Is it potentially harmful for my 3rd grade daughter to be hanging out with only 5th graders at recess?

Question

She is very emotionally mature for her age and she has been accepted into the 5th grade crowd during morning recess. She chooses to skip her after-lunch recess where she only has 3rd graders to play with. I don't want to be an over protective parent, but the situation sets off warning bells for me. Do any of you have children who have mostly hung out with kids who were older than them, and if so, did it turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing?

Answer 1

It doesn't matter. You are over protective. All you are doing is adding flame to a fire that you started.

Answer 2

I cant even believe the teachers would allow that!  They have different schedules, different times to access the playground, etc

Mom of 3rd and 5th graders

Answer 3

As long as the 5th graders are good role models and nice people, you'll be ok.

Answer 4

this is not good. They are doing things she is not ready for. Disscussions and things she should not be exposed to and on top of that when they go on to high school (middle school or what ever it is called where you are) she will be left with no friends. You need to encourage her to bring home grade 3 friends and encourage those friendships

Answer 5

She will be exposed to things she isn't ready for mentally yet.

Not good.

Answer 6

DISCIPLINE

wait y would come and ask here in the first place

I MEAN SERIOUSLY

Answer 7

I dont think it is good.

5th graders and 3rd graders are WAY different

Good Luckk

Answer 8

I have never thought this was a good idea at a young age.  You said it yourself... now she doesn't want to hang out with kids her own age.  It's only going to get worse as she gets older.   When she's in the 6th grade she's going to want to hang around with those same 8th graders and we all know that 7th and 8th grade is when kids start talking about boys and s*x and other things that a 6th grader shouldn't be talking about.  IMO, it's a big mistake.  You're letting her get ahead of herself by 2 years.  Don't let her rush it, she'll grow up soon enough!

Edit -  I have an 8th grader and my neighbor's daughter is in the 5th grade and is always wanting to hang around with my daughter and her friend and her mom thinks it's ok.  It makes me uncomfortable.  Even though my daughter is a good kid, I still don't think it's right for someone two years younger to be hanging around with kids older than her instead of kids her own age.  My daughter doesn't care for it much either, but she's too nice to hurt the little girl's feelings.

Answer 9

sounds good, she needs peers, and her age group are too slow.....but is she skipping anything important to hang?  

tell her the big fish in a small pond synopsis..

Answer 10

Some kids gravitate to other kids older and younger kids than themselves. It's her choice who she is friends with. My gut feeling would be to say that you should just let it happen naturally.

Two years isn't that large of a gap. Think through the past—it used to be the case that most people lived in rural environments and didn't have huge peer groups of people their exact same age. It isn't abnormal or inherently dangerous to associate with older or younger kids.

Protect her, but let her be herself.

Answer 11

You could always make her teacher aware of the concerns you have and ask that during morning recess she not be around those kids due to such a vast age difference.  You could also let the teacher know that you want her outside with the rest of the class during lunch recess as well. There is a big difference between being 8 in the third grade and being 11 in the fifth grade.  Maybe find her some activities with kids her own age that she can do outside of school would also help.

Answer 12

Well, that depends on the fifth graders. Do you know them? Are they boisterous and destructive or are they mature and kind? Unless they are doing something to actively harm your daughter, I don't think there can be much of a problem at this point.

HOWEVER, I think if she continues to hang out with significantly older kids past this year, they'll expose her to teenage "stuff" which you probably won't think is acceptable for her age.

I think the first thing you should do is acquaint yourself as well as possible with the fifth grade friends. Then, you should encourage her to make friends in her own grade in addition to the older friends. What will she do when those older kids leave the school, otherwise? I don't think it's okay for her to completely ignore her peers in favor of the older crowd; that seems like the beginning of clique-ish behavior.

Sorry if this doesn't exactly answer your question; it's what I would do, though.