I need help making a Kindergarten decision

[jdd]

Okay, I've read (well, skimmed) through most of this thread and I have just one issue. I really don't have a problem with people red-shirting their kids WHEN NECESSARY, but it's annoying that it has gotten to be the norm.

My 12-year old has an August 1st birthday, and we sent him to Kindergarten right after he turned five. We consulted the preschool and the elementary school (where the counselor told us he was scoring at the first grade level on all the academic and social skills testing - basically told us there was no way we could wait another year). His grades are in the high 90's every term, he has many good friends, is very social and is involved in several sports as well as the band and scouting. Each year I bring up the subject of his "youth" with his teachers and they all have agreed that he is where he should be.

However, I am constantly asked by other mothers why I didn't hold him back. I hear that it's "always better to be the older child in the class". And that's what I'm hearing in this thread that's making me crazy!!! It's NOT a given that being older is better. That's making a sweeping generalization that is simply not true. Some children may need an extra year to "be ready" for K (although I agree that it's probably far less children than are actually held back), but don't assume every child needs this. If so, wouldn't the school districts be changing the cut off dates, so that every child WAS older?? It just makes no sense.

FWIW, most boys are held back in our district for one reason - to be bigger and stronger to play sports in high school. The parents will admit to this if asked. I wonder if half the boys will even play sports in high school....

 

[starsweeper]

This might be long so please hang in there...
My DS will be 5 in July we have already decided we would not be starting our son in our local school next school year. While we were standing in line at Disney World last week we started talking to a teacher in line. She asked if our son would be starting school in the fall when we told her we decided we would repeat Preschool she suggested we look into a local catholic school and do 1 year of Kindergarten there and next year do another year of Kindergarten at our local school. I had never thought of this. My reason for not sending my son are many. Sounds silly but he is tiny, he is a little shy and I am concerned about maturity when he is older. It is not too related to his current level of performance. However, I would think he is a little behind the norm in his class ( he is the youngest in his class) So no matter what I would send him next year to kindergarten in our local school. I just would not want to repeat kindergarten at the same school. Kids can be mean and I would never want him made fun of or judged. I do think if we moved him from the catholic school to our local school that would be different.

The cost of the catholic kindergarten is $200 more per year than our preschool so cost is not an issue. My husband thinks sending him to catholic school and having him do 2 years of kindergarten is a bad idea. He thinks our son will think he is being held back. I totally disagree. I think its a no brainer. It gives him a chance to grow a little more over the year and this is a good school.

So as usual this leads me here asking what would you do?
TIA I never dreamed these decisions would be so hard.

My DS is also small for his age, immature, and makes the cut-off by only about 4 weeks. He is turning 4 this year and we are enrolling him in a Catholic school's pre-K4 program for half a day. I highly recommend the Catholic Kindergarten. I've looked at the curricula and it is so much better than the typical preschool, and the teachers are likely much more educated and/ or experienced in their field. Many parents in our area send their kids to Catholic pre-K and Kindergarten, then transfer them to the local school district because they are better prepared for 1st grade. The class levels are small (only 12 in my son's class this fall) so there is lots of individual attention, which any teacher will tell you can make all the difference.

As far as repeating Kindergarten, it's not something to be feared. If you do have your son repeat at the local school the next year, don't make a big deal out of it and it won't affect him. It's better to repeat than force him into 1st grade and struggle year to year. My brother repeated and it was the best thing for him. We plan to put my DS in Catholic school Kindergarten when he is eligble next year, but have no problem with him repeating if he is not ready for 1st grade in a couple years. It's about what's best for the child, not appearances. So many parents are terrified to have their kid repeat because of how they think it looks to family and friends, rather than making the decision based on what's best for the child. As a 7th grade teacher, I came across many children that would have been better served by repeating K, 1st, 2nd, or even 3rd grade based on their historical records, but it didn't happen.

BTW, my DD misses the cut-off by a month and has to go to school a year behind DS. I actually think this is to her disadvantage, because unlike DS, she doesn't have space to repeat. She must be in 1st as a 7-year-old by law. Better to have a safety net of repeating than not IMO.

 

[labdogs42]

Wow. Big opinions on this one. I have a DS with a February birthday, so I'm lucky, I guess! He'll be going to kindergarten at age 5.5. I kind of feel like the cutoff should be different -- age 6 by the END of kindergarten. Or maybe give an option to the June, July, August September kids. Some children (especially boys) are not ready for the academic demands of today's kindergartens when they just turned 5. Today's kindergarten curriculum is like what we all did in first grade. Maybe what we really need to do is go back to more play based kindergartens and save the rigorous reading and writing work for first grade, like it used to be. Then maybe people wouldn't have to worry about their boys being ready. Give those boys the kind of schooling that is age appropriate and they will respond. I recently read the book Boys Adrift and it opened my eyes to a lot of the things that have changed about school and how it has affected our nations boys. I highly recommend it for moms of boys.

 

[laceemouse]

I personally think everyone should go to school when thier chronological age says they should. I would send him to catholic K and see how he does. I would lay bets that you will be pleasantly suprised and he will do fine and be ready to go to first grade with his age peers rather than behind them.

