Holding back a very bright, but socially immature child?

[Anonymous]

Not a tough call for me at all - everything and anything she could learn now she can also learn later...except social maturity, a secure basis of emotional and psychological health. There is no need for her to go right now. It will benefit her in the long run to have had that extra year (which really isn't an extra year, it should be normal to start school at 6).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not a tough call for me at all - everything and anything she could learn now she can also learn later...except social maturity, a secure basis of emotional and psychological health. There is no need for her to go right now. It will benefit her in the long run to have had that extra year (which really isn't an extra year, it should be normal to start school at 6).

I'm one of the PPs, but I have to say that this PP has put it really well. Social skills and a sense of belonging really do create a "secure basis of emotional and psychological health." As an intellectually gifted, but socially immature child, I struggled for years. It really sucks to be out of sync both intellectually and socially.

There's no down side to holding your child back a year. If, at some point, you feel that she's caught up in her social/emotional development, you can always consider accelerating her academically then.

[Anonymous]

Hold her back. We did the same with our DD and she is thriving as a highschool student at one of the Big 3 schools. Greatest gift you will ever give her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hold her back. We did the same with our DD and she is thriving as a highschool student at one of the Big 3 schools. Greatest gift you will ever give her.

Me too. Held summer bday 99.8percent girl at one of big three/five. She has been challenged and yet is so appropriately socially growing/paced. Nice friends. Know of two families with similar stats, sent kids on. By gr 1 already seeing why they should have waited and wished they had. Listen to the school, they see a lot of kids!

[Anonymous]

Another vote to hold.

Many PPs have made many of my points, but I have one more to add: mean girl clique behavior starts younger now. My child is finishing 1st and we are already seeing the start of it, and the topic came up at our parent-teacher conference where the teacher confirmed that the significant social drama with girls does begin by 1st and 2nd grade these days.

[Anonymous]

We didn't hold back, and are thrilled we didn't.

My child was academically confident, but not a superstar. We knew keeping her with her cohort would mean more effort on her part in keeping up academically.

My child tended to rise to expectations. If the expectations were low, that was what my child would strive to achieve. If they were high, that was what my child would strive to achieve. We preferred for her to strive to achieve high expectations. The expectations were attainable for her. If she were academically or socially incapable of achieving grade standards at her school, we would have been more receptive to holding her back.

People in my family tend to be socially out of step. I had no expectation that my child would magically become more socially competent with a year with younger children. I expected my child needed practical education in social behavior and being with age peers would encourage more appropriate social behavior than being with younger children. I was especially sensitive to this for a girl, because girls are often encouraged to behave in young and immature manners and I did not want that for my child. As long as my child could meet the basic social expectations of the classroom, even with some extra help, I felt it was appropriate to keep her there.

I had reason to believe my child was intellectually above average. I had reason to believe grade skipping or other academic acceleration in her future would be difficult to achieve. I knew that the other intellectually above average children I had known were ready (socially and academically) to leave HS and move onto college at 16/17/18.

She's in middle school now. She's the youngest in her grade. She's top of the class academically and right in the middle in terms of social development. We likely had to do more social coaching and explaining than many parents but I still believe if we'd held her back we would have had to do the same. She's one of those kids who just gets math, she is not one of those kids who just gets social interactions. She never got into the typical girl games or mean girl type games. I think in part because she was so used to watching social interactions and then discussing them with us to figure out what was going on that it was obvious there was gamesmanship going on.

We talk about what grade she's in, what grade she would like to be in, and so on. She knows because of her age, she could decide she's not ready for high school and do another year of middle school, take a gap year before college, take a year off between undergrad and grad school, etc. She is emphatic about being in the right place. Her friends don't perceive her as being young and express surprise when they realize she's not (quite) their age. She definitely has some pride in being a top student and a young student which helps motivate her to continue working hard to meet expectations.

I think if we'd held her back she would have been fine. But I don't think she would have the same drive she has. I also don't think she'd be as socially competent as she is now, assuming we'd have felt that just extra time would have gotten her up to speed.

One of my deciding factors was how easy it would be to fix our choice if it became apparent that we had chosen wrong. It is easier to hold a child back than it is to jump a child forward. If Kindergarten had started off terribly, I could have removed my child and put her in a preschool class fairly easily. If preschool had started terribly, it would have been more difficult to get her into a K class mid-year.

[Anonymous]

What do you all consider as "mature enough"? My kid can follow rules, take turns, sit for circle time, make friends easily, etc. Has some issues with stuff like doing worksheets without reminders to focus - is that reason enough to hold him back if he's on the young side?

