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Grade skipping pros and cons


lulalu
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Grade skipping pros and cons for an 11 year old. He has worked ahead in English, reading, and math for years. I didn't care so much during elementary years that he was ahead we just worked where he was at. Now in middle school looking ahead to high school (we might put him in a b&m school for high school) I feel like I need to think this through. I would only put him one year ahead. 

Anyways, what are the pros and cons to think through about advancing a year while homeschooling. Part of me thinks just keeping going where we are at is the best and deal with 9th grade when we hit that if we place him in b&m school. But another part of me thinks if he is working several grade levels ahead we might as well consider him the grade he is working at. 

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Do you want him to go to college early? Is his maturity similarly advanced? Does he tend to prefer peers of a similar age, younger or older? (One of my academically advanced kids consistently did better socially with friends a year or two younger; that along with other maturity things would have made a grade skip a poor fit for that kid.)

eta: Seeing again that he is only 11. In that case, with brick and mortar not yet on the table, I can’t see an advantage to doing it right now. My two kids who took longer to be ready for independence I would not have known that about when they were 11. I would wait for adolescence to be underway to see how that goes. 

Edited by KSera
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I would just keep him labeled as his grade by age until you need to make a decision for b&m school.  Kids can change so much between age 11 and 14.

I have a son who was homeschooled from grades K-4, skipped 5th and entered 6th at a small private school (he had further acceleration in math in that he did Algebra 1 that year).  That year was ok, but he was frustrated with the slow academics, so he skipped 7th and did 8th at the private school the next year.  That still didn't resolve the slow academics issue, but it did introduce issues with a mismatch between his executive functioning and homework/planning demands as well as the fact that he was essentially a little kid in a sea of teenagers.  

We decided to go back to homeschooling the next year.  He did a full high school load at home for the next two years.  Then he decided to enter the public high school with age peers for 9th grade.

It was a huge mistake to do the second skip.  We should have returned to homeschooling instead.

I see now that for highly gifted kids, when they're enrolled in b&m school you need to match them socially first.  If you can also find an academic fit, that's just a happy bonus.

The other issue to consider is how old you think he should be when entering college. 

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I’m not a big fan of grade skipping. There’s plenty of ways to provide advanced work in high school. The maturity factor is huge and bigger than a lot of parents consider at 11. Teen boys—even very bright ones—are often ready for even high school level executive functioning later than girls. You don’t want to find yourself pulling him through. My boys, who are academically advanced—hit their challenging years from 14-16. I wouldn’t want to be near college application  with a grumpy boy who grunts at me. 

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30 minutes ago, Brittany1116 said:

I would say that with a plan for BM HS, I would ask what their process is. In our area, some schools place in age grade regardless of prior work; some will test for placement; some require EoC testing for math and accept other credits easily. 

This is a good point.  The only reason my son could have gone to the public high school two years early is that he had completed 8th grade at a b&m school.  And even then they would have probably been grumbly about it.  There is no way that it would have happened if he were to have gone in directly from homeschool.  

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My dd skipped from 8th grade to 10th grade.  In hind site, I think I would have skipped even earlier, maybe as she was entering middle school years, and I kind of wish we had done the same for a couple other children.  We homeschooled our kids through 8th grade, and then they did a mix of part-time and full-time public high school.  So our dd entered high school as a 10th grader.  We lived in a small town though and there weren't as many opportunities.  Our kids were eager to be challenged and keep on going.  

But, it would depend on a lot of things, including maturity level, social skills, motivation, even friend groups.  

 

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16 hours ago, EKS said:

I see now that for highly gifted kids, when they're enrolled in b&m school you need to match them socially first.  If you can also find an academic fit, that's just a happy bonus.

This.

DD10 has been doing high school math for about a year. It’s completely obvious that we wouldn’t be able to match her academic level if we enrolled her in school. It just wouldn’t work.

I think the social fit is much more important.

Edited by Not_a_Number
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I should mention that you may see a bit of a split in opinions about grade skipping (in a b&m setting) depending on whether the student is a boy or girl.

For example, I don't know if this is still the case, but in the years we were considering the UW Academy, in the photos of each year's classes, the gender ratio was overwhelmingly skewed female.  As in there were just a few males in a sea of females.

Another datapoint, not so much about grade skipping but about academic achievement and gender--our local high school does not weight grades and so anyone with a 4.0 on graduation is considered a valedictorian.  Generally the group of valedictorians skews 70%+ female.

