What did the family have to do in order for Gabriel to be allowed a second year of nurturing in The Giver?

Jonas’s father petitions the Elders to allow Gabriel to stay with Jonas’s family for an extra year.

In Jonas’s community, babies are normally released if they do not meet certain growth and development targets during the first year of life. This basically means that the baby is euthanized, or killed by lethal injection, for being inferior. The community needs everyone to be the same, so there can’t be any substandard babies.

For some reason, Jonas’s...

Jonas’s father petitions the Elders to allow Gabriel to stay with Jonas’s family for an extra year.

In Jonas’s community, babies are normally released if they do not meet certain growth and development targets during the first year of life. This basically means that the baby is euthanized, or killed by lethal injection, for being inferior. The community needs everyone to be the same, so there can’t be any substandard babies.

For some reason, Jonas’s father is just a little bit more sentimental than other citizens. As a Nurturer, he sees babies released all of the time. He always finds it a little sad, though. He seems to get attached to Gabriel. He even breaks the rules to peek at his name, thinking that secretly calling him by a name instead of a number will help his development.

"He's a sweet little male with a lovely disposition. But he isn't growing as fast as he should, and he doesn't sleep soundly. We have him in the extra care section for supplementary nurturing, but the committee's beginning to talk about releasing him." (Ch. 1)

Jonas’s father sees potential in Gabriel. All family units consist of a boy and a girl. It is against the rules to have more children. All infants remain at the Nurturing Center for the first year of life. However, Jonas’s father manages to get Gabriel a reprieve. At first, he just brings him home at night for “something extra.” Then Jonas’s father decides that Gabe could be successful if he just had a little more time.

He had been given an unusual and special reprieve from the committee, and granted an additional year of nurturing before his Naming and Placement. Father had gone before the committee with a plea on behalf of Gabriel, who had not yet gained the weight appropriate to his days of life nor begun to sleep soundly enough at night to be placed with his family unit. (Ch. 6)

All children born in a year “age” on the same day in December. This means that some babies have been born very recently, where others are really closer to a year old.  However, the babies have to meet certain requirements before they are given to families. If they don’t, they get released instead of assigned.

Jonas’s family gets attached to Gabriel. Jonas, especially, comes to view the new child as his brother. When he learns the real meaning of release by watching his father give a lethal injection to a newborn, he is horrified. Worse still, after Gabe's year is up he learns that Gabriel still has not satisfied the community, and even his father voted to release him. Jonas takes Gabriel and flees.