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so explain this kindergarten cutoff to me
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Anonymous
thank you so much. so if my child is born before or after this date they can't get into K or 1st grade util next years? |
Anonymous
Born after. |
Anonymous
| PG County has a cut off of Sept.1. If your birthday is between Sept.2 and Sept. 15 you can try and get in though I haven't met one child who got in. |
Anonymous
| We can thank Malcolm Gladwell for this ridiculous trend. Pop statistics at its worst. |
Anonymous
| I have a September boy who started on time and is doing fine, no issues. I also have an October boy that I wish I could move ahead, I'm actually sorry he's going to be the oldest. Being younger bro, he loves big bro and friends, and doesn't like to socialize with his peers (and certainly doesn't relate to those 12-16 months younger). 25 months apart and 3 years apart in school...ugh... |
Anonymous
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Currently see kids who have been "held back", OP, in DD's class. They are suffering not because they are too young, but because they are too old! I would imagine these poor kids have parents who made the decision "way back when". I feel so bad for them! Point being, unless you have an extremely good *documented* and legimate (not fabricated, as are most) reason, I would NOT punish the child by NOT starting on time. I have heard so many reasons, including but not limited to "sports scholarships". Really? "HOW many of those do you think there are?" I ask. People here just are not very realistic. And tend to try to compensate for what (they perceive) they went through. If only their "future children" could tell their parents who "hold them back" are putting them through! Thankfully, the trend is turning to starting "on time". With good reason. |
Anonymous
| Ok, NP here, and I still don't get it! Sorry- I am totally clueless sometimes. My DS was born in August. That means he will be 5 when entering K, right? He will have to be 4 when he goes to pre-k? Does that mean "on-time"? And does that mean he will be the youngest or oldest? Again, sorry for making you explain again! |
Anonymous
| An August birthday will have just turned five when starting kindergarten and will be the youngest in the class. The oldest (theoretically) would be the September birthdays from the previous year. |
Anonymous
Most kids are 5 when they start kindergarten. So if a boy turns 5 in October of 2010 and starts K in 2011 he will be one of the oldest, whereas if a boy turns 5 in August and starts in September, he will be one of the youngest. The boy turning 5 in October will have many more months of being 5 than the boy turning 5 in August if they both start the same year. I was one of the posters from the other thread that said I would consider holding back if I had an August born boy, and I regret saying that now! Honestly I had never heard of that until DCUM. Now that I hear more folks don't do that and it's the exception not the norm, I will play it by ear. |
Anonymous
If you start him at age 5, which is "on time," your DS will be among the very youngest. Your DS will have just turned five, right before the deadline and right before starting K, whereas some other students in his K class will have turned five many months earlier. For example, if your DS turns five in August right before an August 31 deadline, a child who turns five in September (only a few weeks after your DS) will have to wait until the following year to attend K. Thus, the September birthday is among the very oldest in the class, and some parents decide to wait a year to send their August (or summer) birthday DC to K so they too will be among the oldest, instead of the youngest. The trend does seem to be turning back towards sending "on time" in public schools (at least in certain communities), but this still doesn't seem to be the case in private school. Out of 18 May - August birthdays in my DD's private school kindergarten class, 12 students were "held back." |
Anonymous
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My son is an August boy. I just assumed we would send him to Kindergarden as soon as he was eligible. But one night our friend started talking about how miserable he was being the youngest boy. According to him, for boys, the mental part isn't the problem. It's being physically and socially behind the rest of the class. He was so adament and so bitter (about his memories of being picked on) that I started to wonder if holding my son back was something we should consider. But I figure I will ask my son's preschool teachers for their opinion (and they have said that they work with families on this decision).
The irony for me of course, is that other people's decisions impact my son. If everyone else holds their kids back, then my son will be not only one of the youngest, but the youngest by months and months. So it's almost like the fact that everyone else holding thier kids back, makes me think we should hold our son back. And then of course, I'm part of the problem. Oh well. Still two years from the big decision. Maybe the trend will swing back to where you just send your kid when they are suppose to go. |
Anonymous
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This is not a completely new phenomena. I (female) grew up in another part of the country and my birthday is in early October. Our cutoff date was September 1 for K, but the state had a rule that a child who completed K could join 1st grade regardless of their birthday. My parents sent me to private K just so I could be put ahead. My mom said I was ready to go to K and there was no reason to wait. I was always the youngest in my class because back then everyone followed the cutoff.
Being pushed ahead did have an impact on me, and, in retrospect, it was completely positive. I remember struggling with language skills until high school, and I was not bored at school until high school. I am very small and remember always being the smallest in my class. I was shy and picked on a little, but the result was being friends with the other shy, relatively well behaved "nerdy" kids. My sister's birthday is 4 years, 2 weeks after mine, but she was 5 years behind me in school because my parents did not push her forward. Like a previous poster mentioned, my sister really excelled in elementary school. However, the impact of being older than her peers wore off and she was an average student by high school. I think she learned early on that she didn't really have to try, and my parents didn't push her. I did much better in college than my sister. I have two graduated degrees, but my sister did not go to graduate school. Not that any of that matters for being happy in life, and she and I are different people, but it is interesting. |
Anonymous
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My son has a late Sept. b-day, and we're holding him back. He is not ready emotionally and acts younger then the other kids at times. I've met several kids (both boys and girls) that have been held back, with early Sept. b-days, Aug. b-days, and just one July b-day. I think the July b-day is over-doing it, but the Sept. and Aug. b-days are fine.
Mine was supposed to be born in Oct. I wish he had been, so I wouldn't have to have this decision. |
Anonymous
I don't think that your sis didn't go to grad school because she was older in school and possibly bored. It has more to do with diff. personalities, interests, careers, etc. |
Anonymous
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Well, I have a DD who was born late August but was due in September. And I am considering holding her back, so I have a different perspective.
Why hold her back? I am not competitive so I don't care how she out-competes her peers or that she has to be the best. But I don't want her to feel pressure to keep up with kids who are older, and the resulting self-esteem issues that might follow. We have two good friends whose kids were born 9 and 10 months before my DD and they would be in the same class if we don't hold her back. They are light years more advanced in physical areas and it kind of boggles our mind that she would be in the same class with them. I understand those of you who say "there has to be rules, there has to be a cut-off and someone has to be the youngest." But why does it have to be my child that suffers, if there is a way I can help her? Maybe we should have smarter policies, like grouping kids in classes by relative age. They have to sort all those kindergartners in some way into classes, right, so why not separate them by birthdate so at least they are surrounded by others in the same devlopmental zone. I don't buy into the argument that my child's life has to be made in any way harder because of some arbitrary date that was picked and she was just born unlucky. I read Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers and the chapter on relative age was compelling. The youngest kids are under-represented in college and over-represented with depression. Of course these are statistics and don't speak to the individual child, but the chapter clearly makes it sound like being the youngest adds challenges. Another reason? Sending my girl off to college when she has just turned 18 for a few weeks. That is scary to me! For these reasons we are looking at Montessori school, which has mixed-age classrooms and work schedules where kids can move at their own pace with minimum guidelines. Even if we don't hold her back, I feel she won't be at a disadvantage in that type of school. |