My point here is that females are generally a few years ahead in brain development during high school, and they are usually physically more mature on high school entry than their male age peers.  Also, as a group, females tend to be more conscientious than males throughout their lifespan.  By conscientious I mean attending to details, meeting deadlines, maintaining organization, that sort of thing and not being morally superior in general.  So females will, on average if you hold intelligence constant, likely do better in a grade skipping scenario than males will. 

I wonder if there is any data to back up this assertion.

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So  much to think  about beyond academics  if  you  are not  going  to homeschool through highschool. 

I would inquire will your highschool  allow him to take accelarated classes- can  he be in 9th grade but in 11th grade math? Does your highschool have lots of AP classes and challenging classes? 

Personally, I would not want anyone of mine to left  for  college at 17.  If his  plans (or yours) involves him  living at  home college can change things, too. 

Also - some of the literature that is read in highschool deals  with issues that take a lot of maturity to discuss. 

Is he tall? When did you and his dad go through puberty? 

Are you prepared for the idea that all friends will start driving a  year ahead of him? What  about  dating... 

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I can't advise about academics - one of my kids has worked well above grade level for years, but has also enjoyed some co-op classes because this kid's cohort happens to also be a group of very academic kids.  We're all going to be sad when this group graduates!  We'll lose several to DE next year, which is bad enough.  🙂    But...it's hard to know what a kid will look like, maturity-wise.  Some advanced kids do great with DE, and others can't juggle a college schedule at a younger age.  Some kids have a bunch of social distraction or teen flakiness, while others just march in a straight line towards adulthood.  I've had 9th graders in my classes that could have gone to college tomorrow, and I've had seniors that needed a 5th year of high school to get there.  

Also, does kid have any extracurriculars that they will lose when they finish high school?  For some kids, high school is socially awful and college is a relief.  For others, band, ball, debate team, quiz bowl team, etc, are things that end with high school  A younger kid may be at a disadvantage in making the team, and if they have a shortened high school then they have fewer years to participate.  My own kid, when asked about graduating early (basically starting high school in 8th) said that Science Olympiad and baseball would probably be over when they graduated, and they wanted to do both as long as possible.  Kid is now a junior and is starting to move up the depth chart in both.  And kid wants to complete their Eagle Scout requirements, which would be challenging if they aren't at home for that last year.  I mention this because its not 'social fit', exactly, but it's all part of the non-academic side of school.  

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We stalled my older boy with music and literature. I would not have sent him overseas to university younger than 18 (he actually started at just shy of 18). By the time he finished high school, not only had he finished undergraduate math (he started grad level math classes at MIT as a freshman), he also had a post graduate diploma in music. During highschool, he worked his way through an enormous number of classics including books like 100 years of Solitude, War and Peace, and The Stranger. He read the Economist cover to cover every week, and spent a year working his way through Capital by Piketty and Godel, Esher, and Bach. This stalling program of ours was excellent for his maturity to handle MIT as an international homeschooler and all the cultural shock that entailed, and it allowed him to be not just a math kid but also a humanities kid. He has never regretted our choices, and had a very positive experience in university

Ruth in NZ

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23 hours ago, EKS said:

I should mention that you may see a bit of a split in opinions about grade skipping (in a b&m setting) depending on whether the student is a boy or girl.

For example, I don't know if this is still the case, but in the years we were considering the UW Academy, in the photos of each year's classes, the gender ratio was overwhelmingly skewed female.  As in there were just a few males in a sea of females.

Another datapoint, not so much about grade skipping but about academic achievement and gender--our local high school does not weight grades and so anyone with a 4.0 on graduation is considered a valedictorian.  Generally the group of valedictorians skews 70%+ female.

My point here is that females are generally a few years ahead in brain development during high school, and they are usually physically more mature on high school entry than their male age peers.  Also, as a group, females tend to be more conscientious than males throughout their lifespan.  By conscientious I mean attending to details, meeting deadlines, maintaining organization, that sort of thing and not being morally superior in general.  So females will, on average if you hold intelligence constant, likely do better in a grade skipping scenario than males will. 

I wonder if there is any data to back up this assertion.

This is not proper data, but I have girl twins born in August and a boy born in August, one day apart. Intelligence-wise there's pretty much no difference between the girls and the boy (boy is adopted so this is a bit weird but okay). The girls were skipped two grades in b&m primary school. We didn't really have a choice and acted on solid advice. It worked out well in the end. Boy performs academically just as well but maturity-wise was just not there, so he had Grade 8.1 and Grade 8.2 and is now in Grade 10 at 16. Both the grade skip and the grade retention were done with psych advice. DS is a great sophomore and would be a terrible junior. Academically he can do advanced work but needs more support than the girls did at that age. I feel like the support he gets is appropriate for a sophomore but wouldn't be for a junior, who would be expected to take more responsibility for himself.

