<p>My son was 17 when he started and more mature than most of the young men in his dorm. He always said he had an “older brain” which in some ways I loved, he saw some repercussions before they happened. He also handled quite a few issues without telling me which I found surprising since he wasn’t used to being so independent. I don’t think age has that much to do with it, most is personality and maturity.
My girls will be just 18 when they embark and I hope they handle it as well.</p>
<p>My S was an “old soul,” his pre-school teacher said she had 2 kids who were 3 going on 40 & my was clearly one of them. Partly because he was so serious & mature, we really wanted him to learn “social graces,” so we held him back. Academically, he would have had challenges no matter what we did but we really wanted him to learn to “chill” and figure out how to make friends. We strongly felt that by holding him back & having him start kindergarten later rather than earlier, he could allow his socialization skills to mature so he would be the loneliest kid around (as he was in pre-school). </p>
<p>It truly is tough to know what would have happened if a different path had been chosen. We can all just do the best we can with the info we have at any given time & things will evolve.</p>
<p>My advice is to have your kids born in the spring. (March-May birthdays). :)</p>
<p>Many years ago I started school early (winter birthday, youngest in class), skipped a year of high school, and started college at 16. Law school at 20. Academically and socially I felt fine… but as a parent I did not think it was such a good idea for my own kids.</p>
<p>Since my kids had those spring birthdays, they “fit” well within cut offs. They started school at the “normal” time. I think that this particularly made a difference with my daughter, who was very precocious academically and well ahead of the curve socially. (With my son, it probably was simply a good fit – he was the right age for his grade all along). My daughter did feel frustrated at times academically… but she actually was given the choice as to whether to skip at the end of 1st grade and decided against it. </p>
<p>I think looking back at my own experience compared with the experience of my offspring, both now grown and in their 20’s, is that they were able to develop leadership skills that I lacked. I just think it can come with the territory of being on the older end of spectrum among peers & the social confidence that develops over time, especially when reaching the age at which certain societal privileges are bestowed. (Driving, employment, voting, then reaching legal drinking age). </p>
<p>So while I do think it depends on individual circumstances, I am glad that my kids were 18 when they headed off to college.</p>
<p>calmom–ideally have kids born in Nov or Dec to help make that cut-off legally, esp if you are fertility parents and have to monitor with Doctors about fertility and pregnancy!</p>
<p>DDs will be 18.75…they have a December B-Day. Though they are emotionally mature and have (I believe hope and pray) excellent decision making skills they are inexperienced with dating and partying and all of the “grown -up” activites that many young women their age have navigated. I wish they had had a couple of concrete experiences under their belt so they would feel more confident making thier way through the situations that are bound to crop up in the upcoming years but we have talked ad-nauseum about sex/dating/drinking drugs so at least they’ll have thoretical background.</p>
<p>DS on the other hand has a May B-Day and will be 18.33 when we anticipate he will go to college. He is a different sort of kid and I have no doubt that he will be more experienced socially than his sisters. My worry for him when he goes off will be about him managing his life and time.</p>
<p>Like HMW said pages back, it is a kid by kid decision and regardless of their age, most of us will have worries rooted in our kids’ specific personalities/weaknesses regardless of thier age when they go to college.</p>
<p>I’m lucky - both my kids are spring birthdays, so they are pretty much in the middle of their class. (Cutoff here is 8/31). Both were/will be 18 when they go to college. I think it will be fine for both of them.</p>
<p>I’ve known people all over the map on the whole kindergarten entrance thing, and I don’t think any of their parents were thinking about college at the time. I agree that it’s a highly individualized thing. I also think that social maturity and the ability to pay attention are more important in starting kindergarten than academics. </p>
<p>D dated 2 boys who were summer birthdays and their parents held them back a year. In both cases I think it was a wise decision. One of them definitely needs another year of maturity (if not more than that) before heading to college. The other is one of the most mature kids I’ve ever met, and may end up as valedictorian. But physically he is small, and was among the smallest kids in his grade even though he was one of the oldest. As an athlete, I think being a year older was his saving grace. </p>
