When Atton joins the party he's almost lvl 8 having roughly(could even be exactly) double the amount of XP that Kreia and I have. At the moment he joined Kreia and I had ~13600 while Atton had ~27200. Is that intended or a known bug/issue?
Note: He was not actually fully leveled to 7 but he had enough XP for me to lvl him up to 7, which took me about 3-4 level ups if I remember correctly.
Whenever I've gotten to the point where Atton is with me, getting ready to leave the rock of boredom, I do typically have all characters at level 7 or 8. Are you sure that you have sufficiently leveled up your other characters?
As far as I know, some EXP should transfer to other party members, before they join your party and while you are not using them. That is why you can pull them out and have them ready to level up, because of that little bonus!