School grades apart

[Anonymous]

I saw a previous post about kids spaced 4 years apart that I’m piggybacking off of. My children are 1 and 5 and will be 4 school grades apart. Not by choice but we’re happy with where we are. Just looking for experiences from families who have this (or similar) grade spacing and how it’s going? Is it hard to foster shared school experiences? Are your children always off doing different things? Any tips for an anxious mom is appreciated!

[Anonymous]

My sibling and I are 3.5 years/four grades apart and we were friends with several families who had kids in the same grades as us.

It turned out that my kids are now 4.5 years/4 grades apart and same situation where we know several other families with siblings the same split.

It is what it is.

[Anonymous]

I have three kids - second is four grades younger than oldest and youngest is four grades younger than second kid. They are all close and enjoy each other and ha g out a lot together. But they all have different interests and except for a minute of their lives, they are all in different schools so they are always going in different directions. It’s not really an age issue for our family.

[Anonymous]

Well most of the time it means they are in separate schools, so that's two back-to-school nights, two PTA's, two start times and release times, two buses or drop-offs, etc. It will also be unlikely that they'll have overlapping friends or both be in the same class or sport or extracurricular activity which would occur if two are in high school at the same time where kids in the same activities are all co-mingled irrespective of grade/age. It is what it is.

[Anonymous]

My kids enjoyed having their own space in middle school without a sibling there. They are friends, but it was nice to have those schools years without the shadow of a sibling.

[Anonymous]

My brother and I had this age gap. In a lot of ways, it was like having the perks of a sibling and also the perks of being an only. I was the younger one, so I had the house to myself for all of high school. We definitely were not as close as some closer-aged siblings, but we were such different kids that I don't know if the age mattered (and we are very close as adults). I'm sure it was tough for our parents to have kids in very different stages, but overall I think we were both able to really thrive in our own environments and there was very little competition or rivalry, or even comparison.

[Anonymous]

My sister and I are a bit over 3 years apart in age, but because of when the birthdays fall, we are 4 grades apart in school (so 5th grade/9th grade, 9th grade/college freshman, etc). I’d say overall it was really positive. I think my sister (younger) appreciated having her own middle and high school experience rather than being “compared” to me, or us having the same teachers. She did say it was hard after I left for college having 100% of my parents’ attention on her at almost all times, but that would have been the case even if we were 2 or 3 grades apart, just for a shorter time.

[Anonymous]

It's just like having 3 kids spaced a couple years apart. The oldest and youngest are 4-5 grades apart. It doesn't really matter. Every family has its own dynamics for sibling relationships, kid activities, school involvement, etc. You just make what you have work for you.

However - the bonus for that age gap is that the older one can help drive the younger one to activities when they hit driving age. And it is kind of nice having an "only" in high school to focus on the younger one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My brother and I had this age gap. In a lot of ways, it was like having the perks of a sibling and also the perks of being an only. I was the younger one, so I had the house to myself for all of high school. We definitely were not as close as some closer-aged siblings, but we were such different kids that I don't know if the age mattered (and we are very close as adults). I'm sure it was tough for our parents to have kids in very different stages, but overall I think we were both able to really thrive in our own environments and there was very little competition or rivalry, or even comparison.

This is a good description. I have kids 4 years/grades apart who are older (one now in middle and one in elementary). It's worked out great. It's not ideal if you want to sign them up for everything together and want a package deal logistically, that's true. Kids with this spread are doing different things. But with my kids I have always found that they get lots of individual attention from us, they both were always able to explore what they wanted to do (not what sister/brother wanted to do), but when they are home together, they spend a lot of time together and get on fine. It leads to less sibling rivalry, from what I have seen with friends with close age kids. Basically out of your house they get to be their own people 100% and when they come home they have a nice sibling relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well most of the time it means they are in separate schools, so that's two back-to-school nights, two PTA's, two start times and release times, two buses or drop-offs, etc. It will also be unlikely that they'll have overlapping friends or both be in the same class or sport or extracurricular activity which would occur if two are in high school at the same time where kids in the same activities are all co-mingled irrespective of grade/age. It is what it is.

The first sentence is about what's good for the parents, not the kids. Which is fine. It's a facor.

The rest of this post could really go either way for a kid. Overlapping friends and having the same activities and teams and coaches can be really hard. I experienced that as a kid as the less athletic child and frankly, it sucked.

[Anonymous]

My sister and I have this age gap and I graduated from high school the same day she graduated from college.

[Anonymous]

My brother and I had a four-grade gap. Logistically, I'm sure it was a bit harder on my parents, but personally, it was fine. We were able to be our own people, and there wasn't really any competition. We had our own friends and activities, but we also did stuff as a family. I don't really see why it would make someone so anxious--lots of families have this spread, or more, whether between two kids or across three or four.

[Anonymous]

I was 4 grades apart from my sister and while there are pros and cons to every age gap, I think it was a pretty good one and likely will end up with something similar in my own family. Like others have said, we were still close and definitely played together as kids, had a lot of fun together on vacations etc. - we were 3.5 years apart and that wasn't too much to play together. But we still had our separate friend groups which honestly I was grateful for. We did have another family we were very close to that had daughters our age as well and that was a ton of fun, we would all play together and I think helped because we each had someone our age. I would say we were the least close during my high school years, but very close again when I went to college and she was in high school. We've been very close ever since. it will be totally fine! People put the 2 year and close age gaps on a pedestal but there are pros and cons to everything, for some kids personalities being close in age causes a lot of competition and doesn't work well. For some it works great. It's really more about your kids personalities than anything at the end of the day I think.