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- #41
Both his 1st-grade teacher and this year's teacher have told us that they use him to help other students and not just because he's smart but because when he helps, he doesn't make the student that he's helping feel bad for needing help.Seems the best is a split one between social and intellectual challenges. Staying in the same grade is too little of an intellectual challenge but also a social challenge with time. A bored kid might create some unnecessary trouble.
Moving up a bit will obviously create new social challenges and intellectual ones. Sure the social challenges are tricky. In a higher class the other kids might feel intimidated by such a clever small kid and might be a bit nasty. But that's not a given and needs empathy, ability and willingness from teachers. We all know there are good and bad teachers. Empathy and beeing able to kindly enforce is one major dividing line between them. Means that's an external factor that you can't really influence.
The trick here is to get your son to help the older kids with schoolwork. Now and also when skipping. That's where social challenges are smoothed out. Big one here is to guide the kid into beeing humble. Humbleness is a very helpful ticket to move up a class and succeeding. Explaining why and showing how everybody is different.
But at that age - too early to skip. Just creates other frustrations. Let a kid be a kid. And give him lots to read.
Being humble has been something we are making sure is part of who he is.