<p>Our family has some experience with emotional growth programs. Many of the kids in these programs were young for their grade and by age 14-15 got into some very risky behaviors. These kids were from good families and good schools.
(Both of my kids have mid-fall birthdays, so we never faced this issue, but found that our kids were sort of middle in the age range and NOT the oldest)</p>
<p>The choice was already made, which is that the child was sent to K at the right age. If he is not sent on to first grade, it will be more difficult for him than any short-term immaturity.</p>
<p>I have one that was “held” (birthday right at cut-off) and one that was sent (birthday about 5 weeks before cutoff). The one that is young for grade is doing better than the one who is old. Not sure it is related or personality.</p>
<p>I will say that the young for grade is a good athlete. If he were in the grade below, he’d probably be one of the top. However, it is unlikely is going to play D1 sports, so ultimately it probably won’t matter.</p>
<p>paying3tuitions - good post</p>
<p>I find this thread fascinating. Strong opinions on both sides. It’s apparent that any decision to repeat a grade needs to be made considering both the child and the school.</p>
<p>I also teach. I haven’t seen children carrying a stigma about being held back in Kindergarten, unless their parents are carrying a stigma about them being held back in Kindergarten. I do feel that being held back in higher grades can be difficult, so the earlier the decision can be made, the better. Since folks are sharing stories - I love to tease my husband, who is a physician, for being held back in Kindergarten. He is very normal, well adjusted, and remembers his second year of K fondly.</p>
<p>I know there is literature out there to support anyone’s opinion. Here’s mine. There is a book called Summer Children that I let parents read when they need to make a choice about delaying the start of school, or holding back in K. Unfortunately this book is out of print, so it will be difficult for you to find. The book is rather dry to read, it reads like a textbook giving detailed research statistics. Some of the statistics in the book have stuck with me as rather unsettling, such as research that indicates there is a higher number of summer/fall birthdays diagnosed with ADD/ADHD than when compared to other students. It’s really not surprising, sometimes those younger children can’t sit still yet. It’s disturbing to think there are children being put on meds when the easier solution would have been to wait a year to mature.</p>
<p>Again, I am not advocating holding all summer/fall birthdays behind, but if parents and teachers are asking the question “Is he ready?” then they need to look closely at his developmental readiness.</p>
<p>Oh I have to put my 2 cents in on this one! My now 11 year old did kindergarten at our local school and did great! He is a late August birthday. He got all "E"s on his report card and he is not small, could hold a pencil, very social- really no reason to repeat kindergarten. However, at the end of kindergarten we decided to change to a private school and they had a different cutoff date and recommended that he repeat kindergarten- I really had to twist my husbands arm on that one- spend $$$ to repeat kindergarten when there was no reason!- but he gave in and we did. Now, he is in 5th grade and I can;t tell you how happy I am that we did- he is so confident, so everything- good at sports good at organization. I’m really glad we did it. AND i wish we had done it for our twins who are now juniors and have May birthdays. It is the norm and there are so many students who are a full year older than they are and for boys it makes a difference (especially in sports but also in leadership. Even they sometimes lament that they didn’t have an extra year. So I say do it!</p>
<p>Interestingly, the reason why I looked at this thread is that I thought it was about something different. I wonder if many people who did not make this choice in kindergarten revisit it when it comes time to go to college? For one of my kids, I think he could have benefitted from a bonus year and he didn’t. Now, when I still think he is less mature than other juniors I wonder if he would benefit from a year off from school? Gap Year? Travel? Work? Hmm…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s been my experience, too, as a teacher. Sometimes the extended family shames the parent or --even worse, the child-- for “flunking kindergarten; so they must be stoopid.” The teacher sometimes has to shore up the parent not to listen to all that junk-talk from extended family, and just do what the parent feels best following consultation with the teacher. BUandBC82 is to be commended for doing just that by providing research for parents to consider. How dignifying.</p>
<p>The child’s attitude about the decision will be most influenced by what the parent tells him it means. By the time the child reaches older grades, it doesn’t even make sense to mention it any more. There will be other children who moved in from districst with different deadlines, or other countries. The diversity kicks in so it no longer requires explanation anywhere to anyone that a child repeated Kindergarten. Parents are wiser to fold it into the background of conversation, although it’s no badge of shame in the first place.</p>