It would be interesting to see more data on this. 

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We don't have a formal grade skip, instead we start offering literacy and numeracy experiences and skills early and continue much further down the continuum than most published programs.

Once the child is school aged, they work at ability level. In our homeschool a student is never limited to "grade level" and we allow them progress at their rate.

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8 minutes ago, mathmarm said:

We don't have a formal grade skip, instead we start offering literacy and numeracy experiences and skills early and continue much further down the continuum than most published programs.

Once the child is school aged, they work at ability level. In our homeschool a student is never limited to "grade level" and we allow them progress at their rate.

Academic acceleration in a homeschool situation is vastly more straightforward than in a b&m school setting.

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11 hours ago, lewelma said:

We stalled my older boy with music and literature. I would not have sent him overseas to university younger than 18 (he actually started at just shy of 18). By the time he finished high school, not only had he finished undergraduate math (he started grad level math classes at MIT as a freshman), he also had a post graduate diploma in music. During highschool, he worked his way through an enormous number of classics including books like 100 years of Solitude, War and Peace, and The Stranger. He read the Economist cover to cover every week, and spent a year working his way through Capital by Piketty and Godel, Esher, and Bach. This stalling program of ours was excellent for his maturity to handle MIT as an international homeschooler and all the cultural shock that entailed, and it allowed him to be not just a math kid but also a humanities kid. He has never regretted our choices, and had a very positive experience in university

Ruth in NZ

I think that, in addition to extracurriculars, my kid similarly found that there were learning opportunities - books to read, etc - that kid likely wouldn't have time for if they graduated early.  Things like reading Shakespeare for fun, or reading the assortment of popular science books that I strew around the house, or just pondering whatever kid is pondering at the moment.  After saying that kid didn't want to skip a grade due to extracurriculars, kid asked if there would always be classes that they could take at home.  I pointed out that they could read anything and I could form a class, or kid could DE, or do an internship...and then kid was fine with it since any of those would be reasonable.  Kid just finished their first DE class, and is working on a spouse-designed computer engineering survey that has helped kid figure out that this is a good possible career field.  If spouse couldn't do this, I'd have signed kid up for some DE in the subject, but this is more fun. 🙂  

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IME a grade skip is appropriate if it can give you access to more opportunities. My girls skipped two grades and were done with high school (national exams) just before turning 16. The grade skip left them with two years to do something else, so one had a choral scholarship at a boarding school where she did a lot of music and had the opportunity to focus on some academics we hadn't done, and the other spent two years doing school in different countries, where she learned languages etc. This was a great opportunity for each of them and was made possible by the grade skip. DS who was held back will also finish high school this year, according to the national exams he's taken, and will have two years to mature (one hopes) and expand on his interests in music and STEM, going more in depth than he could otherwise as he will have completed the basic requirements he needs for high school. IOW, we have not taken the path of get them to college faster and younger, but the path of get the necessary academics done so kid can explore many interests and extracurriculars. 

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Struggling with the same question for my B&M kid. I think it's a much more complicated decision for a kid who won't homeschool all the way through.

I have an advanced 8th grade boy who has always homeschooled and plans to do so through high school. He's also socially awkward and not especially mature. No plans to change his grade level, and I think we'll appreciate the time to bring his weaker skills (writing) up closer to the level of his great ones (math, science, CS)

I also have an advanced 6th grade girl who started going to PS in 4th grade after homeschooling. It's a tiny K-12 school and she's the only kid in her grade. This has given her a defacto grade skip because she takes all her classes with the 7th-8th class. Even with that, she's in a higher math, gets A+ grades, and her teachers mention it's hard to keep her challenged. But she likes the social opportunities and structure of school. She's an organized kid who has matured early physically. Things will get awkward when her current cohort is getting high school credit and I have to push either for her to take the same classes for no credit or she gets pushed back to repeat middle school content. There's a strong argument for not skipping her so she isn't forced out of school early and can take college classes online at home at the end of high school. It will probably help her college admissions potential not to skip as well. But there's also an argument for skipping her so she can go off and take those classes with other students in person at 17 rather than only online. I also graduated at 17 and she'd only be one month younger than I was. I have no idea what's best, but probably do need to decide before high school. 