Agree 100%
I was very young for my grade and loved it, I thought I was so smart
When you hold them back they will be graduating from high school (or at least starting college) at 19, which sounds really OLD to me.

 

[laceemouse]

Okay, I've read (well, skimmed) through most of this thread and I have just one issue. I really don't have a problem with people red-shirting their kids WHEN NECESSARY, but it's annoying that it has gotten to be the norm.

FWIW, most boys are held back in our district for one reason - to be bigger and stronger to play sports in high school. The parents will admit to this if asked. I wonder if half the boys will even play sports in high school....

I couldn't agree more.
Then people complain about their 6th graders being in the same schools with those awful 8th graders. WELL, most of those 8th grade boys SHOULD be in high school. Holding them back skews the whole thing.

 

[bwilcox]

Agree 100%
I was very young for my grade and loved it, I thought I was so smart
When you hold them back they will be graduating from high school (or at least starting college) at 19, which sounds really OLD to me.

No, my son will graduate when he is 18, even though I am holding him back. My birthday is in June, and I graduated when I was 17. The only way a child would graduate when they are 19 is if they were held back for another grade as well, or their birthday is in May or earlier. Most children who are held back have birthdays in Sept. or Aug. While starting K young was the right option for you, all children are unique individuals. Just because you were ready doesn't mean my son will be ready just because his birthday falls 1 days before a date someone who has never met him before set.

 

[miprender]

Well I just read this whole thread and can't believe how upset people are about this. I actually learned something as I didn't know they even had a term for this.

The school system in RI states you have to be 5 by Sept 1st. DS will turn 5 on Aug 3 and there is no way he is ready for K this year. We tried PreK when he was 4 and he throw up and cried everyday that I had to pull him out. He will start PreK in the fall and K next year. And yes sometimes MOM does know best.

 

[PrincessTiffany]

This might be long so please hang in there...
My DS will be 5 in July we have already decided we would not be starting our son in our local school next school year. While we were standing in line at Disney World last week we started talking to a teacher in line. She asked if our son would be starting school in the fall when we told her we decided we would repeat Preschool she suggested we look into a local catholic school and do 1 year of Kindergarten there and next year do another year of Kindergarten at our local school. I had never thought of this. My reason for not sending my son are many. Sounds silly but he is tiny, he is a little shy and I am concerned about maturity when he is older. It is not too related to his current level of performance. However, I would think he is a little behind the norm in his class ( he is the youngest in his class) So no matter what I would send him next year to kindergarten in our local school. I just would not want to repeat kindergarten at the same school. Kids can be mean and I would never want him made fun of or judged. I do think if we moved him from the catholic school to our local school that would be different.

The cost of the catholic kindergarten is $200 more per year than our preschool so cost is not an issue. My husband thinks sending him to catholic school and having him do 2 years of kindergarten is a bad idea. He thinks our son will think he is being held back. I totally disagree. I think its a no brainer. It gives him a chance to grow a little more over the year and this is a good school.

So as usual this leads me here asking what would you do?
TIA I never dreamed these decisions would be so hard.

I have 4 children and have been through this decison making before. Save the money and just send him to public school and let him do kindergarten twice. I assure you he won't be scarred in any way.

 

[hmacmahony]

Yes there are over 100 kids in the kindergarten class. They are clearly split into smaller classes, six of them. But in the entire kindergarten class there are over 100 kids.
I completely agree older kids can cry, just like younger kid can be a behavior problem as well. I mean to listen to some people it's ONLY redshifted kids who are behavior problems, which is just like saying ONLY younger kids cry in kindergarten.

There are 100 kids in your daughter's kindergarten class?? Quite amazing and what do they use a college auditorium to hold class?? Also, please explain the older kids that also cry the whole school year when mom leaves them?? I know my daughter had them in preschool and kindergarten. Heck one was even one of the teacher's kids at the school. She would cry for her mom daily. No clue if that has since changed since we moved schools and redshirting is discouraged by the teachers as they are prepared to properly teach and challenge the younger kids who are supposed to be in kindergarten and that. I don't think there is a single redshirted child in my daughter's class now or at least prior to all the new kids there weren't.

 

[palavra]

I am actually opposed to these types of education standards based on age. My daughter completed a private Kindergarten between ages 4 and 5. Her birthday was in the end of December.

We convinced our public school, after much debate, to let her go into first grade even though she wasn't going to turn 6 until the end of December. We did this because she was academically and socially ready. I think if we waited, it would have driven her nuts to redo Kindergarten. There has been a small issues time-to-time with her being the youngest in her class, but I don't think most of her friends care she is younger. And if we asked her now if she wanted to redo 8th grade so she would be in with kids her own age, she would protest.

It seems to me that it would be better for a child to be evaluated as an individual, not as a statistic, and be placed in the appropriate grade.

Thank you! As a teacher, this is exactly what I think. Age is just a number. It is quite obvious that children mature at different rates which also means at different ages.