<p>The parents’ idea (in some situations) that it’s something to be embarassed about has more to do with their classroom memories of other children who repeated higher grades, where the peers really do tease them.</p>
<p>Also, by the end of September, everything about “last year” is pretty much forgotten in these young elementary grades. It all looms important in Spring, Summer/August but is very much old news and a file notation by the end of September! The kids are VERY YOUNG. We take it all too seriously on their behalf, and do them no favors. Bettter to get consultation with the school, make a decision, and embrace it proudly.</p>
<p>I have two that were the youngest in their class and one who currently is one of the oldest in her class. GUess which one now is noticebly short? The youngest who is currently in her correct age class. SHe ended up getting a very rare disorder that caused her to not grow as fast. As it is, she will be moving up a grade this coming September and joining her brother and sister at graduating high school at 17. </p>
<p>My one who is a junior now has no issues at all being a 16 yo with an August birthday. She drives, does very well academically, and no one in her classes who sees how she acts thinks she is younger than they are. Now when people just look at her, they do think she is younger but that has to do with looks. My husband was pulled over by a cop at age 19 because the cop thought from a distance that he was too young to drive. Our kids inherited our younger looks but we decided to put them where they were academically.</p>
<p>re stigma^^. It may be your experience that there is no stigma attached to repeating K, but the research generally does not support that. Six year olds are smart enough to recognize that all of their classmates have gone on to first grade, but they are back in K. Certainly, they know that the norm is to finish K and go to first. The K teachers talk about the transition, especially as the year winds down.</p>
<p>If a family is able to change schools, at least for the second year of K, it may help a lot. The child just goes to another school and comes back to a different set of kid. However, to simply repeat the same K curriculum is more than likely a negative. If a child needs academic help, he or she should be given the appropriate supports, not simply forced to repeat the same class.</p>
<p>Since the OP has not been back, it is difficult to know what the K-1 transitional class really is. Here, that class is for kids with learning differences, not for kids that are young for grade.</p>
<p>CTTX: Yes it is a Texas public, how could you tell? And yes many graduate at 19. It really isnt that the kids are held back they just go to kindergarten then another class that is prep for first grade but it isn’t called kinder and then they go to1st. It is very common, very accepted and since so many do it, there is no stigma. It isn’t however a requirement for kids with those birthdays but it seems that most go that route.</p>
<p>2flipper2: I did revisit the question when we did college aps but not because of a maturity question but more with regard to how being young influenced opportunities and ultimately his resume. Happily S was soooo ready for college, maybe more ready than I was for him to go!</p>
<p>mom2and: In our case the issues with sports aren’t just about attending a D1 school but also about having opportunities in HS in sports where size matters.</p>
<p>I didn’t read the whole thread, but I think it depends on the child. I know some people say it depends on the height/size of the child, but on that I disagree (all of my kids are on the “shorter” side).</p>
<p>I have 4 kids , all with later bdays (earliest is July, latest is Oct). In Calif, the cutoff is Dec 1. We had all four start school when they were supposed to which meant everyone except the july bday child was still age 4 when they entered school. All four kids were reading at 3rd grade level by the time they entered kindergarten.</p>
<p>My daughters were fine – emotionally, socially, especially academically. My son was top of his class academically, but a little immature in K and 1st grade and then caught up. Academically, they were smart enough that at times I seriously considered having them skip a grade bc they were so far ahead of the rest of their class, and many times “bored” in class. </p>
<p>I 'm glad we didn’t hold any of our kids “back”. Son is now a sophomore and taking calculus (he is age 15). D1 and D2 in college, D3 a high school senior deciding on her college choice.</p>
<p>I truly think it depends on the child, eg if he/she is able to handle the coursework and able to keep up “socially” and “emotionally” with the other students.</p>
<p>Agree. My D is a september baby and she started kindergarten at four. There were a few rough moments around fifth or sixth grade but now she is a senior in high school, as ready to go to college as any of her classmates.</p>