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On 12/10/2022 at 10:18 AM, Malam said:

How do you think that would that have improved things?

Some of my kids were extremely ambitious and mature for their age.  They were ready to take on adult challenges much earlier.  I believe they felt they weren't at their level even though I homeschooled them levels above.  They wanted to be out in the world earlier either in college or doing things that felt more important.  (They set some high goals for themselves.)  I didn't understand that in middle school, but by mid-high school they were bored and under-challenged and very antsy.  

The minute they were done with high school, they soared.  I realized they could have done that earlier.

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41 minutes ago, J-rap said:

Some of my kids were extremely ambitious and mature for their age.  They were ready to take on adult challenges much earlier.  I believe they felt they weren't at their level even though I homeschooled them levels above.  They wanted to be out in the world earlier either in college or doing things that felt more important.  (They set some high goals for themselves.)  I didn't understand that in middle school, but by mid-high school they were bored and under-challenged and very antsy.  

The minute they were done with high school, they soared.  I realized they could have done that earlier.

It's great when a kid's intellect, executive function, and ambition all align.  

We are still dealing with the fallout from when this doesn't happen.

Edited by EKS
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35 minutes ago, EKS said:

It's great when a kid's intellect, executive function, and ambition all align.  

We are still dealing with the fallout from when this doesn't happen.

And, in my experience, it is extremely rare to have it all align. Sorry for what you are going through. 

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When does he turn 12? 

How common is redshirting kinder boys in your area? 

Is he big for his age, small for his age, in puberty or not? 

I think boys can have a much harder time with grade skipping than girls. High school is a rough go for boys who still look like kids. 

On 12/9/2022 at 3:47 PM, lulalu said:

 But another part of me thinks if he is working several grade levels ahead we might as well consider him the grade he is working at. 

 If you advance an 11-yr-old several grade levels, then you wind up with them in high school right then, lol. 

Grade level varies a lot. The eighth-graders at the local school aren't all working at the same level, they can be a year or more apart, there's just not a standard definition for "eighth grade." 

It's also much, much harder emotionally to 'retract' a grade skip than it is to just keep them in the standard grade. Not all kids care, but many do. They might have a serious illness or injury, and being in the standard grade gives a lot of breathing room. They could struggle as they reach more abstract concepts, or just because they've entered the middle school fog. 

It might matter to have him in 8th the year before he plans to enter 9th, check your local policies for that. Lots of eighth-graders will enter high school past the entry-point classes in various subjects. Some schools will offer placement testing and/or look at prior work, others will only let you take geometry if you took algebra 1 at an actual school. 

Other than that, I'd consider some of the suggestions here for deepening his studies. He's not going to run out of great books to read. History can be viewed through a different lens, and of course no one has covered all of history.  Math can be non-linear and cover topics most schools skim over at best (AOPS has books on number theory, probability).

It's great to have time for electives and projects. Start a foreign language, or add a second one, scroll through lists of electives and see what sparks. I'd let a strong student ease up on formal academics during some of middle school to make room for all kinds of worthwhile projects. Learning to use and build with power tools, planting and tracking a garden, cooking, the in-between of middle school is well-suited to hands-on projects imo. My kids did NaNoWriMo for years, and we basically did no other writing during that time so they could devote themselves to it. 

I'd not make a decision until forced to, personally (but I'd start researching the local schools and policies). 

 

Edited by katilac
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Thanks. 

DS hangs out and socializes better with older kids (by a year or two) or ones much younger than him (by two or three years). That could be due to being an only child as well. 

You all have given me some things to think through. DS is advanced but has executive function struggles, but again he is only 11. 

 

 

 

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8 hours ago, EKS said:

It's great when a kid's intellect, executive function, and ambition all align.  

We are still dealing with the fallout from when this doesn't happen.

My older ds's executive function has always been way way behind his academic and emotional/social skills.  I helped him plan his daily schedule at MIT for the first year. He called every. single. night. And then I helped him for the next 3 years to deal with all sorts of admin that he just could not do.  There was absolutely no reason to hold his progress hostage to his executive function skills even though many people thought I was a helicopter parent because I helped him in university. His executive function skills were at least 7 years behind his math skills, and 3 years behind his social/emotional skills.  Now, at 22, all is aligned, and he is an independent adult. 

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We gave an option to DS to graduate early but he refused. Also years ahead academically, but with severe anxiety along with other issues we should have formally diagnosed but didn’t. Very “head constantly in the clouds” which results in him needing a secretary (me) more often than I am comfortable. But somehow despite all his issues, he has no problems academically. So given all that, we didn’t push early college. We will see how he copes next year, but based on developments this year, I have high hopes.  
If I had a highly functional kid, I might have considered an early option. 
 

