new school - is repeating a grade a bad idea?

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Hi,

I know this issue has been posted somewhat recently but the context here is somewhat different and I?m hoping for some advice.

DS, 6, just finished first-grade. He?s well ahead academically, fluent reader, a couple of years ahead in math, probably more so in science. But behaviorally and socially he?s more like a 4 or 5 year old (and that?s on a good day). He gets frustrated easily, cries more than most of the other kids, that sort of thing. He actually did better socially this year than we expected, but he definitely tended to hang out with the younger kids in his class rather than the older ones.

Anyway, we?re getting ready to move from an urban district where his August birthday is not unusual to a suburban district where he would almost certainly be the youngest kid in his grade (i.e. the younger boys were all redshirted for kindergarten). Socially, it seems like a terrible idea to have him be the youngest kid in his class. But if he repeats a year, boredom could be a serious problem (when he?s even a little bored he tends to drift off into his imaginary world, become disruptive, or just generally get into trouble).

I?m wondering if anyone has had their child repeat a grade in similar circumstances (i.e. Aspie who is ahead academically but behind socially) and how it ended up working out? Glad you did it? Wish you hadn?t? Any advice would be appreciated ? we?re almost ready to flip a coin here.

I was advanced a grade at the start of my third-grade year. Because I was younger than the others in fourth grade and the older students didn't know me, I was the target of hostility, and begged to return to my age-appropriate third grade which I was allowed to do after two weeks.

My point is that DS might have problems in his repeat of first grade that have nothing to do with academics. These problems might resolve themselves quickly, and he could benefit from the new arrangement. But, I would watch for signs of problems, just in case.

Don't repeat first grade, please don't do it.
Boredom is a big problem for academically advanced kids as it is.
Repeating a grade for social development reasons is holding back the best of the kid to focus on the stuff that can only be mediocre at best.
When I was eight, I had the communication skills of a two year old, but I turned out fine.

Here's my experience, FWIW.

I went to school in Philadelphia in the late '60s. I was tested and determined to be among the top 2% of all students in the city. I was advanced a grade as part of this in an experimental program with seven other gifted children. We were all together in the same class and skipped from 1st to 3rd grade. The school knew about us and made sure none of us missed any necessary 2nd grade material.

The next year, we moved to a crap school district in Southern NJ. I went from being treated like a star student to a sideshow freak. This has everything to do with the fact that Philadelphia had an excellent school system at the time, but the town in NJ my family moved to had nothing.

When I was in sixth grade, my grades started suffering because of all the bullying I was receiving. The school social worker wanted to institutionalize me since I tested high but underperformed in school. My father and a child psychologist worked something out where it was believed that having me repeat sixth grade would get me back with my own age group and help my social problems.

At this point I want you to notice two things: 1. Asperger's was not yet known, and 2. It was considered my social problem, not the fault of the bullies.

So what happened? I went from the bullied ret*d to the bullied ret*d who flunked a grade. Never mind that I could out-think most of my teachers, I was a ret*d and shamed by "flunking." No amount of teacher lectures or screaming at my classmates could convince them otherwise. Kids are cruel little savages.

Add to that I was bored. I, who was bored at this podunk school the first time I went through 6th grade had to do it all again. No advanced classes (as were promised) and worse bullying than before-- which I would not have thought possible. I failed every class because I blew everything off, feeling betrayed by school personnel and my parents.

So seems more like the problem is your son's school's lack of support for him than any external circumstance. Demand the support he needs from your school system. It will do him (and others like him) much more good in the long run.

Thanks. So far the new school has seemed very supportive (of course, he hasn't actually started yet). We are very mindful of bullying and I guess we're worried that bullying might be more likely if he's at the youngest end of the class. DS seems to do better socially with kids who are his age or a little younger.

I'm not positive, but my sense is that these days grade-repeating/redshirting, particularly at the early grades, does not have the social stigma that it used to. It's also much easier to pull off if you're switching schools, since the other kids aren't necessarily aware of it (we definitely wouldn't have considered repeating at his current school).

Not saying that repeating is necessarily the right call, just wanting to clarify here.

1) He'll be super bored, and bored kids tend to get into trouble as they look for ways to amuse themselves.
2) He's still going to be behind socially.

