 1/2 and is completely bored in his class... calls it a baby class, yet is still immature enough to throw a crying fit when I make him go into it anyway. He started this just after turning 3 in Jan so has to wait another 6 months to be automatically moved up. I do feel that he would fit better developmentally in the older class now since he knows all his letters, sounds, beginning to read, working 50 piece puzzles without help, etc., and I noticed a few weeks ago when I was peeling him from my neck that his teacher was trying to entice him with some cut out puzzles of the lesson - only 2 or 3 pieces with barely curved lines! Also in our church, the 4 yr old class is when they start coming into the service with us instead of staying for Extended Session - which basically translates to baby-sitting. We also base our communion on a personal statement of faith whether that happens at age 5 or 55 so that is not the issue. What concerns me is that if I do push to move him up to where he will be better suited developmentally now, I would have to hold him back later to not have him in the youth group with all the aforementioned topics, etc. at around age 8 or 9, which I believe is entirely too young no matter how 'spiritually mature' they may be. I grew up the daughter of a pastor/minister of education so I do understand the trials of classroom organization, content, etc. plus was normally the most 'spiritually mature' child regardless of which class I was in for whatever reason. I did choose to stop going to our church's Wed night youth program when a Soph in High School because most of those there were not taking anything seriously and goofing off to where I couldn't concentrate on my personal studies. If this is an issue with many gifted learners, then I would suggest simply bypassing the traditional SS, attending adult worship services and continuing personal Bible study as a family.... like others have previously mentioned.

 

Personally, I believe that SS is the exact place you want to draw in kids that have no previous exposure to the Gospels and the One True God so that they can have the opportunity to come to a relationship with Him. This of course is going to bring up topics/language that your average, been in church for generations parent is going to feel uncomfortable having their child be party to - accelerated or not. So, to finally getting around to answering the question - I guess I have to cast my vote to keeping children mainly with their age-mates for a church policy. People are always free to find a different church with policies more to their liking if they so choose. That is the beauty of God's family.... we are all one body, but our personal worship styles, preferences, etc. lead us to form many different congregations in order to reach the maximum number of people!