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7 hours ago, lewelma said:

My older ds's executive function has always been way way behind his academic and emotional/social skills.  I helped him plan his daily schedule at MIT for the first year. He called every. single. night. And then I helped him for the next 3 years to deal with all sorts of admin that he just could not do.  There was absolutely no reason to hold his progress hostage to his executive function skills even though many people thought I was a helicopter parent because I helped him in university. His executive function skills were at least 7 years behind his math skills, and 3 years behind his social/emotional skills.  Now, at 22, all is aligned, and he is an independent adult. 

I think something like this may be in our future as well.

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There is a certain crowd in the highly gifted ed realm that loudly asserts that acceleration is the easy way to solve everything.  All schools have to do is place students in the appropriate class.  According to them, this deals with the academic as well as the social issues.  But I'd argue that this sort of thing working well is the exception and not the rule.  I honestly think that these people do a lot of damage by not attending to the difficult and nuanced issues families with HG+ kids face.

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One thing I've forgotten to mention is that my grandfather skipped three grades when he was a boy in Scotland, and that experience made him staunchly anti-grade skipping forever after.  You'd think I would have taken this into account when we were making decisions about my younger son, but apparently not.

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It might also be helpful to consider whether a grade skip is appropriate in light of the student's strengths and weaknesses. I'm thinking of a friend of my kids' who skipped three grades. It did not go well, partly because of the social aspects but also because she struggled academically after the skip. In primary school she had excelled in part due to an extraordinary memory, but when after she was skipped to secondary school, she struggled because it was not all about memory any more but also about abstract reasoning and analysis (and EF skills ofc). She eventually dropped back to a more appropriate two-grade skip. I think her memory skills made it look as though she could handle more than she could. 

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6 minutes ago, saw said:

I think her memory skills made it look as though she could handle more than she could. 

This may have played a part in my son's issues as well.  He has (or, perhaps, had) an extraordinary working memory.  It allowed him to do things like math, for example, without writing anything down far longer than is typical (even for gifted kids).  He also never needed to take notes because he remembered everything.  Then he got to college and all hell broke loose.  Ugh.

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2 hours ago, saw said:

I think her memory skills made it look as though she could handle more than she could. 

I skipped 3rd grade when I could not read.  In fact I did not learn to read until I was 12. So yes, memory skills can hide all sorts of things. 

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5 hours ago, EKS said:

There is a certain crowd in the highly gifted ed realm that loudly asserts that acceleration is the easy way to solve everything.  All schools have to do is place students in the appropriate class.  According to them, this deals with the academic as well as the social issues.  But I'd argue that this sort of thing working well is the exception and not the rule.  I honestly think that these people do a lot of damage by not attending to the difficult and nuanced issues families with HG+ kids face.

Agreed. There is no one solution and nuanced issues are huge with asynchronous kids. My sister did a 2 year grade skip and it made her staunch that she would never do it for her kids. She went to an Ivy at 16, but said she had the emotional maturity of a 14 year old, so basically did her teen years in a dorm with all that entails. It was very bad for her. Yes, she graduated valedictorian of the engineering school (back when there were no women engineers), and yes, she went on to own a patent on the MRI by the age of 24, but no she would never even consider grade skips for her kids.  However, she had access to the Governer's School in VA for her kids, so an option that many people don't have for helping HG kids. And I had both the financial and intellectual capability to teach my ds at home.  I think there are a lot of people out there with very few options, and you just have to do the best you can with the options you have. There is no utopia for kids that sit out of the box. And asynchrony is just tough. 

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5 hours ago, EKS said:

I think something like this may be in our future as well.

My attitude about the EF skills is that his struggles were no different than a kid with dyslexia, or my younger boy with dysgraphia. It just took him far longer to develop these skills than the 'average' person. But it was only the people who find EF skills easy who would tell me that I was helicopter parenting, that he should do these things independently, that I was letting his academics get above where they 'should' be. My attitude was, you don't know me and you don't know my kid. So so many busy bodies. So so many people who thought that somehow I had not deeply thought about every. single. way. to help him. I would be given such obvious solutions. Like I hadn't thought of that one. lol. Somehow in a lot of people's minds, all skills *should* be held hostage to EF skills. They seemed to believe that if EF was not learned in high school then it would never be learned, like there could not be a longer path. So interesting. So naive. 

