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graduating early
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My eighth grade daughter is a ballerina. She is quite good and determined. She has a goal to dance professionaly with a small company and still go to technical school to become an ultrasound technitian. You know, to pay the bills- she says! I like that she is thinking of a backup plan. She also gives violin lessons privately to local homeschoolers and may add piano lessons at some pioints so that will be to her advantage as well. Yes, I know, a lot can change. She is quite a competent and determined person once she sets her mind to something.
So, my question is, has anyone finished a child a year ahead? I would like your input. She is ahead in science. She is doing Apologia Biology in a co-op with some high schoolers, including her older brother. She can get ahead in math this summer with Teaching Textbooks so that the credits will not be a problem. Hoping she can CLEP some history and english credits to help her out in technical college so that she has less to do while also dancing. I don’t want to rush her and am not doing this with her older brother who actually craves the full experience of all the learning he can get at home. So many books, so little time – he says! I am just seeing that with her current goals it might work to her advantage to finish a bit early.
Any thoughts?
This may or may not answer your question, but one of my good friends told me something their family is doing this week that might help you out.
Her son is 16.5 and a freshman at public school here. He is considered special needs, only because some learning disabilities such as dyslexia and dysgraphia qualify him to receive certain help at school. He failed Algebra I and will be required to take it again next year. He has also failed his Texas standardized test (whatever that’s called nowadays). So, basically, he’s going to be almost 20 before he graduates, if he can pass Algebra I and II, and more subject he has real trouble with. They pulled him out of school yesterday and are having his grades from homeschooling up til 7th grade, middle school grades, plus this year of high school evaluated by a homeschool testing place. He will then be tested and if he passes, he will receive a high school diploma. Because of his special needs, he won’t be graded on the same scale as non-special needs kids.
He has never wanted to go to college, and school has always been difficult for him. But he does want to go to welding school and learn that trade. I am fully supportive of their decision to pull him out and let him “graduate” right now. He will enroll in summer classes for welding at the local community college AND work 40 hours a week with his dad, who owns a land management company. But why force him to go through the agony of failing several subjects, being made fun of for graduating at 20, and learning calculus or algebra that he’s never going to use/need as a welder??
I think that this could be a real option for your dd, even though the circumstances are different. If she has the credits or ability to test to receive her diploma, why not? And if it allows her to focus more on what she wants to do as her trade/job/hobby, then I say go for it!
Hope that helps,
Lindsey
Thanks, Lindsey. I think it is a real option as well. It does sadden me a little to have it end even a year early. I love this style of learning so and don’t want to rush any of them through it. However, I cannot stand in the way of opportunity or what might be best for a particular child. Makes me ever so much more sure I want to treasure every moment with my youngest two. Time flies.
LOL!! Benita our minds run along the same lines I was thinking about graduating my dd (the athlete I am raising) for much the same reason!! One of the local junior colleges is next door to the archery range so it would be more convenient for all of us! She will be training a lot so it would be more useful for her to start junior college experience “earlier” since it will take her much longer to get through it!
Benita, IDK if my experience will help at all, but I will share and you can take it FWIW. My two oldest girls (currently 20 and 18) are in their sophomore year of college. The older one was always the typical age/grade level. The younger one just kind of did what her sister did when they were in elementary school, all through the years. We still identified her as the “grade” that corresponded with her age. But when she was approaching 8th grade, we realized that she could graduate at the same time as her sister, at least in terms of academics. After much discussion and soul-searching together, she decided that she wanted the option to graduate “early” and pretty much from that time we identified her “grade” as the same as her sister’s (so she never really had a year of being called an 8th grader). Because she was college bound, we knew, we wanted to be mindful of the high school years for transcripts, etc.
So in a nutshell, she really didn’t miss out on any academics.
But of course, there’s more than academics to consider. With this particular child, she has always a great amount of common sense, not quick to follow a crowd, related well to people of all ages, etc. She has had a social maturity, as well, that did not leave me concerned (beyond the normal concerns, of course, lol). She made mistakes and coped well with them, and also demonstrated the ability to learn vicariously from others’ struggles and mistakes.
This daughter was 16 for her senior year and a month after turning 17 got on an Amtrak train and headed across the country on her own for college, only to return home for two weeks at both Christmas and summer. This is the same daughter who now, at 18, is in her 2nd semester of her sophomore year of college, and preparing to serve a mission in Thailand for 1.5 years right around the time she turns 19.
Would I have loved to have her around longer? Yes, definitely! She is a delightful person and my friend. But really, it was the right move for her. Not that she couldn’t have learned more from being at home longer, but it was just right for her. She has grown in ways that could not have happened here. Her older sister — that would not have been the right choice for her. She is also a wonderful person, but it would not have been the right choice for her.
You seem to have a good sense of what options your daughter may have in your future. She sounds like she’s got a lot of drive and determination! For us, I was really glad we kept our options open. That was the biggest thing.
As for CLEP credits, that can be a great option for sure, but for my kids it turned out that the almost all of the schools they were looking at did not accept CLEP credits. So just look into the way schools accept CLEP credits before you put too many eggs in that basket.
Good luck with everything!
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