What are the benefits and drawbacks of letting your child skip a grade?

My son skipped 4th grade – We have to pay college tuition one year early now.

This is a weighty decision. I decided to let him decide. I was really worried he would not fit in. At that age it didn’t seem to matter. He hung out with the smart kids,and was well accepted. When we moved to a new state, they wanted to demote him. They gave him a chance, and he fought it through. He graduated top 10, actually blowing off homework to avoid being valedictorian. He is an odd, shy kid. All considered he’s done well. I hope he finds something in life to pursue as passionately as he did to stay in 6th grade.

One of my fears was that he would become academically under-stimulated at puberty, and turn to the rowdy side like I did. The prisons are full of restless smart people that were seeking excitement. I should know.

I remain uncertain, but I think we all did the best we could. What more can any parent or child hope for?.

Here’s how we handled it. When my youngest was in kindergarten, she was kind of dual enrolled. She attended kindergarten for half the day and first grade for the language arts time slot (second half of the day). When she actually entered first grade, she began attending a magnet school for gifted & talented kids. This way, she was always with her peer group, both in age and in intelligence. We loved that school, and so did she. All of her classmates were just like her, so there was no teasing or being the odd kid out, or the youngest. None of the drawbacks, all of the extra education.

Sadly, our county doesn’t offer a G & T school after elementary school, so middle school was a huge adjustment. She was a good two years ahead of her classmates academically in 6th grade. We had to fight the school tooth and nail to allow her to attend classes with the 7th and 8th graders, but we finally got it mostly right. Now that she’s in high school, it doesn’t matter at all. She took some senior level classes as a 9th grader, and is taking some college level classes now as a 10th grader.

I think the post by Augustian raises a good point, to spin a tiny bit differently. My son was also T&G – that helped a lot. This may mitigate the need for grade jumping.

On a political note, the side effect of “no child left behind” is that you are now bucking the system. (no child allowed ahead) – we my have our 7th graders going Galt like I did.

I was skipped with a whole class from 7th to 9th grade, in NYC. It might have been better had I stayed in that school, but I left after 7th grade and then went right to 9th grade in a very competitive high school. It did work out okay, and being in High School instead of middle school when I moved was definitely great, but it took me a couple of years to catch up academically, since the school I moved to was really far ahead of where I had been. No regrets though.

For my children, I preferred that they take advanced classes and stay with their grade rather than move ahead. I love the idea of enriching what children are studying rather than just skipping. This didn’t work in math though, where they did take classes with older kids and finally in a program that works with the high schools so they take community colleges in Washington State (Running Start). Ironically, my kids finished those classes as sophomores, and then had no more math at all until they went to college. Not the best situation—but it ended well.

A comment in the same vein. Our daughter, now 42, and son, now 29, because they are November and October birthdays were allowed to choose which class to educate with. So these late fall birthdays could start Kindergarten in the Fall of age 5 or 6. Our daughter was 5 and was the youngest in her class all the way through. Son was oldest in his class. Both did very well academically, but the socialization factor was significant. Our daughter struggled with the “youngest” issues of maturity and physical development that was especially difficult in high school. Our son benefitted from the older age maturity. Perhaps some was gender issues of the “high school experience”. So skipping a grade is not just an academic, “keep them challenged” issue, but one that needs to have the individual child’s emotion, social skills, and physical development considered.

Our school has a fantastic G&T program. Or son skipped ahead in most areas but remains in his 1st grade class for some.

Some concerns are wether or not they can socially adapt. We were told that it is usually easier for girls than boys.

Another concern, as I believe was pointed out, is that they become board and find other things to do.

My little brother was particularly gifted in that he read at a 6th grade level by the time he was 3. He ended up going to a special school that catered to that degree. He is 14 now and got over 1000 on his SATs but he gets to go to a regular high school some how. I am not sure how they work it. I know he says he doesn’t have trouble with any of his subjects. The public schools don’t allow for much on that end of the scale. For instance in typing he could type 90 words a min accurately and consistently. He wanted to test out of the program so he could take other advanced courses and they wouldn’t let him.