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Would an inability to send emails be an EF skill or an anxiety or both? 
I seem to have a hard time differentiating what is clinical, what is personality, what is maturity, and what is learnable or not. I really applaud you guys who have been able to sort this out. 
I have to remind mine 15 times to write an email. Then 15 times to press a send, because the finality of email is overwhelming. I mean I don’t know how one goes to college like this. 
I think for very mature and highly functional kid a grade skip could work. We have seen successes on this board. Dmmetler’s DD is thriving in college at a young age. So I don’t know. It’s hard to make those decisions because consequences could be so significant. 
 

Personally I started school at 4 in a system that only had 11 years of school before university. I graduated at 15 or so and it was the worse thing I could have done. So I also personally tend to not like sending kids out early. But in my case there were other extenuating circumstances, so maybe outcomes could have been different. 

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38 minutes ago, lewelma said:

My attitude about the EF skills is that his struggles were no different than a kid with dyslexia, or my younger boy with dysgraphia. It just took him far longer to develop these skills than the 'average' person. But it was only the people who find EF skills easy who would tell me that I was helicopter parenting, that he should do these things independently, that I was letting his academics get above where they 'should' be. My attitude was, you don't know me and you don't know my kid. So so many busy bodies. So so many people who thought that somehow I had not deeply thought about every. single. way. to help him. I would be given such obvious solutions. Like I hadn't thought of that one. lol. Somehow in a lot of people's minds, all skills *should* be held hostage to EF skills. They seemed to believe that if EF was not learned in high school then it would never be learned, like there could not be a longer path. So interesting. So naive. 

For what it's worth, I 100% agree with you. DS1 (college junior) has borderline EF skills (for some things). His senior year of high school when he was boarding I had a call with him every single night and visited every single weekend to help him organize himself for exams and actually study. First few years of college I had regular check-ins and got lists of what he needed to do and when, which we went over together. He sent me his plan for managing finals (unfortunately needs a new plan as he's been unwell -- and that requires requests for extensions, which I need to push him to get). Academically he's fine, he does well in summer jobs, but still needs a bit of help organizing. I'm glad I can be available to help him. 

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55 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Would an inability to send emails be an EF skill or an anxiety or both? 
I seem to have a hard time differentiating what is clinical, what is personality, what is maturity, and what is learnable or not. I really applaud you guys who have been able to sort this out. 
I have to remind mine 15 times to write an email. Then 15 times to press a send, because the finality of email is overwhelming. I mean I don’t know how one goes to college like this. 
I think for very mature and highly functional kid a grade skip could work. We have seen successes on this board. Dmmetler’s DD is thriving in college at a young age. So I don’t know. It’s hard to make those decisions because consequences could be so significant. 

I wrote every single email with my older boy for the first year in University, and often even drafted them for him so that he could just edit. I continued to help him with emails throughout university, but he became more and more able to deal with the easier ones. Yes, he struggled with getting it just right -- I don't think this was anxiety, but more a feeling he would be judged by the reader. He also struggled with knowing how to make his point or ask his question, how to have enough but not too much niceties. He also struggled with keeping up with all of the emails and making judgements as to what needed to be responded to and what didn't. So a bit of a time management problem.  Basically, it came down to too many decisions to make at every level of the process. I also think that it was a problem with social skills on paper. He was very social by the age of 16, but the rules of written social expression took a while to master. Basically, there was a lot of reasons with the slow development of email skills, let alone all the other EF skills. 

Edited by lewelma
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40 minutes ago, lewelma said:

I wrote every single email with my older boy for the first year in University, and often even drafted them for him so that he could just edit. I continued to help him with emails throughout university, but he became more and more able to deal with the easier ones. Yes, he struggled with getting it just right -- I don't think this was anxiety, but more a feeling he would be judged by the reader. He also struggled with knowing how to make his point or ask his question, how to have enough but not too much niceties. He also struggled with keeping up with all of the emails and making judgements as to what needed to be responded to and what didn't. So a bit of a time management problem.  Basically, it came down to too many decisions to make at every level of the process. I also think that it was a problem with social skills on paper. He was very social by the age of 16, but the rules of written social expression took a while to master. Basically, there was a lot of reasons with the slow development of email skills, let alone all the other EF skills. 

I am so embarrassed to admit these things because people are just not aware how bad things can be. Thank you for letting me know I am not alone. 

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52 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

I am so embarrassed to admit these things because people are just not aware how bad things can be. Thank you for letting me know I am not alone. 

