Send late August birthday boy to school?
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Anonymous
| No regret here with sending my Aug boy on time. I think holding him back would have seriously backfired. He’s a kid who has always gravitated to an older crowd, compliant, good at sitting and listening, bright, and tall (fwiw). I know plenty of parents who held back their kids and felt it was the right decision down the road, but there are also plenty of us with older kids who went on time and are doing well. |
Anonymous
| Sent our late summer bday DC on time. There is so much change at those ages, even in a couple of months. DC is doing great in late ES. |
Anonymous
| I am holding my kid with a similar birthday back, but if your child is ready I don’ think you should hold him back just because he does not know the already habet |
Anonymous
| Op here. Wow so many great responses. DS is a very compliant, obedient child, laid back and non confrontational. Older DSs are very bright but always struggled with turn taking, fighting, social interactions. K was especially tough for both of them. So he is definitely not going to be a problem child in K, I am just concerned that he is not going to Lear at the same pace as other kids. He is in a private pre-k, but a I think that because his behavior is "good" teachers overlook his lack of academic progress. |
Anonymous
Only CT has a 12/31 cutoff anymore. Certain districts around NYC (including NYC public schools) also follow the end of year cutoff. Hardly “many states,” but don’t let facts get in the way of your agenda. http://ecs.force.com/mbdata/mbquestRT?rep=Kq1402 The vast majority of states, including DC, MD, and VA, have a cutoff date in September. |
Anonymous
yeah -- he'll be ancient. 
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Anonymous
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NP here - I'll share this with you OP: DS is a mid-Aug birthday, oldest of 2. He has speech articulation issues, physically on the small side and we sent him on time even though we intended to old him back. I'll tell you why we sent him on time - he fought tooth and nail for us to do so! PreK is a very very good set up - they really prep kids well academically in a fun way for K. However, PreK comes with a lot of rules ie naptime whether the kid wants/needs to nap or not, they are required by law to give that time to kids even if quiet time. He was ADAMANT about going to K. Not that we're parents without a spine but the kid begged us he was ready and honestly, selfishly, we figured that we could always repeat if it didn't go well. So - he went to K. IT WAS AWESOME! He did great, loved it, etc.
Come first grade, we hit a snag with a teacher who long story short, managed a classroom that didn't altogether run smoothly. For a variety of reasons, it made for a hard year. Academically, starting off slow, DS caught on and finished strong at end of year. However, he asked to repeat. As his parents, while the school felt he was on par academically and did not see a need socially/academically to repeat, we could see that it was a hard battle for him to catch up academically and we worried about 2nd grade work for him so we allowed him to repeat. Yes, his friends had to be made anew. He was now the oldest of his class and while the work was not exactly the same, it was similar to what he had done previously. The repeat of first grade went smooth - it wasn't anything bad or special. He received speech therapy in school for free so by repeating first grade, this was year 3 of it. Skip to this 2nd grade year. Academically, DS is reading end of 3rd/beginning of 4th grade and math is TAG at 4th grade doing multiplication and division! Let's just say we are not parents that push or kids so it's not like he's doing all this extra homework that's jumped him academically. I think it's that everything clicked by slowing him down a bit. In our case, repeating has been helpful. However, it's possible that we could have stayed in 3rd grade this year and academically, he would have been on par anyway. I think socially, it's been fine. He may have been fine going into 3rd and maybe even better off since he is a "young" age 8 and quite silly  Maybe he would have gained more maturity as the youngest in his class. I've stopped torturing myself however as we struggled over the years to whether to have him be youngest or oldest of his class.
My point is that 1. kids are more resilient than you know - they can catch up through the school year, it's not a bad thing to have them work for it. 2. you can repeat - at this young age - it really is ok. 3. You'll never know. A lot depends on the personality and even at age 5/6 - what your kid is asking for. Not suggesting they should make all the decisions but we took into consideration how DS felt trusting that at this young age, we wanted him to most importantly LIKE/ENJOY school and learning. He has to be comfortable with where he is all day 5 days a week. It's not easy and you'll never know for sure. You kinda just have to be assured that whatever your decision, it will work out for the best. Good luck! |
Anonymous
Im positive my children didn't have close to 44 site words at the end of K. Reading didn't "click" for them until the middle of first grade. Now they are reading grade levels above. Point being - ability to read or not read when entering K really should't make a difference of whether to send your child on time or not. As others have said, the real question is whether he is socially/emotionally ready. As a child with older siblings, I would guess he is more ready than you might think. |
Anonymous
His academic progress sounds totally normal. My kid went into kindergarten reading. So did three of her classmates. No other kids did. Some of them knew all their letters and the sounds they make, but some didn't. |
Anonymous
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Like PP said above, we also asked purchasing DD whether she preferred to be the oldest or the youngest in the class and she was adamant that being the oldest was best for her because older girls don’t Play with her. This is exactly what I noticed too and it made my decision much easier.
I do agree with another PP as well that because your son has older brothers, he is likely very ready. I am considering sending my DD2 (October birthday) earlier because I know she will be ready |
Anonymous
*our* not *purchasing*!!! Our strange |
Anonymous
| Send that child to K, OP. There is a range of readiness at the beginning of K. I know the DCUM crowd expects exceptionalism of their kids, but really, a child doesn't need to be at the top of the development curve in order to start K. Your child will do better if they are challenged a little bit instead of coasting through K. |
Anonymous
P.S. Anecdotal, but I started my Sept. bday kid on time as one of the youngest. She's done fine over the past 2.5 years. Incidentally, the kid who is the biggest, has the largest vocabulary, etc. is also young with a Sept. bday. |
Anonymous
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I started my August DC on time. DC's in HS now, in a private school which means with a bunch of kids who were redshirted, and is of the opinion we made the right choice. We think we made the right choice.
I bet if we had held our DC back, I would be saying the exact same thing about all us thinking we made the right choice. I think it's the minority of cases where a child or parents think they made a mistake by sending on time/holding back. |
Anonymous
I agree because it usually turns out fine. These August September kids are among their peers no matter when they start K and although one year seems like a big difference between 5 and 6, it won’t make much of a difference between 17 and 18 |