Kindergartener underchallenged at school? Skip a grade?

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He is mainstreamed in Kindergarten and has classic ASD but is very high functioning. He is speech delayed but one of the younger 5 year olds in his class being born in June.
He is in the top of his class and I wonder if he is just bored and underchallenged when he is disruptive and not wanting to do his work?
Has anyone here ever considered skipping a grade for their child? Would it improve his behavior if my DS is challenged more and would move to 1st grade after this semester is over? Or would this just be a bad idea altogether?

Any input is appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

It is a difficult decision. My son is on the older side as his b-day was only 9 days after the cut-off here. Plus, he started reading at 3 and was well into large chapter books by Kindy. I never pushed him on because his maturity just wasn't there and it would be even more noticeable with older kids. Sure, he could do the work, but he still wasn't going to fit in, especially when the behaviour norms were going to be even higher with older kids.

We didn't have too many isues in Kindy though. Our issues were in 1st grade. Granted we had the teacher from hell that year, but I also know that he would have had the same behaviour problems in any classroom of kids. It is the larger class that was causing his behaviours, not being bored as he was always content to read a book when finished with his work. At the time, I was angry at his teacher and we fought over him being challenged, but as the years went on and his behaviours became more obvious, I realized it was the large group triggering him more than boredom. Chances are, even in 1st grade, the kids aren't old enough or mature enough to be well behaved and not trigger you son. No matter the grade, you need to figure out what is triggering his behaviour and find accommodations to help him.

I found the lower grades ot be miserable most of the time for my son. He needed more freedom than always walking in a straight line, etc. If got better each year though. Good Luck with you decision.

Another option might be pull-outs for math and reading with the resource teacher (or in an older class) at his academic level, but to remain with his peers for the other subjects and activities.

At the parent teacher conference a few weeks ago, his teacher told me he gets pulled out for math and he will start in the accelerated reader program in the next few weeks too. He also gets pulled for speech twice a week for 30 minutes.

My son has always been way ahead of his classmates academically, as well. We never considered skipping a grade, because he was always so much less mature than the other kids his age. There was so much he could learn from the kids his age. He already stuck out, and I couldn't imagine how he'd do socially with older kids.

The pull outs for math and reading help quite a bit. When you add speech, OT, and working with the psychologist/social worker they are kept really busy. He's also in the gifted program, which is another pull out.

My district also has a magnet program. My son just tested into it for the first time this year. He's still in his appropriate age, but he's with all kids at his ability level.

I had a similar problem with my son at that age. And having him skip a grade did not seem feasible because of his immaturity and physical size.

Getting your son pulled out for math and reading sounds great, meanwhile in the actual kindergarten class, it might be a good time for him to learn the 'social rules' of the classroom environment. Such as raising your hand to speak, walking in a line, following the teacher's directions and so on and so forth.

Kindergarten used to be solely for socializing kids and getting them ready to learn, but the curriculum has been pushed down and pushed down hard. What used to be taught in first grade, is now being introduced in Kindergarten. Just saying.

But to have him skip a grade if he does not know how to conduct himself in a traditional classroom setting could be a disaster. That is if you are planning to keep him in a traditional public school. I am sure there are other options if you can find a private school that you like.

Ugh, I'm screaming "NOOooooo" on the inside! I do have strong opinions about this one.

Allow me to explain. I have a family member who "skipped" several years of school because he was a "genius." Unfortunately, he was already at a deficit with social skills (he was the quiet kid other kids picked on) and this meant that in college he had to catch up to kids who were considerably more mature socially. It was supremely difficult for him.

School isn't solely about academics, it's where kids (for better or worse) do most of their social learning. While I think offering enrichment is important for kids, I also think it isn't a bad thing for them to learn to tolerate boredom (within reason) and to learn to respect differences other than their own. I'd let your son know that while he needs help with speech, etc. other kids might need help with reading or math.

I do recognize that this can present issues for teachers, but until we go back to the one-room-schoolhouse, I think it's best to find a way to work with the age/grade system as much as possible. Is it possible for the teacher to find jobs or "chores" to engage the child to after he completes his work? Can he read quietly (recognizing this may not be possible in a kindergartener), or can the school use that time for speech therapy?

I would have to disagree with Momsparky

I started school at age 4 because I was 'academically advanced'. And then I skipped ahead in a few subjects. I was always the youngest and smallest in my class by a good margin. And yes I didn't fit in socially, but to be honest I don't think I would ever fit in no matter what class I was placed in. I am just not normal, and changing my grade isn't going to make me blend in. But by starting a year early I managed to get out of the hell hole of school a year earlier. Why torment the child any more then needed. Just skip as many grades as you possibly can so that you can minimize the school time.