I'm sorry you feel embarrassed. People are judgemental about what they know nothing about. I don't see how my older boy's EF struggles are any different than my younger boy's dysgraphia. Both children needed long-term, many-hour, daily help. I faced many a helicopter parent comment especially in my older boy's last year in high school when he needed SO MUCH help to get all the university applications in. But look at him now, and no one would know that he was so delayed in the EF skill set. So take the long view, and put blinkers on to the judgemental comments. Basically the world wants a sink or swim approach, rather than a teaching approach to EF. But IMHO sink or swim leads to insecurity, low self-esteem, and at times mental illness. So I was just not going there.

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4 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

Would an inability to send emails be an EF skill or an anxiety or both? 
I seem to have a hard time differentiating what is clinical, what is personality, what is maturity, and what is learnable or not. I really applaud you guys who have been able to sort this out. 
I have to remind mine 15 times to write an email. Then 15 times to press a send, because the finality of email is overwhelming. I mean I don’t know how one goes to college like this. 

From what my college kids tell me about the emails their friends write, and from the emails I see as a Scout leader, I think there are many many kids who should not be sending emails without adult supervision. I'd say good for your DC for taking it seriously. I also review emails my college DS sends on occasion. 

With Scouts, I worked with them on writing a variety of emails (in a fun way) that did improve the quality of emails being sent. I don't know whether this approach would help your DC at all as it's best done in a group, but just in case it does, here's what we did: read letters from the 18th century and then wrote the fanciest emails possible. Then wrote the absolute rudest emails to Scout leaders possible (obvs without profanity/obscenity and without sending). Read both sets out loud and have fun with it. Then we talked about appropriate openings and closings and how there was a middle ground. They then practiced a middle ground email. 

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3 minutes ago, saw said:

From what my college kids tell me about the emails their friends write, and from the emails I see as a Scout leader, I think there are many many kids who should not be sending emails without adult supervision. I'd say good for your DC for taking it seriously. I also review emails my college DS sends on occasion. 

With Scouts, I worked with them on writing a variety of emails (in a fun way) that did improve the quality of emails being sent. I don't know whether this approach would help your DC at all as it's best done in a group, but just in case it does, here's what we did: read letters from the 18th century and then wrote the fanciest emails possible. Then wrote the absolute rudest emails to Scout leaders possible (obvs without profanity/obscenity and without sending). Read both sets out loud and have fun with it. Then we talked about appropriate openings and closings and how there was a middle ground. They then practiced a middle ground email. 

I helped my ds even up to his getting a job out of college with e-mail wording. I’m still helping my younger ds. I think that the formal wording of email to professors and while looking for a job is a different type of language expression which adults need to teach our young adults. We used to practice business letters in school so I don’t see it as too different, really. Any new skill is better learned with support. ( oldest ds doesn’t still call me about work email and is doing well at his job, so our help didn’t hold him back.)

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I've helped both of my kids with email wording as adults.  In fact, my 26yo frequently runs documents that he wants to be sure are perfect by me for his business.  I consider it a compliment and am happy to do it.  Part of being an adult is knowing when you could use another set of eyes on something.

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It’s not the inability to write. It’s the inability to not be terrified and actually get it done and send. Finality of emails (you can’t take what you said back) is debilitating and the reason he can’t face a task. I mean this is just one example of what is executive functioning and/or anxiety issue. But I guess this also a good example of why somebody might not want to graduate a child early. Success in college is a lot more than just doing school work. 
I have most definitely met kids who could have handled grade skip and then eventually early college. 
 

With a b&m school, if you changed your mind later and wanted to keep her for an extra year, it would potentially be a big social problem. At least it would have been for my kids because she will form a cohort of kids right away. So if you jump in early, I would stay the course. There is always a gap year. 
My younger entered in 9th with Calc BC. He could have gone earlier and my DH pushed for it, but I decided not to, even though my younger kid is extremely high functioning unlike his older sibling. Time will tell if that was a right call. The biggest downside had been music. He is so beyond others in the area (we aren’t in the large city), that he doesn’t have peers in music. On the other hand, plenty of professionals have offered to play with them. Socially though, I think he just likes having people around. He doesn’t think kids are mature at all other than some seniors. Yet it is still a good experience to run around with boys and go to dances. 
 

There is always an option of going and then coming back to homeschool. 

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To me, it depends partly on what will be available academically in the high school.

My kids' high school has so many options for kids at different academic levels, including early college (some on the high school campus, some at community college) paid for by the school system as early as 7th grade (for those who are academically qualified).  For my kids, it's a good mix of doing math/science/English at their level, taking fun classes (e.g. ceramics) with their friends, and participating in age-appropriate extracurriculars.