<p>Have your friend read Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers”. On the other hand, if that class contains many kids who are not ready for first grade because of discipline problems, then putting him in that class might not be such a good idea. I never considered, nor was it ever suggested that my late-August born son enter first grade a year later; his academic skills were quite high. I do wish that in 10th grade, my son had been 16 instead of 15. Not for social reasons, but for academic ones. One year older seemed to make all the difference in time management and focusing skills. And 10th grade scores count more than those from ninth grade.</p>
<p>This is such a pet peeve of mine. If the school district is going to have cut-off dates, then they need to provide programs that teach to the ages they are accepting. We’re talking about LITTLE people here, their maturity level in April or May (when everyone’s deciding whether to hold back or not) and their maturing level in September can be vastly different.</p>
<p>A 5-year old who knows they are going to “big boy/girl school” next year is more likely to mature a little bit over the summer, because they want to BE the big boy/girl.</p>
<p>A 5-year old who knows they are repeating nursery school because they aren’t mature enough doesn’t have much of an incentive to mature over the summer.</p>
<p>In my experience, unless there’s some underlying condition, children will strive to meet expecatations (high or low). I think we need to expect that our children will do fine for the most part. If they’re having a problem with something, then it’s our job as parents to help them. Struggling and then succeeding is such a character builder, why are so many people willing to take that away from children?</p>
<p>As an aside, holding boys back and not holding girls back creates a scenario where the senior class has 18-19 yr old boys and 16-17 yr old girls. That’s a tricky situation, especially with dating.</p>
Hi all, I know it’s an old thread, and I already asked the same question in another old thread and I am not sure anybody will reply, but could surely use some advice.
We skipped a grade with our DD in elementary school (started 2nd and graduated 3rd). She is now finishing 8th grade and going into HS in the fall. Academically she is at par/ahead of her peers, very mature and tall for her age so she doesn’t stand out (ok, she stands out because she is still taller than everyone else after skipping a grade) and socially it seems to be working out so far. I am getting a bit worried though that because she is younger than her peers, even though she looks very mature, she is still emotionally insecure and not ready to break free, be different, and lead, and it may in the end hurt her chances with the top colleges. Anyway - what’s done is done, and I don’t particularly regret this decision, but the bottom line there is nothing we can do at this point.
DS is 8 years younger (born in the fall soon after CA cutoff of Sep 3rd) and at least at the moment appears to be slower than his sister - or rather, just normal for his age - hasn’t learned to read at 3 like his sister, taking much longer to master English (we are trying to keep the native language for both of them), etc. However, we took him to the same preschool DD went to (affiliated with relatively inexpensive private ES that our daughter went to through 3rd grade) because it’s very nurturing and personalized and we thought he’d have an easier tie as a non-English speaker speaker. A year later, he is in preschool class and his teacher recommends going to Kindergarten next year because he’ll likely be bored in transitional K. Because he was born after the cutoff, his only option for a K would be this private ES rather than our local public ES. We planned to take our son to this private ES for the first few years anyway - they do a great job of instilling love for learning and build a foundation that IMHO is so much better than our public ES. But I also realize that we’ll essentially be skipping a year for him, too, and now I’m worried that it might not be such a great idea.
Ok, so here comes the question - I ran this idea by my DH and he loves it, but then he rarely disagrees with him, so I doubt his objectivity. In 4.5 years, after DD is off to college and DS finishes 3rd grade at the private ES, the three of us may be able to go off to Spain for a year. Part of the objective is to give DS an extra year to catch up to his peers emotionally so that he goes to grade 4 upon our return. In the meantime, DS can learn a new language, immerse himself in another culture (not sure how much an 8-year old would appreciate that), and yes, I just want to spend more time with him - as a working mom, I now feel how much I missed out with my DD. So what do you think of this plan - are there any downsides to taking a kid out of school for a year and fill it with some maybe non-mainstream homeschooling? Thanks in advance!
Thread is 6years old. Please use old threads for informational purposes only. Closing thread