holding boys back?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools impose lots of uniform requirements on families -- it's just unfortunate that they don't impose a uniform start date with greater curriculum flexibility in K and first grade recognizing that kids don't learn/mature at the same pace at that age. If parents don't like it, they can homeschool or private school to save their little darlings from the realities of the harsh world.

As noted on the other redshirting thread, most states already have compulsory start dates for kids: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/120/48834.page . Those dates are just a year later than most people start their kids in school currently. Based on the compulsory start dates, I suppose you could make a fairly compelling argument that the kids being held back a year are actually the ones that are starting at the "right time," and it's the other kids that are starting school too early.

[Anonymous]

Not sure if these studies/articles have been posted on this very long thread, if so, apparently not for a while.
Here you go:

2006 study
http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/12716.html

2007 article NYT
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9902E2DC1430F930A35755C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

2008 article Slate
http://www.slate.com/id/2196423/

2008 study
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14124

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly, a further erosion of any sort of resilience in our society. It needs to stop.

More like a bunch of whiners trying to further erode individual autonomy. The government is not better able to make education decisions in the best interest of an individual child than his parents are. Some of you are such nanny-staters, it's creepy.

Fortunately, there's nothing you can do about parental authority.

Schools impose lots of uniform requirements on families -- it's just unfortunate that they don't impose a uniform start date with greater curriculum flexibility in K and first grade recognizing that kids don't learn/mature at the same pace at that age. If parents don't like it, they can homeschool or private school to save their little darlings from the realities of the harsh world.

How exactly would that work? "If you don't start K by age 5 then you don't get to start at all? No public school for you! Ever! Even though you're now 6 you can't start in K because your parents held you back. Unless of course you go straight into 1st, for which you are now academically unprepared."

Yeah, good luck with that.

I'd have a mandatory starting age of 5, unless there was a documented medical/psychological/LD reason.

Exactly the way you want women to document a medical (can't endure childbirth)/psychological (too traumatic)/criminal (incest or rape) reason why they should be allowed to have an abortion? Because other individuals aren't allowed to act in their own best interests without your express permission?

Are you really so thick that you don't or can't recognize what a totalitarian you are?

And whoever wrote this is one crazed person - there's nothing in common between abortion vs. school starting dates. Schools set an eligible age for kindergarten - there clearly are some kids who cannot/should not start at that age for medical/psychological reasons and that's fine -- but just holding back on a whim should not be tolerated. And no, PP, "best interests" doesn't include parents (usually moms) who just can't bear to send their children off to K or who want to game the system.

[Anonymous]

Another possibility - and it would be hard to find the money for this unfortunately - is to implement mandatory social and knowledge skills testing (psycho-intellectual testing) for all incoming kindergarteners at 5. Those who can't pass it can start K a year later - everyone else starts on time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Gift of time"...that is rich.

Tee hee. Yes. It sounds like others big bags of B.S. that mothers brag about - I gave my child the "gift of natural childbirth", I gave my child the "gift of bfi'ng". Oh, brother!!!

[Anonymous]

I'm almost afraid to post after reading the above messages. It's clear that many of the prior posters feel very strongly about their positions. I don't consider myself to be a helicopter parent but I do want to make the right decision for my DS. He'll be 5 in mid-August, just before starting kindergarten. I've heard for years that boys with summer birthdays benefit from waiting. Several teachers (preschool and kindergarten) have expressed this to me, as have parents of older children who have been there. More recently, I've been hearing the other side of the argument - children should go when they are age-eligible. On top of it, he seems really ready to go. He knows his letter sounds, recognizes a few sight words and his preschool teachers rave about his classroom behavior. However, my DS is my 2nd child, so I've seen how incredibly competitive the children are in our public elementary school. This competitiveness is not coming from the incredible teachers. They stress that each child is unique and develops on his/her own timetable. When my older daughter struggled to read, I was reassured that I should do nothing but read to her and share my love of reading and she would get it in her own time (they were right!). I was also assured that she was on grade-level and the other children were simply very advanced. The problem is she knew that she wasn't measuring up to the other kids and her self-esteem took a beating. Now, in 1st grade her reading skills are way above grade-level but the low self-esteem has been hard to shake. With so many children being red-shirted and so many children entering school so advanced, I worry that he'll feel he doesn't measure up. I don't want to give him an academic advantage by holding him back but I want a level playing field. I'm taking him to the kindergarten orientation soon and hoping the teachers will be able to help me make a final decision but I feel that I'll have regrets either way.