My kids are both a little young (turned 5 in KG), and in their case, they are socially a fit for the one-year grade acceleration, but that depends on the individual.

One thing that's hitting me now is how fast college stuff comes at us.  Maybe it's because we lost a year to Covid, but it's hard to grasp that we're already needing to take [official] action toward post-high-school education.  But, I'm sure I would have blown this off when my kids were 11yo.  😛

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If I were you, I would start to find out what sort of academic flexibility exists in your high school.
I am going to tell your our story to illustrate what I mean. For example, since mine walked in with a CC precalculus grade of A with a perfect grade on each test (he did summer course just to have a paper in his hand), nobody questioned him. He was allowed to skip Calculus AB and go straight into BC, something the school won’t do for their own students. And because he got a 5 on the exam, they don’t attempt to hold him to prerequisites in sciences. So they are letting him take AP Chem without regular Chem and so forth. And now because there is no math for him to do there, they give him a free period so he can take math at a CC. 
Also, does school have a study hall? You can sign up for this and self study for coursework not offered. This is what mine will do for AP Micro because school doesn’t have it. Basically take as many electives that you want, APs, and use free periods, study hall, TA courses, to fill schedule with free time do your own thing.

Now there are some things school is less flexible about, namely English and social sciences, but if you take APs, or you supplement by reading at home, it’s doable. 
Basically, academically if you have a good AP program in school, flexibility to skip over dumb prerequisites, and some flexibility in scheduling to work in courses you want, it could work. Not ideal. My DS still finds PS dumb, but it can be workable if social needs are great. 

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On 12/11/2022 at 12:52 PM, EKS said:

Academic acceleration in a homeschool situation is vastly more straightforward than in a b&m school setting.

Yikes! Some way the rest of my post got eaten.

OP, We've been wrestling with the idea of grade placement for JR. who may enter BM school next year. Currently, academically, he's much closer to the 8th-10th grade range in his 3Rs. Socially he does well within 2 years of his age. Physically he's on the larger side of average for his age.

Chronologically he should go into 4th, but we are exploring the possibility of a single or double grade skip for him to find a good fit emotionally, academically and socially.

Also, we have to think about his extra curriculars. If we officially put him up a grade or two, that affects some of the ECs that he does or plans to do.

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On 12/14/2022 at 10:03 PM, Roadrunner said:

For example, since mine walked in with a CC precalculus grade of A with a perfect grade on each test (he did summer course just to have a paper in his hand), nobody questioned him. He was allowed to skip Calculus AB and go straight into BC, something the school won’t do for their own students

Why would a A on CC precalculus qualify for calc BC when an A in HS precalculus wouldn't?

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6 minutes ago, Malam said:

Why would a A on CC precalculus qualify for calc BC when an A in HS precalculus wouldn't?

Perhaps because it shows that the student can work at a faster pace?  Assuming that all of precalculus (algebra + trig) was taken in one semester/quarter, that is.  

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2 minutes ago, Malam said:

Why would a A on CC precalculus qualify for calc BC when an A in HS precalculus wouldn't?

We spoke with the teacher and basically he said nobody in high school is prepared because math curriculum they use is so weak. In fact he said most had extremely weak algebra skills as well coming in. So he puts everybody through AB first where he attempts to remediate all the previous failings and then raises the bar in BC class by introducing more rigor and more complex problem sets. 
Sadly coming in from the outside was a plus because we didn’t have the crappy background. But also a number of ambitious high school kids have apparently attempted a 6 week summer precalculus and didn’t do well. So in contract mine didn’t just have an A, but also a 100 on every single test taken. We provided a PDF of a grade page. He let him in. 
of course mine has done AoPS precalculus the year prior so the summer class was super easy for him and a total review. But the school wouldn’t consider AoPS, so we were forced to go for an official CC grade.
 

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41 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

We spoke with the teacher and basically he said nobody in high school is prepared because math curriculum they use is so weak. In fact he said most had extremely weak algebra skills as well coming in.

This is interesting (and sad!).  That said, at our local high school, the only students who are approved for BC are those who have taken honors precalculus.  My son took it, and it was definitely a rigorous and wide ranging course.  I tutored a kid who took the regular precalculus course, and while they technically went over a lot of the same material, and the book contained challenging problems, for the most part the challenging problems weren't assigned and the students were expected to use their calculators for things that should have been done by hand.

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