<p>My neighbor, on the other hand, didn’t hold her August birthday son back and later wished she did. He was half-way through second grade before he could sit still and pay attention like the other kids did in first grade. Not ADD, just high energy. He was also on the short side, and spent much of his elem/middle school years trying to “prove himself” to the other kids. He’s in college now and it’s fine, but I think he’d have had an easier time both socially and academically in elem & middle school if she had held him back a year. But hindsight is 20/20.</p>
<p>OTOH, both DH and I were the youngest in our grades. We’re both fall birthdays who just made the cutoffs (mine 9/30, his 11/1). We were both more than ready to get out of hs and go to college, and both did fine there. I had a friend a week younger than me who was a grade behind me. All her friends were in my grade, and she was lonely and miserable her senior year.</p>
<p>Again, it’s a kid by kid decision.</p>
<p>
One thing I figured out, in hindsight, is that “get out of hs” does not have to mean “go straight to college.” It is what I did when I was young… but my daughter opted to spend time living abroad as a foreign exchange student instead. That’s one reason I feel it was a better choice for her to stay with the typical age/grade placement – she could use the time to expand her experiences rather than simply progress to the next step. </p>
<p>That’s the sort of thing I think that I missed with the early-to-college approach. While I was emotionally mature, I still looked at my world through a teenager’s eyes when I arrived in college. No harm… but the point is that the extra time my daughter had was not wasted.</p>
<p>Not sure what I was thinking when I had kids in November and December. We are a family of fall birthdays…DH and I were also among the youngest in our classes…my father also.</p>
<p>So, D1 will be 17 when she starts this fall, turns 18 in late Nov. She would have no part of gap year. She wanted to go the kindergarten when she was 4. Tall, healthy, social and precocious. Academically - did well but was not one of the top grads at a highly competetive independent school - but wasn’t far off the mark. Says she can’t imagine going into her senior year right now - though many of the rising seniors are her age or older. I am not sure if things would have turned out radically differently if she had been a year older throughout. I think math is where it is showing up for her, and where it showed up for me. My father took an inadvertent gap year because he accidentally skipped the last page of the Naval Academy entrance exam, took it again after one year of local college, got in; ended up an engineer. </p>
<p>Driving last was a pain - I wish it had been over earlier, it was too much to do junior year. Was not able to get a job last summer because DH and I could not drive her. </p>
<p>She seems mature socially and prepared for college. So, we’ll see how it goes.</p>
<p>D2…our state changed the age cutoff. But, there was NO question she was starting kindergarten when she was nearly 6, regardless of the cutoff changing (health issues, maturity, etc) I don’t see a huge difference in their grades or standardized test scores in each grade though - they are 5 years apart, 6 grades apart. I see things being more effortless for D2; math is easier and she will progress further in high school. Of course, they are different people and it’s hard to compare. D2 has some health challenges; the extra year has been very beneficial for her.</p>
<p>I like the states that have had September cutoffs for many years…I hear the parents say, ‘well, I have an August or July baby and I am holding them back’. And I realize that is what D1 was competing against as she went through the app process last year. A year to a year and a half in ‘teen years’ really is a lot!</p>
<p>My daughter has a fall birthday, and we opted to “hold her back” and send her to “Pre-K” the October that she was turing five; it is a decision we (mom, dad, daughter) have NEVER regretted it. She has always done well in school and was always ready for each transition. Remember, when deciding when to send a child to school, do NOT look at the kindergarten classes, look at the 5th, 6th, 7th, etc, grade classes–that’s where you will see the real difference. I have worked in elementary and middle schools for ten years, and several techers in the older grades have always told me they can just look at a class and pick out the young fall birthdays. Daughter is starting college 2,000 miles away from home in August, and will turn 19 in October–she has not said one word about her age–it is a non-issue. Also remember, that your child might be a whole year older that one or two other students in their class, more likely, they will be about the same age or only two or three months older than the other kids.</p>
