I was wondering, does this make one less mature by a year or something? Does it stunt maturity? Is it seen as having stigma attached to it like being held back?
Not at all. There was a kid in my son’s Boy Scout Troop who was born after the cutoff date for California and was a year older than most of his class-he was held back. Made Eagle and is currently a sophomore at Penn studying BME.
Someone has to be the oldest and someone the youngest.
My kids were in a class that had a lot of fall birthdays, just after a Sept 15 cut off. It also had 6 boys who had redshirted so were 6 when they started K. One of my kids started early with a Dec birthday, so there were kids in her class who were 18 months older than her. She was definitely young but academically fine.
In your example, OP, it would make the kid who just missed the cutoff the oldest in the class, and you’d think the most mature. It doesn’t always work out that way.
Nope, not in the least. In fact, it’s very common practice on the East Coast to “redshirt” your child if he/she was born even mid summer. Our friends in NY all had their kids within two weeks of mine, and they are all a year behind him in school. I think waiting is a great thing, and we would have done it with our son if her weren’t so big, strong, and ready for kindergarten. However, he is going to take a gap year, to give him a chance to breathe, have a job, and give back before going off to college. Life is not a race. Nobody cares how old you are when you enter college, or whether you take a break in the middle (some do; a friend of mine did, and was at Johns Hopkins) or whatever.
All colleges care about is how well you did and what you did in HS. They really don’t care is a you’re some months older or younger. Once you finish undergraduate, a year or three in any direction makes little to no difference.
And remember, school districts and private schools vary considerably in their cut off dates. The college isn’t going to notice or care.
The only caveat I found was that if the kid was red shirted, access to the G&T program was questionable in elementary grades. There was some verbiage about correct age for year. That must be common, right? Otherwise everyone aiming at the G&Ts would hold out and have the kids in private preK.
We had a Sept 30 cut off date. My DD was born Oct 9. Some people I know in that situation pushed their kid to go to school early. My DD was actually “on time” but she was one of the oldest. For her I thought that was good because she is the youngest child in the family. And when HS came around, it was awesome because she was able to drive for 2 years in HS. If you were in sports, it would probably also be a good idea.
Educator here (10 years as elementary school teacher, 11 as elementary school principal, 4 in districtwide role).
I am not going to go searching for an article now, but there have been studies I have read that show that diagnoses of ADHD are more common among the youngest students on a grade (the point was that these can be false diagnoses, influenced by not accounting for developmental differences). Teachers often comment on students’ birthdays when we are considering why a child in kindergarten or first grade might be “behind” his/her peers in reading and academic behaviors. Sometimes, it is just that the student is younger and less mature.
While these may sound like arguments for waiting the extra year, though, it all depends on the child him/herself and his/her readiness. If your child is on the younger end and seems ready for school, do not worry. By the end of second grade, it all evens out! At that point, it becomes much harder to tell by behavior or skills how old a child is relative to his/her classmates.
Every child is an individual, so each family will need to make its own decision, perhaps in consultation with the preschool staff, on when to enroll your child in kindergarten.
@twoinanddone why was he held back?
I was one of the youngest kids in my grade, born in July. I excelled academically, but sometimes I wish my parents had held me back. I think being younger meant I was behind socially. I always felt out of step. Maybe everyone feels that way, but I think if I had been older, it would have been easier to navigate the landmines.
In my son’s case I wonder if being held back might have been a good idea. Back in the day when California had a 12/2 cutoff age, he missed it by 6 hours. Ended up going to a private grade school with kids who made the usual cutoff age.
First few years for him in school were sort of a struggle but he survived just fine and he actually enjoyed being the youngest in most of his classes. He was forgetful though in turning his homework-think the brain was still maturing, although he’s much better about his work in college. I wonder how he would have done if he were held back.
My kid was young-ish for grade (late May birthday with an August 1 cutoff) and then skipped a grade. We sometimes tease her that we could have given her “the gift of time” and she’d be a 9th grader now instead of an 11th grader; she’s predictably horrified at that thought. She’s always been tall and socially mature; both adults and kids tend to assume she’s one of the older kids.
Executive functioning is really the only downside she’s noticed. She has excellent EF skills for a 15yo, but only above-average EF skills for a 17yo. That weakness means she’s actually developed some study and time management skills in high school.
There’s no rule of thumb about whether it’s better to be old for grade or young for grade. Some kids do great on one end, some on the other. Some kids are miserable on one end, some on the other. For most kids, it doesn’t seem to make much difference.