Retaining a child in first grade - turned out good/bad for your child? please help

[Anonymous]

Long story short, we are considering whether we should ask teh school to retain our child (1 grade). she has been at the same school since pre-k. bright child, very very social, she is looking forward to second grade. summer birthday, she is one of the youngest in class. serious health issues made her miss or beign tardy to over 50% days of pre-k. health more stable in k, but hard medication made her tired and difficult to concentrate. a lot of children in her class were advanced (older), she started feeling she was as good as others. she made it through the end of the year and was extremely excited about going to first grade. we thought retaining her would do more damage that good. in first grade health finally fine, but she still has to take hard medication. just after turning 6 she is diagnosed with ADHD, doctor recommends an IEP. school rejects request at the beginning of the year but offers some support. since February we realize she is behind and started helping her at home too.

in the past months she has improved a lot, going through 4 levels of reading, but she is still two behind for the end of the year goal. math is also so and so. social studies and art she is beyond grade level, socially she is very engaged and curious (the doctor who found ADHD said that socially and some aspects of her emotions, like empathy towards other she was older than her age). for the school, she can go to second grade. when I asked if she would benefit from being retained, the teacher told me that probably it could be very good to her, because she could have more time to mature, gain confidence by being one of those ahead instead one of those behind and so on.

now we need to decide what to do. I wish we redshirted when she started pre-k but now it useless to think about the past. If I knew that she is going to struggle for years, getting low self esteem and hating school in the meantime, and finally fail in 4th or 5th grade, I prefer to retainer her now so she can have some kind of presh start. but I am terrified that she can take it the wrong way, after seeing all her friends of 3 years move on to the next class and end up with the kids she sees as little. that may be a bad blow to her self esteem too. also, if she is behind because of her AHDH, retaining her can give her a good advantage for a year or two, but after if she does not get the helkp she needs, she may fall behind again

I wonder if we should try to work with her in the summer to meke her start 2nd grade not behind (if ever possible) especially in view of the improvements she has done in the recent months. I know every child is differenmt and every situation is different, and I know this decision is really very importnant and will have consequences down the road for years, so I would really appreciate hearing from other parents who found themselves in the same situation, what they did, and how things turned out. TIA

[Anonymous]

Are you in public or private school?

If it's public, you (the parent) cannot just decide to have your child repeat a grade. That's an administration decision. Can you talk to a school counselor? They would be in better position to tell you about the social/emotional effects of holding her back.

Summer is a great time to work with your child to get her back on grade level. Are there any enrichment programs offered at your school/district or in the community (even paid programs) that you could use?

[Anonymous]

We thought about red shirting our child early in elementary school because of a variety of developmental delays, but opted not to in the end. Unfortunately, those maturation delays of about 1-2 years for certain milestones were painful. By the time college came around everything evened out, I think the years of being behind left a few scares.

Also, we never thought to much about birthdays when the kids were small. However, when they were in high school we noticed that some of the kids were getting their drivers licenses significantly earlier than the other kids. Some of the kids who got their drivers licenses early were class leaders athletically and scholastically. It still makes me wonder of their parents made the choice we did not make. I wonder if many years ago they chose to red shirt their child. Thinking back on it now I think that would have been the better choice for our family.

[Anonymous]

OP here. we are in public. we will have a meeting with the school soon. when asked, teacher and counselor thought it would probably be very good for DD to be held back. counselor thinks DD would not be harmed, depending on how we prepare her and present the thing to her. I am not so sure, especially if she stays at the same school. I am really torn. I want to do what is best for DD, and I do not know what it is. DD will be away most of the summer, so we will be working with her, and can have a tutor here in DC only for the last two weeks before school starts. I think we can make up the gap by SEptember, but is sjhe going to fall behind again if she goes to 2nd grade? if she is retained, is she going to simply mature and be at grade level even in the future. I know nobody can answer my questions, but I would like to gain some insight from other parents' experience.

[Anonymous]

Why don't you talk about it with your kid. Tell her the decision isn't hers, but one for the family and school to do together. Maybe she isn't so happy being behind and would like to fix that.

I have to say, though, I don't understand wht you only have a few weeks to work with her this summer. If she's seriously behind, enought that you are concerned about success all next year and thereafter, you really need to step up and make repairing the deficits asummer priority.

[Anonymous]

Has she been evaluated for learning disabilities? Many public schools will not do this until 2nd or 3rd grade. It may help to have her privately tested so you get a complete picture. If she has learning disabilities, she may need more specialized instruction and retaining her may not help at all by the time she is in 4th grade.

[Anonymous]

Other important things to consider:
-- her size. If she's already tall for her current class, she'll stand out after being retained.
--siblings. Are there siblings coming up close behind her? Kids have a very clear sense of where they are in relation to their siblings, ie my brother is always 2 grades behind me. If she's retained, how will that change.

I would ask the counselor, teacher and anyone else involved in this conversation to present the research supporting retention. A lot of folks "feel" it's the answer without looking at hard evidence. It's like taking a doctor's recommendation to try a medicine based on his or her gut feeling. Retention is a huge deal in a kid's life. It's something they never forget.