And I personally don't see anything wrong with moving up to spend time with more socially mature people. I would rather spend time around mature people than be stuck with a bunch of immature kids who torment you for their own entertainment. I really wished I would have been allowed to skip complete grades rather than just being pulled out for math and reading. Its not like story time with the rest of my class taught me anything, it only prolonged the time I spent in school. I would much rather have graduated earlier.

Well there you have it, 2 very reasonable, diametrically opposed viewpoints! Thanks Tracker & momsparky. I feel that I am in the same position as the OP. Our kindergartener is acedemically well above his peers all the way around. The thought of moving him up a grade to keep him from being bored has crossed our minds several times. The neuro-psychologist we see adivsed us that we should probably keep him with his age peers for now and work with the school on pull-outs to keep him challenged in math and reading. The Doc's reasoning on this is a little different from what others here have described as not wanting the child to "stick-out". The way he put it is that at higher grade levels there are greater expectations for behavior that our son would not be able to meet. So, add the potential for more stress because of increased behavioral expectations to sticking-out socially and we came to the conclusion to keep him with his age peers for now.

I can totally see Tracker's side of the arguement too. If its just hell for the child all the way around why not get it over faster. I guess my response to this would be that we are doing a lot to try and keep it from being hell the way it was for kids when Tracker was in elementary. Along these lines though, and as another poster mentioned, you do need to find the underlying cause for his disruptive behavior. If the normal classroom environment is just generally intolerable for him, he isn't going to learn much. Who can learn social skills, much less anything else, when all your focus is spent every day on just keeping it together?

Anything that shortens childhood and gets them able to enjoy the blessings of liberty a little sooner is a good thing in my book.

Adulthood kicks ass. It just does. Being a kid means have no options, no rights, and very few responsibilities. No control over you destiny. Being forced to keep associating with people even though they'd clearly be more than happy to kill you if they thought they could get away with it.

And really, if he's gonna not fit in anyway, why make him sit through boring crap he already knows and still not fit in? And why make childhood one minute longer than it absolutely has to be?

If school is hell for a particular child, that argues for finding a different school or homeschool situation, not necessarily for skipping a grade just to make it shorter -- especially when we're talking about a kindergartener!

On another board I read a lot about the big jump in expectations in 4th grade in executive function -- things like managing homework and reports. Many AS and ADHD kids apparently run into big trouble in 4th grade because their executive function development lags behind their NT peers. It seems to me that skipping K might be helpful for the first year or two, but cause bigger problems later, especially for a kid with a fall birthday.

I vote for SKIP.

My parents let me skip a grade, and I wish that they had let me skip more. The teachers brought it up every year, and my parents did not agree for several years, because they were afraid to "ret*d" my social development. Hahahahahahahahahahaha! What social development? I never had any until high school.

In situations like yours, I would say to let your child skip grades, as many as needed to keep him interested in schoolwork. Chances are he is not going to do well in life through charming and glibbing, so he might as well focus on his intellectual development. Being bored in school is not a good feeling. Autistic children really need to keep their minds occupied and overclocking. The lack of intellectual stimulation is a gawdawful feeling. The lack of socialization is a who-cares feeling.

Also, ASD is going to put a blockade on social development anyway. It's not necessarily desirable for autistic children to socialize at a young age. It might be better to wait until they are older for them to jump into the social world, because they will have more of the systemizing capabilities to make sense of it at an older age. Keeping them with their matched age peers might just subject them to extensive bullying. Being the class baby won't necessarily be a problem.

I vote no.

Getting complicated, eh?

Our elementary school principal often spoke out against skipping, and for (instead) multi-level teaching that allows all children to be stimulated in a single class. She had been a skip, herself, and she felt that there were major educational components she had missed, since some concepts are only taught in one grade. In our district, for most core items, the curriculum is a spiral, so schools should be moving it forward at the pace of the top students, knowing that the kids struggling with it will be seeing these concepts again later. At the same time, more interesting problems can be assigned to the brighter students that reflect the next level in the spiral, thus keeping them feeling challenged. Additional challenge for the top students, and enrichment for the lower students, is provided by encouraging the top students to tutor the ones who are struggling. This is the basis on which our entire school district now works, providing multi-level teaching within each grade under a single curriculum, and it is raising test scores for ALL students in this highly diverse district, where we have gifted kids mixed in with everything, including a high percentage of English language learners. You don't hear much about being bored from anyone.