My general thought is that there'll be a cohort at his level in either K or 1st. He'll either be on the high end or the middle. How do you decide?

[Anonymous]

Our kiddo has an August birthday but she taught herself to read when she was 4. It seemed silly to keep her out of kindergarten when she was already reading even though she was socially immature and small for her age. We ended up having her repeat eighth grade when she transferred schools. THis worked much better for her because it kept her from getting bored in elementary school and the point at which she really needed the extra year was her early teens, not in kindergarten. She was also really small for her age but had a growth spurt when she was 14 so she actually entered high school the same size as the other children -- which was a first for us!

[Anonymous]

I think people think holding back a child is a innocuous decision. I disagree with this strongly. One of PP made a good point for a really gifted child, being one year ahead may not be important since school would still be too easy. For the more typical situation, I think holding back an academically ready kid for social reason can stunt their growth. I wonder why the studies cited in that New Yorker article is not talked about more often.

I was older for my grade, not held back just by the birth month, and I was out of a step with most kids. I don't think I found my people until graduate school. Being older in a grade does not guarantee social success.

[Anonymous]

We did not hold back our son, and I can't say for sure that it was the right decision or the wrong one. Honestly, I think he will be fine either way. We were motivated by the studies showing that its an advantage long term to be one of the younger kids in a classroom, and by a vague sense that holding him back would give him the message that we thought he needed an artifcial advantage. One thing we did not consider because we were not aware how prevelant holding back is is that he would be the youngest by a lot among his class. I worry sometimes that this will be hard during puberty, when he is smaller and more boyish and the other boys start to look and sound like adults. With a girl, however, I would consider the potential difficulty of being among the earliest to hit puberty, which has its challenges, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people think holding back a child is a innocuous decision. I disagree with this strongly. One of PP made a good point for a really gifted child, being one year ahead may not be important since school would still be too easy. For the more typical situation, I think holding back an academically ready kid for social reason can stunt their growth. I wonder why the studies cited in that New Yorker article is not talked about more often.

I was older for my grade, not held back just by the birth month, and I was out of a step with most kids. I don't think I found my people until graduate school. Being older in a grade does not guarantee social success.

A PP who posted I would hold back. I think this is one of those situations where context matters, and at least in our experience at private there is a de facto June 1 cutoff - for our child's class there were 2 summer girls who went on time and zero boys, while I know at least 6 kids who turned 6 the summer before K, and there were probably more.

We can certainly debate whether or not this level of prevalent red shirting is a good thing, but when considering when to send a summer birthday it is important to acknowledge that for better or worse this is the reality.

[Anonymous]

I'm betting most of the kids are being redshirted, so if you don't hold your daughter back you will probably regret it and come to find that she is much younger than her classmates.

I'd ask the school if they can give you the breakdown of ages in her perspective class. That will probably make your decision more clear cut.

If she's going to be one of the youngest, it's a no brainer because the social is going to more of disadvantage and more obvious than if she were with kids closer in age to her.

[Anonymous]

Probably relevant to check the birthdays of last years graduating class. I have scene the early years redshirting become partially offset by more younger birthdays that come into the school at 4th, 6th, 9th.

[Anonymous]

I would not hold back at your child's age.

Our son, who was incredibly bright, was moved from first to third grade and he flourished. When he completed fourth grade, they wanted to move him to sixth grade and we declined because by then his social skills and maturity were more of a factor to consider.

He excelled through high school and got admission to one of the select schools. He is now a resident at one of the top medical school programs for his specialty.

So, the lesson in it for us was that social maturity is a factor but it becomes more relevant as a child grows older in terms of how he/she will fit in with other kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for all of the feedback. My DH strongly agrees with holding her back as well. Some of my hesitation is that I was a late July birthday myself, but there was never a question of holding me back in public school in the 1980s and so it was my experience to be the youngest in the class. Funny enough, my childhood best friends all had summer birthdays as well and in retrospect we were all the same maturity-wise (and in terms of physical development, too!). DD is our oldest child, and it's so interesting to see how class room age cut-offs have shifted, particularly in private schools. Thanks again for the timely and helpful responses.

In general, most highly rated public and private schools are more rigorous in the earlier years than the typical elementary school of the 80's. As an example, it's now typical for children to take Algebra I in 8th and there's a reasonable bunch who take it in 7th and even 6th. Growing up Algebra I in 8th was the highest math track.