I don't think holding him back will solve anything.

Don't do it unless it really makes sense. Such I doubt it would. No amount of enrichment will compensate for the concrete reality that he is likely bored the dirt time and had to do it again which says to him school is not about learning the academics.

It will take tremendous teacher support to make repeating work as he'll need things individualized----I think that old be really hard to make happen.

My son was moved forward a year because of problems that occurred when he was bored. It was wonderful for him, except he had issues because he became the shortest child in the class.

Sometimes there is confusion between executive function skills and social skills. Executive function skills cause a bigger issue in school than social. He might be academically ahead, but have weaker executive function skills. http://www.4mylearn.org/ExecutiveFunction.html talks about common pattern of ADHD and ASD executive function challenges and provides examples of what can be expected at a given age. For each executive function, find the age level he is currently at and divide by his age. For example Emotional Control, say a child is 10 and is currently at behaving at a 5 year old level, his EFQ would be 5/10 or 50% for that function. This indicates this child needs considerable explicit support to learn that skill.
You can build a profile of all his functions. If the profile is fairly flat, ranging from 80% to 120%, I would feel comfortable letting him go to the next grade. If he has 60% or lower in some functions and is not currently getting explicit help for those functions, I would seriously consider holding back.

BTW: http://www.4mylearn.org/Social.html talks about the universal social cognitive challenges people labeled ASD have.

Remember too though that an Aspie child will need some interventions to increase social AND executive functioning skills. Simply holding a child who has ASD back is really unlikely to allow for enough progress in that year for him to reach where the other kids are. Retaining alone is not likely to substitute for support and interventions.

Thanks for the advice. We'll definitely take this seriously.

The ONLY way I would consider holding back a kid who is performing academically at or above grade level is if I had an extremely long conversation with folks at the school, and we agreed to spend that year working pretty much exclusively on psychosocial development, and they presented me with a plan that I really believed would work.

I found myself in a similar dilemma with my DS7. Not the same but similar. He's one of the youngest kids-- it is a suburban district, people are big into redshirting. HUGE. I didn't, and he is immature and lacks impulse control compared to his peers. Is this ADHD?? Relative immaturity?? I don't know for sure.

Halfway through Kindergarten, he was not reading well, not sitting still, not shutting up, not following directions. I was told at that point I would have grounds to keep him back; however, by the end of the year he was reading (barely) on grade level and at that point the school's recommendation was against repeating kindergarten.

Sometimes I wish I had kept him back, sometimes I'm glad I didn't. Boredom would have been an issue-- and he's still lagging a bit in reading. I will definitely redshirt both my little ones (even if they are girls, their birthdays are in late May and early June and I just don't want to go through this, or put the teachers through it, again).

On the whole, being academically ahead of the game, I wouldn't keep him back. Boredom is going to be an issue; stigma might also be an issue even though it's a new school. It might give the illusion of a chance to catch up socially, but I don't think it really is. Even if it looks that way for a year or two, he's going to fall behind again (and that gap is only going to get wider as he gets older, until the late 20s-early 30s range).

The chance to keep going academically is probably more likely to carry him through those miserable adolescent years than a single year to "catch up" is to mitigate them.

What is red shirting?

Wow, I am surprised that most of you would not hold him back.

My high IQ son has a late birthday for his grade and I just held him back last year for long term reasons. So he is less than 2 months older than the oldest kids within that grade. Now, he has slow processing and executive functioning skills, and your son may not be dealing with that. Long term, my son will be a year older going to college, and still not much older than his peers.

As for being bored, I feel it may be more a factor in elementary levels, not in middle school or high school. In upper grades, they will do higher level work and get more out of it. In lower grades, the teacher breaks things down more, so kids who understand concepts quickly are bored.

Like others have said, see that the school understands the issues. Schools will vary widely on how they will handle it and you want to know their perspective before you make a decision.

I'm trying to add to your perspective, but truly it is just a very hard decision to make. Our kids just don't fit, and that is difficult for the school, for the child, for you, for everyone.

BenJT as your child is ahead academically, you probably want to think about how he handles boredom and whether he will be able to handle the increased boredom from being held back when he is already ahead.

Sometimes breed kids act out more. Not saying move him up, I know it's complicated.