late December birthday girl in a 12/31 cut off district, would you hold her back?

[Anonymous]

I would definitely hold
Her back

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am 12/28 and wish my parents had held me back. I was so late getting my license and so young starting college. In addition I was always the small one. My parents have always regretted it even though I was academically advanced.

You may have experienced different challenges if they had held you back, especially if you were academically advanced. You may have been unchallenged and bored, and never had the chance to develop good study skills, for example. You may have developed ahead of your peers during puberty, if you were older, and felt out of place. Etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:absolutely would. when she starts college at 17 it matters.

Why? I started college at 17. So did my husband. Nothing bad happened. And if it turns out that she's not ready for college at 17, she can take a year off then. It's silly to hold a kid back now on grounds that she might not be ready for college 12 years from now.

[Anonymous]

Are there concerns now? How is she in class? With friends? How does she handle very structured time? The children I knew who moved ahead with their class but had birthdays very close to the cutoff struggled socially early and then had trouble with organization by grades 3/4. (I know a crew of them. One has no issues. Admittedly, my sample size is about 40 at this point.)

If there are no concerns now, go ahead and send her. You can always repeat a year somewhere along the way, usually by transferring schools. And if she sails through academically and you're concerned about sending a 17 year old to college, give her a gap year after high school.

Does she like to lead or is she content to follow? My aunt held her son back because the preschool teacher saw that he was really trying to lead everyone, but couldn't get a following among the older kids in his "grade." She held him and he just blossomed.

I'm sure there are plenty of stories going the other way, tho. What does your gut say? How big are the classes in the school she'd go to?

[Anonymous]

I have a December birthday and started K at 4 (also on the short side). I agree with PPs that you should evaluate your DCs readiness for K and not worry so much about the age. I did fine and ended up being valedictorian of my class, though PE was a struggle in elementary school because I was so small compared to the other kids. My parents definitely made the right decision - I would have been bored if they had waited and finishing college at 21 was a bonus.

[Anonymous]

oP here: she's actually only 1 now so it's too early to tell I've just started thinking about it bc she's starting preschool this fall at under 2. And no, we don't plan to move to a 9/1 cut off - the whole area is 12/31 cut off. But it does concern me as you say that summer programs college etc some kids will be a full 18 months ahead... To me it seems debatable to hold back a summer birthday so they're 6 before K, but even if I held her back she wouldn't be 6 till December so she wouldn't be that old. I worry she will be aware when her preschool friends go to kindergarten and she has to do the extra year of preschool. Maybe better to repeat twos or threes in preschool before she knows any different ?

[Anonymous]

You definitely have plenty of time to make this decision!

We have a child whose birthday was right before the cutoff (9/30 in this area). He was our 3rd and I sent him to 2 day/week preschool the year he was eligible, so he was the youngest in the class. It totally showed. Temperment-wise, we knew we'd hold him back, it was just a question of when. For me, it was going to depend on which preschool teacher we liked. We happened to move to a 9/1 cutoff state the next year and ended up holding him back at 2! He didn't know the difference and it was completely right for him.

See how she does in school. It is easy to explain holding back in preschool - they're just in a different class this year! Then they make new friends and they're fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:oP here: she's actually only 1 now so it's too early to tell I've just started thinking about it bc she's starting preschool this fall at under 2. And no, we don't plan to move to a 9/1 cut off - the whole area is 12/31 cut off. But it does concern me as you say that summer programs college etc some kids will be a full 18 months ahead... To me it seems debatable to hold back a summer birthday so they're 6 before K, but even if I held her back she wouldn't be 6 till December so she wouldn't be that old. I worry she will be aware when her preschool friends go to kindergarten and she has to do the extra year of preschool. Maybe better to repeat twos or threes in preschool before she knows any different ?

hahaa! you won't know until she's 4!

[Anonymous]

Don't worry about it yet. See where she is at 4. Find out about junior kindergarten options in your area and get on the wait list just in case.

My DS has a September birthday and our cutoff is 10/1. The February before his preschool teacher wasn't sure he would be socially ready for kindergarten but he changed so much over the next few months that we were confident that he would be fine. He's now in 6th grade and doing well all around.

[Anonymous]

OP where are you that still has a 12/31 cutoff? NY? We have been looking for one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:oP here: she's actually only 1 now so it's too early to tell I've just started thinking about it bc she's starting preschool this fall at under 2. And no, we don't plan to move to a 9/1 cut off - the whole area is 12/31 cut off. But it does concern me as you say that summer programs college etc some kids will be a full 18 months ahead... To me it seems debatable to hold back a summer birthday so they're 6 before K, but even if I held her back she wouldn't be 6 till December so she wouldn't be that old. I worry she will be aware when her preschool friends go to kindergarten and she has to do the extra year of preschool. Maybe better to repeat twos or threes in preschool before she knows any different ?

OP, she's 1? Wait until she's 4 and you can actually assess her kindergarten readiness. There is no way to know, when the child is 1, whether the child will be ready for kindergarten at 4.

[Anonymous]

She's 1 but we have to decide this upcoming year whether to repeat twos or go ahead to threes and possibly repeat the extra pre K year

[Anonymous]

OP you will need benchmarks, but not for some time. When she is 4 and in preschool, if she can read and write and / or knows her numbers to 20, send her to K the year she turns 5 in Dec.

If she can't do any of these things, she WILL learn them in class and there will be kids who are 6 who are possibly a lot larger and can do these things already. There is a huge spectrum of ability and size in K

Either way,she can go and you can see how it is. Many kids do K twice if they feel the child is young / small etc.

We have had both situations. Our first child had a sept birthday and went on time. He was very small, young and wasn't really competent with a pencil. He repeated and is thriving now, one of the oldest in class, but definitely not the oldest kid.

My DD has a mid Dec birthday and we were living in a state that holds very strictly to the Sept. cut off so when she got to K she was reading chapter books to the rest of the kids during free time. She then skipped 1st and went right into 2nd. So she is very young but academically near the top of the class.

So its a case of seeing how things are the year of school entry and taking it from there. I know its really, really hard but try not to sweat it too much just yet.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. Is there no reason to consider holding back at 2 so she can socially go to k with her peers etc? Also I hear what you're saying about reading and letters and counting etc but what about the social aspect? Last to get her license? Last to develop etc? Youngest socially?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks. Is there no reason to consider holding back at 2 so she can socially go to k with her peers etc? Also I hear what you're saying about reading and letters and counting etc but what about the social aspect? Last to get her license? Last to develop etc? Youngest socially?

PP above who went through this. Well those are milestones very far in the future. I was the youngest and all my friends were happy to drive me because I had no license.Socially girls are ahead of boys anyway, so unless there is diagnostically something going on, she will be fine.

I don't think you need to take steps at 2. But if you want to do this, you can always accelerate when it gets to enrolling for school. Things can change a lot between now and then.

good luck op.