05/22/2013 10:00, you echo my thinking exactly! I am sending my summer birthday boy on time purely based on his social and emotional readiness. His academics will probably be on the low end of normal but hopefully he will be able to keep up. I do worry about things later but I can only decide on how he is now.

If your kid in high school is such a great athlete, the s/he will be playing on a private travel team or state team, which is organized by strict age groups. S/he may or may not be able to also play on the high school team schedule (injury risk), so don't bother red shirting in order to be the superstar athlete on varsity. The superstar athletes are in a different state each weekend with college recruiters at half their games/matches/meets.

Also isn't the MoCo bday cutoff sept 1st? We recall more sept kids of both genders trying to test in with the earlier cohort than summer kids held back.

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A woman in my neighborhood told me that she will definitely hold back her July birthday son who has not even in pre-k yet!!!! So meaning he will turn four this summer! When I asked how come? And why not wait one more year when he is pre k to make the decision, since a lot can change in a year, she said: "I just know he will be too immature to start k on time, plus I want him and his younger sister to be closer in school grades and attend the same school for longer". I was like okaaayyyy!
CRAZY![/quote]

This is the problem.[/quote]

Makes the child care easier in the mornings and after hours!

[quote=Anonymous]A woman in my neighborhood told me that she will definitely hold back her July birthday son who has not even in pre-k yet!!!! So meaning he will turn four this summer! When I asked how come? And why not wait one more year when he is pre k to make the decision, since a lot can change in a year, she said: "I just know he will be too immature to start k on time, plus I want him and his younger sister to be closer in school grades and attend the same school for longer". I was like okaaayyyy!
CRAZY![/quote]

This is the problem.

A woman in my neighborhood told me that she will definitely hold back her July birthday son who has not even in pre-k yet!!!! So meaning he will turn four this summer! When I asked how come? And why not wait one more year when he is pre k to make the decision, since a lot can change in a year, she said: "I just know he will be too immature to start k on time, plus I want him and his younger sister to be closer in school grades and attend the same school for longer". I was like okaaayyyy!
CRAZY!

OP here, PP 05/22/2013 10:00, yours is the most useful, thoughtful and mature response in this whole thread. Thank you!

Subjects we're struggling with as well. But we do have some experience to share.

My daughter -- spring baby, tall for her age, well coordinated and with 3 years of mixed-age Montessori education under her belt -- struggled mightily in K and 1st grade. She was well ahead, but nobody at school cared. She had to re-learn to hold a pen, trace letters, count to 20, etc. Homework was absolutely dreadful and when we tried to raise the issue with the school, the teacher became vindictive. She also learned that being smart does not pay off. Maybe boys have an easier time, as teachers expect them to be ahead after seeing so many of them being redshirted, but being ahead was incredibly counterproductive for my daughter.

Now that I have the same choice with my boy, I actually decided against building so much academics into his preschool, focussing more on social play. I did consider holding him back (late July baby with a speech impediment) -- but looking at the big picture, he will be going to a school together with a whole community of kids he knows and likes. While nowhere as well prepared as his sister was, he is still solidly ready and making further progress. Socially, he is more ready than his 8-year old sister will ever be. And by going this year, we get to keep his enthusiasm fresh.

Yep, he will be the small kid again, which will likely bite in middleschool. But he is also quite athletic, if not tall, and if I remember well, at that age, height is not really an important factor in making friends. Besides, we're a family who looks at sports as an opportunity for recreation and teamwork, not necessarily to create the next great athlete. So in balancing a great time in school vs. a great time in athletics, I will heavily lean on the school side. Given his poise, I doubt sports will ever become a problem for him anyway.

So... look at emotional readiness -- Academics will fall into place. They have two years when school has little expectations in terms of reading, writing and math -- the academics have plenty time to come. Keep in mind that since K is not compulsory, even 1st grade goes extremely slowly.

Let them unwrap some new learning in school! And yeah, I absolutely do worry about older boys being held back.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We, the parents of summer-born girls, wish you would not hold your boys back. Or if you do,please require them to only date girls in their grade.

No worries. Your precious daughters will not date boys their own age before the girls are 21. Guaranteed.

Oh Believe me, we will. Luckily the current thing seems to be older girls going after younger boys.

Well then holding back the boys seems to be the answer!

yup, meant 19

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looked ahead ~ Didn't want a 19 year old man living in our house as a high school senior.

Yeah because there is so much difference between a 10 year old man and an 18 year old man.

10 year olds are boys.

Anonymous wrote:Looked ahead ~ Didn't want a 19 year old man living in our house as a high school senior.

Yeah because there is so much difference between a 10 year old man and an 18 year old man.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We, the parents of summer-born girls, wish you would not hold your boys back. Or if you do,please require them to only date girls in their grade.

No worries. Your precious daughters will not date boys their own age before the girls are 21. Guaranteed.

Oh Believe me, we will. Luckily the current thing seems to be older girls going after younger boys.

Anonymous wrote:We, the parents of summer-born girls, wish you would not hold your boys back. Or if you do,please require them to only date girls in their grade.

No worries. Your precious daughters will not date boys their own age before the girls are 21. Guaranteed.

I wasn't talking about feelings. I was talking about data.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~edhuey/maturity_feb06.pdf

Thank you for this, but I don't find it convincing, primarily because of how much work the authors had to do to get their data to do what they wanted the data to do.

And even if everything they did was ok, the results still wouldn't (as far as I can tell from the paper) say anything about the effects of either red-shirting or of early entrance to kindergarten.

And test scores are not only an imperfect measure of learning in school but also a bad predictor of success in life -- or even success in college.

Obviously we all have to make the decision we feel is right for our own children. There should be no hard feelings either way.