I skipped second grade. Other than being a little way behind my classmates in physical maturity, which mattered for only a short while in middle school, it didn’t make any real difference to me. I was fine with it.

The school wanted to skip my older son. He was spending half his first-grade time in the second-grade classroom for reading and math, and they wanted to move him ahead. We consulted him, and he answered that he’d prefer to stay with his friends. I had to respect that. Social isolation can do a lot of damage, especially if your friends are important to you. His were probably more so than mine ever were to me. We dropped the matter, and he proceeded happily on through at the normal pace, ultimately graduating Phi Beta Kappa from a good university.

My younger son had a second-grade teacher that I knew would destroy him with her hidebound rigidity and her elaborate system of color-coded penalties for every flavor of infraction. His suffering was evident. There was no other classroom for him. I seized the chance to move him ahead just to get him away from her. He was up to it academically, and his aptitude was off the scale, but in all probability he was not mature enough socially and emotionally. I think that affected his academic experience for years afterward. At 23 he is still picking up the pieces. His whole story might have been happier if he had been left with his age peers.

But we don’t really know.

In other words, it’s a crapshoot. There are so many variables. If a kid is up to it intellectually, chances are that he is capable of floating to the top of whatever class he’s in, whether he’s moved up or not. But if he’s not mature enough or there are contravening factors, they should all be weighed in. How will you ever know if you did the right thing? You just do the best you can with what you know at the time.

I skipped a half grade from 4/5 to 5/6… I could cope emotionally and ended up cheating myself to pass my language arts…. I still don’t know what some terms (like onimatapia) are in English and I regret being pushed ahead….I ended up being held back in grade 10 then being skipped ahead to grade 12 so I could graduate with my peers….I needed friends more than I needed grades…too bad I couldn’t have both.

Skipping a grade when your younger is fine, If your ahead in class, At a young it is best, other wise you will just miss friends, and you wont know what’s more of an important priority like friends and your grade.

I did not skip a grade, but I started kindergarten at the age of 4 and was always the youngest in my class. I think it did not make a bit of difference when I was in primary school. In fact I would say the only time I was annoyed by it was in high school when everyone had their drivers license before me, but I think many states are giving licenses at an older age now, so maybe it matters less? Also, for male children I think it can be more difficult than female in Jr. high and early high school, because they change so drastically during puberty, primarily I am talking about how tall they are; their growth spurt.

Each child is different. How old is he related to the other children in his grade? Is school very easy for them? Do they tend to relate better to older children anyway?

I tend to lean towards moving kids ahead. Why waste time in a grade that is seemingly unnecessary.

I skipped a grade in primary school. Looking back on it now, I am very glad it happened. I am the sort of student that needs to be pushed to learn, and being in a class where all my peers would ask me questions rather than my (sometimes unapproachable) teachers was not a good learning environment. Moving into a more advanced setting forced me to work for the few months it took me to catch up, and it has provided me with great advantages since then. For example I will earn my degree before I am 20, so many opportunities are there that may not have been otherwise.

But then my opinion is a little biased, because after skipping and then changing schools, I realised that I did not get on socially with anyone in the lower grade at my new school.

I think it depends on the maturity level of the child. And skipping a grade may mean they have to do a lot of studying on their own so they keep with the level of knowledge of the year they skipped. However if your child is mature enough and willing to do the extra work than I don’t see a problem with it. Just because a child is smart enough does not mean that they didn’t miss out some topics. It also depends on the school system in your area. Some are very weak academically and if you move your child may be behind in some subjects.
I knew of a girl who took some college courses over 2 years in high school and was able to apply the credits to high school and college. So she graduated early and because she was a high school student and the program was offered through the high school, she payed a cheaper fee than a regular college student.
So when she graduated high school in 3 years she already had 1 year of college credit. It was like skipping two grades.