[Anonymous]

It really sounds like your son is ready. Part of the problem is that we've developed this automatic assumption that young child/summer b-day = hold back/not ready. As you noted, PP, teachers will tell you that kids develop at different rates and there are young children who are more mature/more advanced than kids with earlier b-days.

I'm one of the people who posted on this thread who believes strongly that this flexibility with starting dates is not good. Sending our son on time to kindergarten crystallized a few issues that would have been swept under the rug by another year of preschool and we've been addressing them (DS has managed reasonably well with the routine of K and very well with peer relationships, but has had academic challenges).

In DS' case, retention was offered as a possibility but the school prefers to address the underlying issues rather than retain a child - so they'll be doing some educational testing of him early next year to help pinpoint where the challenges may lie. Simply giving DS another year of preschool would not have addressed any of the underlying academic challenges and a social one (anxiety). It really took sending him to K when he was supposed to go to K (i.e., at 5) to begin to figure out exactly what was going on and how we could best address it. Starting him in K at 6 (which his preschool had recommended) would have made things worse.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

i have gone thru this twice. oldest kid barely made the cutoff and i just tried to hold her back for 8th grade (we moved so no one would have known as far as peers go). She was so much more immature than her peers and it affected her negatively. my next kid turned 6 in Nov. after starting K and has done AWESOME. so, from first hand experience, if you have doubts or a teacher has doubts hold that child back now or you may be forced to do it later and really regret it.

[Anonymous]

back in the 70's the cut off date was 12/1. i was a Nov. baby. I started K at the young age of 4. my entire life i was so far behind socially and emotionally than my friends. this went all the way thru college. i suggest holding a younger child back. it sucks being such an outcast due to your age when it is something you have no control over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:back in the 70's the cut off date was 12/1. i was a Nov. baby. I started K at the young age of 4. my entire life i was so far behind socially and emotionally than my friends. this went all the way thru college. i suggest holding a younger child back. it sucks being such an outcast due to your age when it is something you have no control over.

This equating of young with delayed/immature just isn't so. Our son is one of the youngest kids in his K class (but not the youngest) and he is not behind other kids socially/emotionally. I highly doubt a child is going to be the outcast because s/he's the youngest -- someone's got to be. This notion that it will somehow scar you for life is unhealthy.

[Anonymous]

So, it sounds like it is just in this area? So many successful people I know graduated at 16 or 17 - not 19 or 20!

[Anonymous]

Really? My Dad graduated from HS at 16, went to an Ivy League college, flunked out by junior year, and after a couple of years of being a mess pulled it together around the time he was 22 and graduated. But the poor self esteem and the F's on his transcript affected his choice of profession and may have affected his personality (he is very smart and very tentative). He was adament that we kids should start school on the late side no matter how smart we were.

I'm pretty sure there are other stories like this, which is why skipping grades is no longer common practice.

[Anonymous]

In the 70s it was 12/1. I am 12/24 but went to religious school so they let me start early. I was always at the top of my class, number one in high school, Ivy League college and grad. I was behind socially but I think that it's because I'm naturally shy and because I was raised in an ultra-religious, very protective household.

I'm not behind socially anymore, as far as I can tell.

Either that, or I'm so socially clueless that I haven't noticed.

[Anonymous]

My son is one of the youngest in his class and yet is one of the more socially outgoing, and, according to his teachers, is right where he needs to be academically. In fact, in discussing the age issue with the teachers, they claim that one wouldn't be able to tell who the oldest 1/3 of the class is either by size, social or intellectual maturity. With that, it seems antithetical to me to hold kids back, because they are who they are going to be regardless of the setting. Based on the teacher's input, the phenomenon is nothing more than overt over-protectiveness.

[Anonymous]

Some preschool teachers recommend it;
Some parents want to do it;
The research doesn't show that it does a whole lot for the kids;
Nor does it show that it's the end of the world;
Some parents think that it's unnecessary;
Some subset of these parents think that it's mostly due to overprotective or competitive parenting;
Most kindergarteners don't give a rat's ass;
Most school systems aren't going to stop everyone from holding back.
Very few parents will change their minds based on what they read here.

Don't think I missed anything.
Why do people talk about this constantly? You'll never persuade anyone.