Learning Weird Stuff About Yourself

[Blarg]

You can never undo anything, but I think some things can be well worth trying anyway. And not doing them equally has an effect. There's really no way out of consequences; you just gotta choose which ones you think might be best.

In this case, consequences can be not only wasting years of life, but making a kid feel totally bored and unchallenged in that time, right when he's at the greatest potential to learn he will ever have. He can get a huge leg up in life if he's allowed to develop his brain to full capacity rather than put it in cold storage for years on end.

Heck, I slept through a lot of school because I was so bored with it. Getting good grades was not a problem, but not a reward or particularly satisfying either. I just felt basically warehoused.

Lots of kids develop behavior problems and even do things like turn to crime and drugs just out of boredom. I don't think it's healthy to leave a kid's mind on ice, and I know it's not satisfying to the kid at all. Nobody wants to live in a void with no mental stimulation, and it can't be good for you.

I think this is something the kid should really have a bigger say in. If he doesn't want to do it or feels uncomfortable doing it, I wouldn't force him. But if he's excited by the idea or finds it a relief, well, it could well be taking the good with the bad. There's bad no matter what the decision. For me, I'd say if a kid has a chance to achieve and challenge himself, let him do it. Whether that kid was me, or if I had a kid.

If he would want to step back down a bit for either social reasons or because it feels intellectually too hard, that would be cool, and it would always be possible. Let kids find their own limits, I think, and encourage them to enjoy testing them, if that's what they like.

I think the potential wasted otherwise can be just incredible.

[gamblore99]

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it's sorta hard to un-ring that bell once it starts though. grade-skipping can have big social effects, especially once they start to come out of grade school. it would be a tough thing for me to assess.

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Psych surveys of kids who skip grades show it to be very positive. Very few thought it had a negative effect on their social life, and just about all of them said they would put their kid ahead if he/she was gifted too. Only about 3% regretted going ahead, and felt it was a bad idea.

People who are intellectually ahead, are usually more socially competent as well. Surrounding them with more socially competent adults is good for them.

[scotty34]

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People who are intellectually ahead, are usually more socially competent as well. Surrounding them with more socially competent adults is good for them.


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You can't possibly consider high school kids to be anything close to socially competent adults.

[Blarg]

I believe this makes sense. Say you're in the 3rd grade reading at a 7th grade level or whatever. There are big jumps in the way kids think even a couple years apart, and between the smarter and dumber kids in the same grade who really belong there. Now if you're able to think as if you were several years older than your peers, you have an awful lot less to talk to them and relate to them about. You're just interested in different things. The social handicaps can well lie not in moving ahead, but in staying where you don't really belong and just being very out of place right there.

And being mentally unstimulated for years on end with your schoolwork, a major part of your life, can't be good for a kid. A mind is like a muscle, and needs stimulation. I believe some very real potential can be lost when it sits fallow for years on end, and the kid's life can be diminished. I know from personal experience that it will leave him incredibly bored all the time. With the right combo of circumstances, he might even come to feel school is stupid, and that's a bad way of thinking to let sink into a kid's head.

[craig r]

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when I was 19 I smoked weed for the first time and had a pretty bad panic attack. this was the first panic attack I've ever had. I woke up the next morning with depersonification, which is when you don't feel like you're in your body, and that persisted for about six weeks. I saw a few therapists, thought I was going insane, and spent the next six months in an anxious, neurotic cycle. it was probably the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I also developed somniphobia, and started getting sleep paralysis.

my doctors told me I have mild generalized anxiety, which i never knew before. I don't really know what that means, but I guess I just worry all the time. I guess I just need to get laid.

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When I was 16 I flipped out on shrooms. It was one of the worst experiences I have ever had. I had never flipped out on shrooms, acid, or pot ever before that. I never did shrooms or acid since then, but somtimes I would feel like i did when I was flipping out. I finally saw a shrink a year later and was told that the shrooms had nothing to do with it and that I had generalized anxiety disorder. I took it seriously then, but now, I am told that I have other things that seem like anxiety but aren't. Anyways...I doubt the pot was the cause of your anxiety, just like the shrooms weren't the cause of mine. It is more likely that these things brought on our attacks. Wow, OOT, for fun and a healing group.

craig

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yeah I don't think all of my anxiety was caused by pot, it just caused it to spike for a brief period of time, which was enough to set of a cycle.

the pot experience was bad, but I can't even imagine what a bad trip would be like. panic attacks + dragons and spiders = nothing good

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There was no bad hallucinations, it was just the feeling that was horrible. But, I think it was eventually going to happen to me either way. The shrooms just set it off. Or it was a coincidence. The thing that doesn't make sense, is that anxiety disorders generally get worse as one gets older and doesn't treat it. Which is one of the reasons I said I might have been misdiagnosed.

craig

craig

[imported_anacardo]

Turns out: My name is a killing word.

So I got that going for me, which is nice.

[Blarg]

Depends an awful lot on the kid and on the adult. Many adults never reach social competency. Some reach it very late. Some have to have kids before they pull their heads out of their butts and finally realize the universe is not just the setting for one big personal tantrum. And for others even that doesn't work.

The difference between a smart 11th grader and your average college kid is often not much at all. And it often wouldn't matter, either, as college is much more businesslike and to the point than high school is. You can get in and get out and being smart actually becomes an asset, not a handicap, for the first time in some kids' lives.

I was thrilled to leave the high school experience behind. All the smarter kids I knew felt it was a huge relief not to be in the imbecilic atmosphere of high school anymore. Once we got into college, we got a much better taste of what being a human being was about.

[Voltron87]

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it's sorta hard to un-ring that bell once it starts though. grade-skipping can have big social effects, especially once they start to come out of grade school. it would be a tough thing for me to assess.

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this is a really complicated issue, and both you and blarg have true points. ive thought about it tons and still dont know where i stand. its hard to draw conclusions from my own life, im really happy with the person ive become and my intellectual level but during middle school and a lot of HS socially it was a huge mistake.

there are so many complicating factors, the HS i went to was a pretty bad choice, my parents are kind of crazy, and there are a lot of things ive benefitted and learned from which you can't plan or force into a kids life. (poker is one of those things ive benefitted from in many ways, more than $$, i mean who could see that coming?) and maybe ive turned into a smart person now for the same reasons i was skipped in the first place, being skipped might not have made me a smarter person, just because i think i am now doesn't mean it contributed to it.

[Voltron87]

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it's sorta hard to un-ring that bell once it starts though. grade-skipping can have big social effects, especially once they start to come out of grade school. it would be a tough thing for me to assess.

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Psych surveys of kids who skip grades show it to be very positive. Very few thought it had a negative effect on their social life, and just about all of them said they would put their kid ahead if he/she was gifted too. Only about 3% regretted going ahead, and felt it was a bad idea.

People who are intellectually ahead, are usually more socially competent as well. Surrounding them with more socially competent adults is good for them.

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i pretty much disagree with everything in this post except for the last sentence.

[imported_anacardo]

I'm maybe the only skipped-ahead kid I know who thoroughly enjoyed most of high school. I was a comic legend, I generally had a blast in sports & extracurriculars, frustrating though they often were, and I had some improbable teachers come out of the woodwork of a nondescript Texas public school district to become very positive influences on my life. I felt the need for my share of rebellion, but I'm a natural rebel, so that would have happened anywhere. College was a letdown, in a lot of ways.