@augustlan Do you think in the end it would have been better to just skip her forward back in elementary, that way if you move or programs are not available as a child grows up there is not as much work to get her the level of clsses she requires?

@all being the youngest in my class always made me feel good, I was never teased about. Generally people are impressed by it (but believe me there is nothing really impressive about it in my case, I just started early, because my mom was ready to get me into kindergarten and stop paying for nursery school). Like I said the only frustration I had was waiting forever to be able to drive. And, I actually doubled up on some work my senior year and got out a semester early. I was 16. I started taking college courses at the community college in January, I had just turned 17.

My granddaughter is very intelligent. we are her guardians. her teachers advised us that she did not belong in the grade she was in, but rather two grades higher. for years, her grandparents(us), did not agree with this. another teacher conference convinced us to agree to make the change for our granddaughter. her teacher told us that she knew everything in the grade she was in and then some. her teacher had her giving out and grading test papers of her fellow students. we agreed on skipping her two grades ahead and she flourished. she loved it and this is where she belonged. this worked for us, but there are a lot of considerations to be decided. is the child mature enough to be skipped was our biggest problem. the other students accepted her and she graduated high school with honors. i say every situaton is different and every situation is not the same for all children. just be sure to weigh all the facts, before making a decision. john

I skipped first, third and sixth grades (started second grade at age six) and later left high school (without graduating) at 14 to attend college. Since I was somewhat autistic (but not diagnosed until much later in life), the social aspects meant little to me. I had given up attempting to socialize by my early teens. Since I was a social reject anyway, my academic level vis a vis age was irrelevant. By the time most students were graduating from High School, I had two bachelors degrees and was in grad school..

I’m not sure what the impact of a similar experience would be on a neurologically-normal child, unless they were in an entire class of similarly aged high achievers. I would suspect that a lone student in a class many years older is likely to be socially shunned

I was kept in the age appropriate grade and suffered mightily until we moved to a new school district that had G&T program. I then got an undergraduate degree with certification in G&T and English. It seems, in many school districts, the money goes with the kids who are underperforming rather than those who are bright. This is why I got out of education altogether. I was seriously disturbed when two friends of mine (who teach special ed) were required (no child left behind) to have a girl in their classroom who had only a brainstem and very little functioning (she was in a hospital bed in class). As you can well imagine, the costs for her dailiy “babysitting” in a public school classroom were extremely high. These are dollars that were NOT available for the gifted kids at that school.

I think getting your kid into a G&T age-appropriate program is the way to go if you are lucky enough to live in a school district that values gifted kids more than they are afraid of the parents of severely limited kids.

I know I am touching the edge of aggravating some people with these comments, but I know how my own education was adversely impacted by the special needs kids mainstreamed into my classes with no G&T programming to offset the incredibly slow pace that was necessary to teach to the mean.

My younger son wasn’t quite old enough for Kindergarten, but they tested him and said he seemed ready and eager to learn, so they let him in. His birthday is in November. For Columbus day, the class had a show-and-tell assignment to bring something to share with the class about Columbus. He went to the Public Library, checked out a Middle School level book on Columbus with lots of neat pictures, and read it to the class. The teacher was awestruck at this little 4-year old boy reading at such a grade level. (He independently started reading at two). They advanced him immediately to the first grade. So he was really two years ahead.

The benefits were he wasn’t bored out of his skull. The disadvantages are social development and teasing / hazing that older students dish out to anyone who isn’t just like themselves. Oh, and he was only 16 when he went to college in Massachusetts, so we had to move up here from Virginia Beach because the college dorms were not available to anyone under 18.

