Ask:
My oldest will be old enough to start kindergarten next fall. He is in preschool now and doing well with the numbers and letters stuff, but He has a little trouble with the emotions. We have two neighbor kids who turned 5 in Nov and my ds won't be 5 till July, and he had trouble playing with them towards the end of summer and fall. They made fun of him playing baby games. I want to hold him back a year to give him more time to mature. Has anyone else done this with their children?
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I haven't done it yet, my son is only 3, but I plan to hold him back. DS has an August birthday and I am not going to push him to start too early. Social acceptance is important and so is maturity.
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There was a thread with this topic not too long ago.
I chose to keep my son out of Kindergarten until he was 6 and i am going to do it for my younger son too. For me i felt it was the best decision.
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I held my oldest son back a year. He was smart enough, but to wiggly. It was the best thing I ever did.
My youngest went when he was 5. Every kids is different. I have never heard of anyone regreting holding their child back.
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My dss turned 5 in Aug. and his mom kept him back and he still just barely passes each grade (now a freshman!) It was great for him, but I often wondered if it would have been OK/acceptable to let him do kindergarten twice. My kids were born in Jan. so they will both go at age 5.
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I am holding my son back next year. He will be 5 in June, but school here starts in July (we are year-round) and he is very wiggly, impulsive, immature... just not ready to be in a school setting. He is also very short. I need to call the school district just to make sure there's nothing I need to do... I think it is a good decision for many boys!
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We will be holding our 2nd ds back until he turns six. His birthday is the end of August, so there is no need to rush. Our oldest ds's b-day is in October so we didn't have to worry about making a decision. I think why not give them an extra year to mature. They have so many years of school ahead of them so why rush it? JMO!
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Every child is different and each parent just has to make the choice that works best for them. We had our kids evaluated by the Kindergarten Teacher and we went by her recommendation. She tested our kids the summer before Kindergarten and both times, told us that our boys would do fine in Kindergarten. They both did...but that's just our experience. Does your elementary school do any sort of testing for Kindergarten? That might help you make the decision. In the long run, if you kept him back, would it be a big deal? Probably not! So try not to stress about it too much.
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DH & I both agree that we would rather our children be older and be leaders instead of being younger and being followers! I was concerned because she was almost the oldest and most advanced in her preschool class and asked dh what he thought about asking if she could move up. That's when we talked about the leader follower thing. It has been a good decsion and I am now glad that they have late birthdays and we won;t have to worry about making that descion when the time comes!
We were both August babies and I think I would have done better if I had been held back and not started school until the next year!
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I am going against the grain here. My son's birthday is in July, the 28th, so the school had suggested that we hold him back and I said NO. He is very tall for his age, and didn't want him to be even taller after having to wait a year. He is in 9th grade now, and doing fine, he even has some advanced classes. There were times that I questioned my decision to start him "on time". But in the big picture, I am sooooo glad that I did NOT hold him back!! But every child is different. You have to do what you think is best!!