[Anonymous]

I don't know if you can or can't retain. We couldn't with my oldest and like you, regretted it for a time. Without going into specifics, we didn't realize we needed outside help until late ES. He started MS reading at a second grade level with very low comprehension. Math wasn't awful, but he was only successful to the point where it involved memorization. He didn't understand what he had memorized and didn't get the usefulness of even basic math (figuring out tax or tips, using measuring cups, etc.). Anyway, he spent a year with intensive tutoring and caught up to the point of being an A student. Now that he is successful, I am glad he is on age level. He is very mature and responsible and I'm glad he is in the grade he's in. That being said, if tutoring hadn't been so successful, I'd still be regretting having starting him on time.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

OP, I have a DD much like yours. I wanted to redshirt all along, especially as the work got harder and harder and the ADHD diagnosis really made things difficult both socially and academically. She was very young for her grade. Finally we just bit the bullet and held DD back for 3rd. She repeated 3rd and it really made a difference. And you know what's a side benefit? You have a year where you can kind of relax too. I would repeat 1st-- she's too young to really know what's going on and she'll forget about it most likely. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I had a friend who did this exact thing. Honestly, when she broached the subject with us, her friends, we all said that there was no way her daughter needed to be retained in 1st. She was socially outgoing and friendly, had no trouble communicating with her peers and, generally, appeared at grade level to us. We knew she struggled in school but some kids just do, right? Needless to say, friend bit the bullet and retained her at the same school. We all now admit that it was the right thing to do. The girl benefitted from being one of the oldest (instead of the youngest- summer bday) in her class, had the math/reading skill reinforced for another year, and enjoyed making new friends. Truly, she did beautifully and friend is so, so happy she didn't listen to us - her well-meaning friends! Girl doesn't have ADHD but does have a learning disability that was discovered at the end of her original 1st grade year. Knowing that the second time around and getting her the necessary help was a godsend.

[Anonymous]

OP here. thank you for all your answers. random answers: DD has a sibling that is 4 years behind and not yet in school, so I do not think this would be a proble, and she is petite, she would not stand out even in a younger crowd. but she talks and acts older. at 6, she is the kid who goes to the playground, finds a group of 10 year olds playing and ask if she can join them, she is not shy and super social, and has a very good vocabulary. no learning disabilities that we know of (but she is too young for a diagnosis), she had a psich.evaluation done at Childrens' when she turned 6 that found the ADHD (low scores with executive functions, while for cognitive abilities she was higher than average, which was good since she was taking hard medications that slow people down a lot). the school did not originally recomemd retaining, I brought up the subject and then teacher and counselor said that it would be great her DD, they have the impression that being younger then the other kids (some are 1 year older since they were redshirted) has made things more difficult (other issues are the ADHD and the serious health issues that plague her in pre-K and part of K). I trust them, they have been working with DD for a long time so I value their judgment. I know the decision must be made by the school and we will have a meeting, but I have the feeling, based on past conversations, that if we ask, they will allow her to be retained

I am just afraid that beign retained may make her feel that she is not as good as everybody else, loose confidence in herself and make the situation worse. maybe working through the summer (we will be away from DC, so no tutor here, only when we come back, but we will be workign with her every day) could be enough to make up, considering that she has made a lot of progress lately, and seems more mature. maybe it will not be enough and I dread getting to 3 or 4 grade and have her fail. we will talk to the school and see, but thank you for your messages, it is really useful to see how things turned out for other people in the long run. at the end, we will have to take the plunge, make a decision and hope for the best. wow, 1st grade for the older child and I am already mentally exausted.......long way before the end of HS or college

[Anonymous]

I actually read a book about this topic. Their opinion: if parents do want to redshirt a kid, it is better to do it in the first grade instead of kindergarten. I am struggling if I should redshirt my summer birthday boy. He is book smart but he has other issues. For example, he just had an accident (poop in the pants) because he wouldn't tell the teacher he needed to go to the bathroom no matter how much the teacher and us told him if he needs to go just tell them. He is in K now and as the book said, retain the first grade not the K, because lots of the K students just start to learn how to stand in line (a lot of our school students haven't been to preschool or speak English). It is a hard decision.

[Anonymous]

15:32 - Could you provide a little more info. on why the authors thought that retention in first grade was better than kindergarten? I'm facing the decision as to whether to retain my young kindergartner. She is struggling socially, is very petite, and is having a hard time with the school work. The school doesn't recommend retention, but wants to push her to first grade. They think that she is meeting the academic standards, but I worry that she will struggle every year, and I don't want to face retention in later grades. If I could reasonably put off this decision until first grade, I might do that... So, I'd be interested to read that book you mentioned. Could you tell me the name of it?

[Anonymous]

At least in fcps, the academics are dramatically harder than in k so if a child is retained in k they still would not be expected to meet certain academic benchmarks at the end of the year. I know of several students. If your child is not hitting the benchmark in k, retain ten. If they are not hitting for 1st, retain at that point.

[Anonymous]

I don't think I would retain her. She is already socially mature for her age + it seems like most of academic delays are due to the medication (and it doesn't appear that she is that far behind). Will she continue on medication next year? ADHD could be a factor, too, but it doesn't warrant retention on it's own IMO. I don't think it's wrong to retain her, but I probably wouldn't choose to do it in this situation...