One thing that made life a bit easier for my son was that the Virginia Beach and Norfolk schools had great Gifted & Talented Programs. They got him into one at Old Donation Center in Virginia Beach in the 2nd grade. He went to a G&T Middle School and stunned everyone again by splitting his high school time a half day at Ocean Lakes Math & Science Magnet School and the Governor’s Magnet School for the Arts. Being with kids that were as bright as him made a big difference. his only really rough spot was in Middle School when all his peers were going into puberty and found him a bit odd and a good target of bullying.

@JLeslie No, I really don’t… for a few reasons. One big one is that the way they teach G & T kids is drastically different than the way they teach the average student. They go into far more depth at each step of the curriculum, and move much faster through each step as well. (That’s how they ended up at least two years ahead of their 6th grade peers… 7 years of learning crammed into 5 years of school.) Two of mine went through the G & T program, and one did not… so I have a direct comparison, grade-to-grade, curriculum-to-curriculum. Even though my third child has always been above grade level, and takes all honors courses in junior high, she’s had nowhere near the educational experiences that the first two have had.

These kids also really love to learn… it’s what they live for! So, even bumped up a grade, they’d still be bored and still be a target for being ‘different’.

I was a gifted kid in an era that didn’t really have any options for me. There was definitely a stigma attached to being the smart kid. I remember ‘dumbing down’ for a while in junior high so I could be more popular. That didn’t last long… it wasn’t worth it. I also felt like I’d learned everything school could teach me by 8th grade, and was bored out of my mind for the rest of my school days. I ended up dropping out of high school! Not exactly the outcome one hopes for.

When I compare my experience to those of my children, I am so grateful that they could be in a class of kids who all had the same type of yearning for knowledge, and the same love of it.

it really really depends if your child needs to flourish, if you are the type to be way a head of your peers and need the challange, or if you just learn fast it will be kind of unhealthy to not let your mind grow at the speed it needs, it will start to get lazy. skipping a grade… or few is the best thing that could possibly happen for you! It helps you flourish and your mind opens up and is constantly challanged which keeps it growing and learning.
But it’s really up to the person who’s going to be skipping those grades, sometimes they want to stick with their own familiar friends or peers, do what they feel comfortable with.

@augustlan Interesting. When I was in Jr high they put me in a class to get my reading comprehension up. I was on level, but math I was far ahead (I took unified math, which was a special track, but still pretty easy for me) and my IQ was very high and their goal was to get me on the G&T track I think, or maybe it was just honors? I can’t remember. What I remember was it was an all or none thing. I could not just take one or two of the classes, I had to take everything at the excellerated rate, because their day was structured differently or something. This is another reason why I tend to like the Montessori type of mindset. Looking back I wish I had tried harder, been willing to study more, because I think I would have enjoyed being in a classroom of students who were more interested in learning. But, the ideal for someone like me would be to have the option to take science and math with the GT’s and other classes with the other students. Luckily in high school, as you pointed out, it is much easier, because you can take almost any class in any grade. Thanks for the response :).

Both my friend and I were given the option to skip grade 9…he took it, and I didnt.

I wanted to stay with the friends I had made, and he didnt really care if he was “nigel no friends” or not.

I regret this decision, sure I stayed with my friends, and had a “great” time in high school, but I would have performed MUCH better if I was challenged, and wasn’t so distracted by partying.

My friend didnt regret his decision, and he was allowed to come to the formal in our final year anyway. His grades seemed to get better and better through the years, and his results were higher than mine in senior.

Smart kids will perform at a higher level if they are challenged….If you have the option to skip a grade, take it….I regret that I didnt.

@j0ey My son skipped 2 grades. He had a time in middle school when he got some bullying, but he learned to deal with it. He has never experienced any regrets. He graduated college with honors and 3 majors, has his dream job, and is a 2nd Lt. in the Army National Guard. He’s working part time on his Masters now and hasn’t decided if he;ll go for a doctorate or not. I have no doubt though, if he decides he wants to, he will acheive it. He is a very goals oriented type guy, and when he sets his sights on something, he generally does it.