These are all really excellent questions. My son skipped a grade early in gradeschool, and I am fortunate enough to have a friend who had a similar experience as this young lady (albeit not to the same extent) being hyper-accelerated through school, so we were able to interview him about his experience when making decisions about how to handle our exceptional kiddo’s education.
It was not a fun conversation, and as a result we elected to just let our son take advanced classes when possible and not really push to have him skip additional grades or do any of the wacky stuff with enrolling in college as a child or what have you. Of course we’re going to push him to take stuff that is challenging whenever possible, and I’d love for him to graduate high school with as much college credit as possible–but I’m not about to steal his youth in pursuit of putting a PhD on his wall before he’s old enough to vote.
The short version is that our friend was a very miserable child. His advancement essentially meant he had no peers, and especially among teenagers, the acceleration just put a bullseye on his back, since the people who surrounded him either resented him or saw him as a target for bullying. Even professional educators at times resented him. He was adamant that it was a thing he would never put his own children through.
Is that a typical experience? I have no idea; after all, being a child in higher education is already well outside ordinary experience. But the story was enough to make me worry for the child whenever I read a headline like this.
Excellent point on the peers, I was thinking about that as well.
Humans love to talk to other humans who have shared experiences. People get excited when they find someone who went to the same school as them, even if they were years apart. Those shared experiences help us bond and connect with others.
Who in the world can she bond with? Few people have experienced anything close to what she has. I worry that it will lead to somewhat of a lonely existence, at least until she’s old enough that she has some more experiences under her belt and can begin to relate to others more. Until then, the experience that 95% of Americans share is missing.
I’m hoping it’s something that will balance out as she gets older, but I don’t see it being a fun time for the first decade at least.
These are all really excellent questions. My son skipped a grade early in gradeschool, and I am fortunate enough to have a friend who had a similar experience as this young lady (albeit not to the same extent) being hyper-accelerated through school, so we were able to interview him about his experience when making decisions about how to handle our exceptional kiddo’s education.
It was not a fun conversation, and as a result we elected to just let our son take advanced classes when possible and not really push to have him skip additional grades or do any of the wacky stuff with enrolling in college as a child or what have you. Of course we’re going to push him to take stuff that is challenging whenever possible, and I’d love for him to graduate high school with as much college credit as possible–but I’m not about to steal his youth in pursuit of putting a PhD on his wall before he’s old enough to vote.
The short version is that our friend was a very miserable child. His advancement essentially meant he had no peers, and especially among teenagers, the acceleration just put a bullseye on his back, since the people who surrounded him either resented him or saw him as a target for bullying. Even professional educators at times resented him. He was adamant that it was a thing he would never put his own children through.
Is that a typical experience? I have no idea; after all, being a child in higher education is already well outside ordinary experience. But the story was enough to make me worry for the child whenever I read a headline like this.
Excellent point on the peers, I was thinking about that as well.
Humans love to talk to other humans who have shared experiences. People get excited when they find someone who went to the same school as them, even if they were years apart. Those shared experiences help us bond and connect with others.
Who in the world can she bond with? Few people have experienced anything close to what she has. I worry that it will lead to somewhat of a lonely existence, at least until she’s old enough that she has some more experiences under her belt and can begin to relate to others more. Until then, the experience that 95% of Americans share is missing.
I’m hoping it’s something that will balance out as she gets older, but I don’t see it being a fun time for the first decade at least.