<p>My son completed a gap year and is 19 and will start college in the fall. My daughter is 16 is a rising junior. She says she will take a gap year and if so, would start college at 19. I graduated high school at age 16 but turned 17 before college started.</p>
<p>I myself barely turned 17 before starting college and would have hated to have to wait another year. I was SO ready. One of my college friends was 16 and she, too, was ready academically and socially. It really depends on the kid. I was one of those “old souls” in kindergarten, something my mother wrote about several times in her memoirs. I have a photo of my kindergarten class (NYC) taken when I was 4.</p>
<p>I think if there is a compelling reason to start kindergarten late, then parents should start their child late. However, from my observations of my community, there is rarely a compelling reason. Usually, it is simply “I don’t want him/her to be the youngest in the class” or I want him/her to be a better athlete in high school. When one of my kids was in elementary school, about 60% of the kids in the class were held back a year by parents. Some will start college at 19 1/2. With so many kids starting school late, I think it creates a vicious cycle so that the age of what’s considered young for a grade keeps changing and what’s considered mature/immature for a grade keeps changing. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the average age of Kindergartners here inch towards 7- right now there are so many kids who start kindergarten at 6+, that parents will realize that 5 years 11 months or 6 years 1 month is on the young side for kindergarten. We all try to do the best for our kids, and I realize that there is not one right answer for everyone. However, it does seem to me that many people where I live have an irrational fear of having their child be the youngest in the class.</p>
<p>As far as starting college, I think kids can do well starting at a variety of ages. It really depends on the kid. Some 16 year olds are highly self disciplined and motivated and some 19 year olds will just want to party. Hopefully, parents and children can be honest with themselves and figure out the best path.</p>
<p>My daughter started last year at 18. She would have been ready a year or two earlier, but had no desire to go early. Our son starts college away this year at 17. He’s champing at the bit to get started. Because he has matured physically more slowly than his age mates, I could not see him having started any earlier than this.</p>
<p>When my son was 4 in Kindergarten, he was reading and doing many things on the computer. He mentioned once that someone said while he was in class, he was “young” for Kindergarten and he said to me, “I’m not young, he’s old”. (the other child was 6) It’s all in the perspective. : )
He realized later, he might have been a bit taller, but never enough to make a big difference and for him, it was a decision that was fine.
My niece was held back, but always got A’s, and found the work too easy and sometimes did upper-level work. When someone commented how smart she was in middle school, she said, she should be, she had a year over a lot of other students. I think she would have been no matter what, but she had a point. Some students should be held back, others are ready and the parents want them to have an advantage that might make them bored and antsy in the end. I think the school has a lot to do with it also…some are much more competitive. It’s a personal decision that is sometimes hard to make.</p>
<p>My son will be 17 when he starts college in two weeks, and he is very ready to go. Sure, he said that he will miss us, but he wants to take on a new adventure. And this is his official start to college – he took dual enrollment calculus classes at age 14 at our local community college. He loved them, and his professor loved him. She still sends us an e-mail once in a while to check up on him.</p>
<p>Sorry to bump this old thread up from years back, but I think it’s still relevant and I’ve gained some new insights. I think starting college at a young age is best as long as that age doesn’t compromise academic performance. </p>
<p>If maturity is defined as the tendency to use one’s own and vicarious experiences to make decisions that one won’t regret later, then lack of maturity is not the reason many people struggle to get through college. The main reason people struggle to get through college is a lack of direction and doubts about what to do. </p>
<p>I would tell most above average students to try to start taking community college classes at 16 so they can have an associate’s degree by the age of 18 and a bachelor’s degree by 20. Once they have this degree, they’ll have a much better idea of what they want to do in life because they’ll have seen a lot more subject material. You can’t pick an occupation without knowing at least a little bit about the subject matter.</p>
<p>If the student is advanced, with an Algebra and Trigonometry background, I would tell him to try to start taking college classes at 14 so he can graduate college at 18. It doesn’t make sense to waste four years in high-school if you don’t have to.</p>