My AS son benefited socially from the concept, because the tutoring side allowed other students to see and appreciate his gifts, and it was really good communication practice as well.

My NT daughter has been an interesting case, because she is a fall birthday, so young for her grade, and even with that small lag the increase in maturity and responsibility expectations each year has been a HUGE challenge. She is a highly gifted student, so academics are not an issue, but now in 6th grade she is facing a crisis that isn't very common for NT girls (totally common for all boys): dramatically lower grades because she is missing assignments, and this comes down squarely to a developmental difference from her younger age. She just does not have the tracking and organizational skills required: she sincerely thought she was on top of it all, and was getting straight A's. Every paper we've gotten back has been a solid A. But zeros play in exponentially, and she didn't know she had some, despite all our warnings that this had been an issue for her brother and offers to help her with it if she wanted. I can't begin to tell you how crushed she is.

If I had my highly gifted NT daughter's schooling to do over, she would have started K a year later. I have felt that way ever since her first weeks in first grade, clearly struggling to meet the behavior and maturity standards required of her. Every year school we go through it again, as her maturity tries to catch up enough to meet the new responsibilities. Responsibility has been become such a giant part of academics, pushed down lower and carry a much larger penalty than ever, that it must be extremely heavily considered. Those zeros in middle school are a killer, and there is no make up, there is no late with a reduced grade. Zero is zero. All because you didn't hear the teacher ask for the piece of paper. This is the modern middle school, thoroughly different than even 10 years ago. I think it's too much for a sixth grader, period, and then for a boy with AS who is a year younger? I can almost guarantee that hitting middle school would be when you decided you had been thoroughly nuts to ever let him skip, and the reason will be organizational expectations, which are entirely developmental.

So what if my daughter would have been reading and everything by the time she started K, had she started a year later. Those differences almost always average out by 3rd grade. I've watched this go by with two different groups of kids, and studies say the same.

Ah, the other factor to remember: there is a really good chance (probably close to 90-95%) that most of your son's current academic advantage (at least when compared to all good students) will average out by 3rd grade. And then all he will be is the youngest and least mature student in the class.

We've seen some skips in other schools around 3rd or 5th grade, because by then it becomes clear (a) if the difference is permanent and (b) how much of an issue the maturity/developmental gap might be. The two I know aren't just ahead, they are off-the-charts brilliant in a truly mind-boggling way, and the skip was kind of a shoulder shrug effort to do something, anything, to hold their interest. Even then, their parents are left with mixed feelings about it. Both were NT.

So, if it was me, I wouldn't do it. I would keep my child challenged and interested in other ways. Good schools do that every day all the time. If you don't have a good school that knows how to do it, switch schools. Better answer than skipping. IMHO.

To the OP, your original question is, would it change his behavior if he skipped a grade? His behavior would have to be assessed and addressed. My 10yo son has been the youngest in his homeschool class on Fridays, and he is disruptive this year. Yesterday his teacher was sick and they split his class up among the others. (All subs were being used.) His behavior was vastly improved in the younger class - NOT b/c of the agemates, and NOT b/c he was less stressed. He said it was b/c two particular boys were not assigned to the temporary class with him. These two boys feed off my son's antics. Actually the three boys feed off each other.

Schools nowadays don't tend to put kids ahead b/c there will always be a child at the head of the class. If your child moves ahead, what about the next one? but that is not your question.

Another point is, AS kids tend to have 2/3's of the maturity of their agemates. As his social and emotional issues are addressed, he will have a far greater chance of having true connections with friends if they are younger than he. Not to say he wouldn't have friends older than he, he'd just have a greater chance w/ younger kids. But that is not your question.

I've seen it happen that behavior gets better as the child is challenged, either by skipping a grade or by being given challenging work. But I just would assume if your child is aspie, he'll take his behavior challenges with him. HTH.

We looked at this option for both of our children but even though they were advanced academically there weren't in other ways we felt were important. We left them where they were and enrolled them in Kumon for extra learning and they did that until they didn't want to anymore.

My son had similar behaviours to yours but it was not because the work was too simple, it was the way it was presented to him. We now do distance education for the extra flexibilty and he loves it.

While I respect our difference of opinion, I want to clear up one thing that I think is pertinent to this discussion: when I said older kids were socially more mature I did not mean they were kinder or better: I meant they had more skills for social and emotional manipulation, less tolerance for differences, etc.

Essentially, while it worked for you - for my family member it meant we put a completely unarmed child in the middle of a sophisticated social battlefield.

I think this can be managed if skipping grades is handled carefully - but I think it is a danger to be aware of.